The Republican Threat to Voting

[G_j]

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/27/opinion/27wed1.html?_r=2&hp

Editorial

The Republican Threat to Voting
Published: April 26, 2011

Less than a year before the 2012 presidential voting begins, Republican legislatures and governors across the country are rewriting voting laws to make it much harder for the young, the poor and African-Americans — groups that typically vote Democratic — to cast a ballot.

Spreading fear of a nonexistent flood of voter fraud, they are demanding that citizens be required to show a government-issued identification before they are allowed to vote. Republicans have been pushing these changes for years, but now more than two-thirds of the states have adopted or are considering such laws. The Advancement Project, an advocacy group of civil rights lawyers, correctly describes the push as “the largest legislative effort to scale back voting rights in a century.”

Anyone who has stood on the long lines at a motor vehicle office knows that it isn’t easy to get such documents. For working people, it could mean giving up a day’s wages.

A survey by the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law found that 11 percent of citizens, 21 million people, do not have a current photo ID. That fraction increases to 15 percent of low-income voting-age citizens, 18 percent of young eligible voters and 25 percent of black eligible voters. Those demographic groups tend to vote Democratic, and Republicans are imposing requirements that they know many will be unable to meet.

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[patrice]

1. K&R

[librechik]

2. please, republicans, stop taking our country away from us n/t

[Wounded Bear]

3. Gee, and they're only about 15 years behind the times.

:shrug:

:wtf: were they when the Repubs stole 2000 and 2004?

Late is NOT necessarily better than never. Late becomes too late, and then never.

[sinkingfeeling]

4. If Democrats were ever to regain power in the states, they should pass voting bills that require

proof of hourly income from wages. Look at the number of rich folks who couldn't provide that.

[sinkingfeeling]

5. This is what they really want, isn't it?

[G_j]

6. perfect nt