Preventing Thousands From Voting This Year, Voter ID Laws Fight Could Change Election

Democracy, elections, and voting at Democracy Chronicles

The New York Times has a great video and article about the ridiculous nature of the Voter ID laws sweeping the nation.  The danger of these laws is real and frightening. Often compared to Jim Crow laws that kept African Americans from voting for nearly 100 years after slavery, Voter ID is actually bringing back the issue of charging citizens to vote.  In Indiana for example, citizens without ID need to pay to have forms notarized and visit painfully slow moving government offices and fight bureaucracy.  Take a look at this excerpt:

There are so many problems with the way we run elections in this country. Voter impersonation is not one of them. Indiana, one of the first states to pass a strict photo ID law, has never convicted anyone for it. Ditto Pennsylvania, which passed an even stricter law.

It’s an extremely rare crime — 10 cases nationwide over a 12-year period during which hundreds of millions of votes were cast — and for good reason. The penalty is severe — up to five years in prison and a $10,000 fine — and the perpetrator nets only one vote. If you’re going to steal an election, there are far better options. (Hire a 16-year-old to hack into the computer touch-screen voting system — the one without a paper trail — in use in about a third of American states.)

You can find the New York Times article, titled “Voter ID Wars” by going here.