On November 26, U.S. Senator Barack Obama issued a press release on voting rights. It says, “Voting is our most basic right and one of our most important responsibilities as Americans. Any law that creates discriminatory barriers to the exercise of this fundamental right should be immediately revoked.”
The purpose of the press release is to publicize the pending U.S. Supreme Court hearing in Indiana Democratic Party v Rokita, also known as Crawford v Marion County Election Board. The hearing is January 9, 2008. The issue is Indiana’s law requiring voters at the polls to show government photo-ID. Senator Obama and 40 members of the U.S. House are listed as “in support” of the amicus curiae brief filed by Congressman Keith Ellison in that case. The Ellison brief can be read here. That brief is one of 23 amici curiae briefs in opposition to the Indiana law. Thanks to Thomas Jones for this news.
Yes, but is he also against the discriminatory barriers put up by his own party, as well as the Republicans, that keeps my third party candidates off of the ballot?
If anyone is able to ask him a question in person, I hope they will ask him if he agrees that it was wrong for Democrats in 2004 to try to forcibly prevent voters from voting for Ralph Nader. Voters in Hawaii, Ohio, Oregon and Oklahoma in November 2004 had no means to vote for Nader and have the vote tallied, not even via the write-in process.
Out here in California, the law has just been changed
to eliminate a person getting a document notarized
WITHOUT providing proof of identity. This proof can
only be provided from among a short list of government
generated ID cards (Driver license/ State ID card &
others). This measure is to provide police agencies
more tools when they investigate fraudulent trans-
actions. As a compromise, I suggest that a person who
votes go through the same procedure for identification
that they would have to go through to notarize any
sort of document in their state. After all, the State
legislature at some point considered the issue of what
was sufficient for identification for notarization
& it should be sufficient for someone who wants to
vote.
I have to show id to write a check so why not showw id to to vote?the democtats want to make sure all of their votes and more be counted.
Not everyone has a photo ID.