When Southern legislatures adopted laws mandating literacy tests for voting, they never said, “We are doing this to keep black people from voting.” That was the real purpose of the tests, which were administered in such a way that illiterate whites could pass, but blacks with doctorates failed. What those legislators said was, “We are doing this to insure that only informed voters can vote.” It sounded so much better.
Now the Pennsylvania Republicans are pushing a bill to require picture IDs in order to vote. The bill has already passed the PA House of Representatives and is before the Senate. We know that the bill will affect women (many older housewives do not have picture ID), poor people (many of whom don’t drive), and the elderly (many of whom have given up their licenses). Every student of voting behavior knows that this bill will mean fewer Democrats will vote.
Why hasn’t the Republican Senate acted yet? The leadership is waiting until the last possible moment before the election. That will make it so much harder for the Democrats to mount an effort to get picture IDs for their followers.
Will Republicans admit that this is a voter suppression bill? Of course not. They say it is a bill to prevent fraud, although there has been no evidence of the fraud they are supposedly trying to prevent. Why can’t they just be honest and tell us the truth: “We Republicans will stop at nothing to win elections, even it it means disenfranchising thousands of voters. We don’t care about fairness. We don’t believe in democracy. We only care about winning, and we will do whatever it takes. Screw you and your democracy.”
It is obvious what the republicans are doing. They probably can't be stopped as they hold the cards to win. The word has to go out to all people who don't have a photo ID so they can get one now.
ReplyDeleteI personally feel that if they pass this legislation the people should have at least one year to get the proper state issued ID. This would be at the expense of the state. So much for a balanced budget. If the state were to require a fee, that would be a poll tax in my opinion. I thought we did away with that a long time ago. But the republicans want to take us back at least 100 years, maybe 200 years.
I heard recently that since the General Assembly is completely Republican, there's nothing we can do to stop this, so our job now is to make sure that as many people as possible who do not have drivers licenses and who vote get the IDs. This will require a lot of work on the part of volunteers, but worth the effort.
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