The Wausau Daily Herald has this compelling feature story about Ruthelle Frank, an 84-year old in Brokaw, Wisconsin, who is a local public official and someone who will not be able to vote due to the state’s new law requiring voters to show a government photo-ID, unless she spends hundreds of dollars. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the link.
I find it difficult to empathize with this person. The article states that she could get a birth certificate but refuses to pay $20 to do so (and if so that it would be misspelled) and that the government requires a court order to correct the misspelling which may cost $200+.
I imagine if Ruthelle Frank truly desired to vote in Wisconsin that she could do so. My impression is that she is choosing not to do so and to forgo obtaining a “new” state ID card because she declines to obtain a (slightly defective) birth certificate.
Welcome to the real world. She may have an old state ID and her identity documents are inadequate to vote according to the government of Wisconsin. Perhaps this new Photo-ID voting law will motivate her to run for a position in the Wisconsin government. I don’t think this one issue will be enough for most voters to cast a vote for her if she were to run for the legislature (or governor).
My reading of the article is that she has to pay twenty dollars to be able to vote at minimum, and at maximum pay over two-hundred dollars and commit weeks of her time and effort.
Neither is a qualification for voting. If she has the right to vote- which, as a citizen over 18, she has- then it is wrong to deny her the vote based on the unwillingness to cough up twenty or any other amount of dollars.
Lots of New Age EVIL folks attacking the *RIGHTS* of other folks.
2012 = Civil WAR II ???????
Will even the old folks on SCOTUS react to the EVIL WI machinations about being able to vote ???
——-
Uniform definition of Elector in ALL of the U.S.A.
P.R. and nonpartisan App.V.
#1, I sympathize with the libertarian impulse behind this voter’s complaint. There is no need for a government photo-ID. Voters sign in at the polling place, and the voter’s signature can be compared to that voter’s signature on file on the voter registration form. Furthermore, she votes at the local polling place and the polling place officials know who she is; she is a town official. The new government photo-ID law is an intrusive government program that wastes the money of ordinary people, like so many government programs.
If she is that stubborn and stoopid then she doesn’t deserve to vote.
Last time I checked, stubborn and “stoopid” are not reasons to disqualify anyone from voting according to the US Constitution. If they were, your franchise would be taken away as well.
The South Carolina Progressive Network has put some serious effort into opposing these shenanigans:
http://www.scpronet.com/policy-work/voting-reform/voter-id-campaign
And the NAACP has submitted a report to the United Nations in protest to these attempts to restrict the franchise:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/dec/05/civil-rights-naacp-voter-warning
…and the report:
http://naacp.3cdn.net/67065c25be9ae43367_mlbrsy48b.pdf
Why is it that Egypt and Iraq and every other third world country can get this right, but we can’t? What is so difficult about a simple ink stamp for the voter’s finger? That’s right – let’s give the establishment the finger!