The Brennan Center made news this week with its report, demonstrating that some 500,000 eligible voters will be disenfranchised simply because they have no way to actually get a state-issued photo ID for voting, even if states are arguing the IDs will be provided free to low-income people. Restricted office hours for elections divisions, lack of public and other transportation, and difficulty getting the necessary documentation to secure an ID are all barriers that will prove too much for many would-be voters.
Voting rights advocates in Minnesota made those arguments this week before the state's Supreme Court against a ballot measure that would amend the state's constitution to 'require all voters to present valid photographic identification to vote.'
The measure, which will be decided by voters in November if the state's high court allows it, also requires 'the state to provide free identification to eligible voters.' Yet those IDs wouldn't exactly be free'at minimum, taxpayers would foot the bill, as would voters who would first need to obtain a $26 birth certificate and travel up to 100 miles to a Department of Vehicle Services office to apply for their ID.As AFGE's voter protection coordinator Mark Vinson says in the video above, when people conflate having to have a photo ID to fly, to see an R-rated movie, to buy beer, they're willfully missing the point. Those things are all privileges. Voting is a right. Plenty of people are precluded from flying, going out to the movies, or drinking beer because they can't afford to do those things. They shouldn't be stopped from voting because they can't afford it. Making people pay to vote, in any way, is indeed a poll tax.
For more of this week's news, make the jump below the fold.
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