I have no real problem w/ Voter I.D. requirements. In fact, I am somewhat comforted that they were put in place here in Ohio, not because I worried about vote fraud, a minimal threat blown completely out of proportions by politicians, particularly on the Right, but because I didn’t want someone going to the polls claiming to be me, signing next to my name in the book, and then I can’t vote because the poll workers say I already did. But now Missouri is taking this movement too far:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/12/us/politics/12vote.html?th&emc=th
If this becomes the law of the land in the Show Me State, will they also get rid of all the fees associated with getting a copy of the birth certificate from the government? Or will we keep the fees so we can have a de facto poll tax keeping the poor from going to the polls and voting {Democratic}? Even setting that aside, what about people that can’t get a birth certificate? A lot of older persons, especially those born in rural areas, are going to have a hard time drumming up accurate records from, say, 1921. Or people that could get them but don’t bother, figuring its not worth the effort, and end up not voting when they would’ve otherwise. I could go on drumming up scenarios here. And maybe this won’t harm as many legitimate potential voters as suggested, but one disenfranchised voter is one too many. And all to prevent the highly theoretical and improbable possibility of a horde of illegel immigrants swarming Missouri polling places to vote {Democratic}? Most illegel immigrants wouldn’t get caught dead near an official government location because, well, they are hear illegally.
