Voter ID

This is bad.

I want to share an article with you called "Mandatory Voter ID: 'This Cannot Be'". Here's part of what it says:

HR 4844, which passed the House along party lines last week, is, unfortunately, more than just sputter and bluster about the peril of illegal aliens invading our voting booths, i.e., another piece of fantasy legislation to "protect" Americans from one more right-wing bugbear, like smoldering flags and gay wedding cakes.

This bill, which would require would-be voters to show expensive proof-of-citizenship identification before they could cast a ballot in the 2010 election, is straight-on vote suppression -- addressing not the minuscule problem of non-citizens trying to vote, but the far larger one of low-income American citizens trying to vote, and voting their interests, which means, for the most part, voting Democratic.

"If this bill passed the Senate and became law, the electorate would likely become more middle-aged, whiter and richer -- and, its sponsors are anticipating, more Republican," the New York Times editorialized last week with welcome zeal (signaling, let us pray, the Gray Lady's awakened interest in the integrity of U.S. elections).

The bill, as critics have vehemently charged, is a de facto, latter-day poll tax, requiring people to obtain costly documentation to prove their citizenship. A passport, for instance (which only 25 percent of Americans possess), costs $97. The cost of the photo ID could be even more onerous. "This is a mandate on all citizens to actually have to pay to vote," according to Tanya Clay House of People for the American Way. And as such, it is blatantly unconstitutional.

Meanwhile, we're not doing a thing about real voter fraud - but then that favors Republicans so that's okay according to the people in power.

Sickening.