Posted by Brian

Courtesy of the Christian Science Monitor

The state of Wisconsin has had its courts in quite a craze.  March 7 is when this story begins.  A judge in Dane County viewed the new voter ID law as invalid and halted it.  Yesterday, the law was stopped again by Judge Richard Niess.  Having done a bit of a research, the question comes down to this: do voter IDs work?

The answer is no.  What is voter fraud?  It is where people pose as others who are ineligible, to vote under their guise.  This underpins democracy, no argument there.  However, the problem is preventing people to vote is just underpinning.  How does the Wisconsin Voter ID block votes? It’s simple, really.

American politics has never been able to boast about its election turnout rates: they’re dismal.  But what Voter IDs do is further disenfranchise voters.  Imagine a young person who has just turned 18 and is eligible to vote.  Wisconsin offers a great number of things to help people get registered and vote, such as same-day registration.  The saying goes “you cannot teach an old dog new tricks.” Likewise, getting someone to the polls and voting at an early age keeps them mobilized as the years go on.  If a person has to jump through a series of hoops and potentially give up their driver’s license from their home state, then why should they bother to vote?  To most people, the series of hoops is designed to keep non-dedicated people from voting.  Unfortunately, this means really partisan voters will mobilize while the independent voter count will drop.  And it affects more than students, just ask the Supreme Court down in Texas, which ruled that Voter IDs blocked Hispanics from voting.

In addition, is voter fraud really a problem?  The Brennan Center found that the rate was 0.00004%.  Now, if this is 0.00004% too much, there’s the flip side.  How many voters are lost because voters are disenfranchised about voting or are unable to because they lack the proper identification is more than .00004%.  I forgot to mention, the identification would not be simple a photograph as Cullen Werwie, spokesman for Scott Walker, put it.  Rather, it requires a signature and expiration date.  So, the ID must be renewed every couple of years.  How bad are voter IDs to democracy? On average, about 3%.

Tags: Court, Scott, Scott Walker, Texas, Voter, voter fraud, voter ID, Walker, Wisconsin

Posted in Brian Domestic Policy Politics
No Comments Yet Posted by Brian