On October 27, the US Court of Appeals, 11th circuit, refused to re-instate the Georgia State Photo ID requirement for voters at the polls. Last week a US District Court had forbidden the state to implement the ID law.
Two of the three 11th circuit judges who heard the case are appointees of President George H. W. Bush Sr. The third judge is a President Clinton appointee. The vote was 3-0.
In Puerto Rico, voters have been required to show an election ID since the 1980 election. However, contrary to the Georgia Law, this id is provided free of charge to all voters, so it can’t be considered to be a “poll tax” on voters. Maybe if the Georgia law had established that a voting id would be provided free of charge to all voters, the law could have been validated.
Still, the most evil aspect of the whole thing is, was, and will be the whole premise and concept of “government ID.”
Granted, the voters of Georgia have been electing, or apparently electing, some of the worst examples of genus politicus, but would some kind of ID-based filtering system bring about better results?
Nah. Not in Georgia.
Not much of anywhere.
Besides, as computer engineers have been finding for years, every time someone perfects and makes fool-proof any system, it’s not more than a short time before some hacker or equivalent finds a way around it.
Perhaps the best solution to all this is to have public meetings and an open vote: “All in favor of candidate A, please raise your hands.” count, count, count
“Now, all in favor of …”
There are indications a secret ballot creates many of the problems with politics and government.
In fact, all the indications are that government itself is the problem.
As someone that lives in Georgia I am just glad that this law was at least rejected for this year’s election. Hopefully the court will strike it down for good next year.