soapbox

placeholder for a draft of an editorial on why republicans should oppose voter ID

still just a placeholder; this is a first draft not a finished product.

placeholder for a draft of an editorial on why republicans should oppose voter ID.

1     After WWII, the Republican party under Eisenhower proposed what is now the 24th Amendment, so that troops returning to the South could vote with less interference from racist Democrats. The amendment prohibits charging a fee for voting.

Wisconsin's supreme court recently upheld voter ID, but required that the state stop charging for documents like a birth certificate, in order to avoid being an unconstitutional tax on voting.

Other states that still charge for such documents, such as Indiana, are acting unconstitutionally, if the Wisconsin court was right.



2     Voter ID has costs millions, funds that could have gone into detecting and prosecuting voter fraud with traditional law enforcement techniques, such as rewards, informants, search warrants, and more staff. So far voter ID has not detected any cases of voter fraud resulting in prosecution.

3     The millions spent on voter ID sends a message to voters that the Republican party is a wasteful tax and spend party, just like the Democrats.

4     When the GOP supports useless red tape in elections, it loses its credibility to fight other red tape.
5     When voter ID first surfaced in 2004, the Missouri Supreme Court found, correctly, that it interfered with the right to free and open elections under the state constitution. When GOP politicians fail to do their duty to uphold the constitution, they lose credibility with voters.

6     When the GOP tries to game to system to deter Democrats from voting, this is widely understood as corruption. At one time, the Republican party stood for good government, in opposition to corrupt Democratic machines. Voter ID tarnishes this legacy.

7     Voter ID is one small step to requiring citizens to carry papers at all times, as if this were South Africa or East Germany. The GOP should oppose rather than support such creeping authoritarianism.

8.     In Kansas, ID's are being scanned by computer. The computer then decides who gets to vote and who doesn't. This has the potential to be abused. Voter ID isn't about the picture on the front, it''s about the magnetic strip on the back. This hasn't come to your state yet, but it will if we don't fight.

9    Voter ID has more impact on blacks, who are less likely to have driver's licenses or passports. This lets Democrats paint the GOP as racist. This perception loses votes among moderates.

10.     The excuse used for voter ID is to prevent fraud, but voter ID results in far more voter fraud than it prevents. When a person votes twice, that is voter fraud, but when a person's one vote isn't counted, that is also voter fraud. In the old days, corrupt politicians could arrange to steal ballot boxes from certain precincts. Using voter ID as an excuse, 1000s of legitimate votes have gone uncounted.
So voter ID cannot be justified as an anti-fraud measure - it just doesn't work for that purpose.

To summarize, voter ID is unconstitutional, takes money away from real anti-fraud measures, undercuts the party's former reputation as fiscally responsible, is unneeded red tape and beaurocracy,
interferes with free elections, is corruption, is creeping authoritarianism, lets computers interfere with voting, leaves a false impression that the GOP is racist, driving away moderate independents, and creates more fraud than it prevents.