Conservatives finally cut to the chase and attempt to institute a poll tax:
In 2004, Ohio became infamous for making it difficult to vote and have one’s vote counted. Much of the criticism was directed at then-Secretary of State Ken Blackwell. Remember his directive to reject registration forms on less than 80-pound paper weight?
Now, Ohio House Republicans are attempting to go further than Blackwell ever dared. In an obvious attempt to gain an advantage in the 2012 presidential election, they are attempting to rush through a bill (HB 159) that would make it more difficult for eligible citizens to have their votes counted. Ohio already has a tough voter ID law, but the proposed bill would make the burden on eligible citizens more onerous, requiring that in-person voters present one of four specified forms of government-issued photo identification.
“Disenfranchisement” isn’t a word to be used lightly. But it is necessary to capture this bill’s purpose and impact.
Requiring a photo ID is a poll tax, because if you don’t have a photo ID you have to present a birth certificate to get the required state ID card and obtaining a copy of that birth certificate costs money. That’s a poll tax.
In 2005, the majority-Republican Ohio legislature enacted a bill (Sub HB 3) that imposed stricter ID requirements than federal law. Specifically, it required in-person voters to present either photo ID or nonphoto ID with their name and current address. While there wasn’t much evidence that these requirements were needed, its vote-suppressive impact appears to have been modest. That’s because the vast majority of citizens have one of the permitted forms of ID, and because the law included an exception for the few who don’t. If this new bill passes, it will destabilize the rules yet again – and undoubtedly result in several more years of litigation, just as election officials and poll workers have become familiar with the existing requirements.
I was a poll worker when the original law went into effect, and there was mass confusion. Blackwell made no effort to educate voters or poll workers, in fact, he issued conflicting directives designed to bewilder voters and poll workers.
After the 2006 election, I started to think about these laws differently, and explain them to prospective voters differently. I now view the ever-changing voter ID laws as obstacles carefully placed by conservatives in the path of certain voters in an effort to deny them the franchise, because that’s what they are.
This is battle between certain people who want to vote, and conservatives who hope to deny certain people the right to vote. I think it’s cleaner if we just drop the pretense and approach this as adversarial. If you want to vote and you’re a member of a group these laws disfavor you’re going to have to get around the phalanx of conservative lawmakers who hope to make voting impossible for you. Look at it like that, and you might have a shot at beating them.
Here’s the newest disfavored group of voters:
Ohio’s bill conspicuously leaves out student ID – even from a state university – as an acceptable form of voter identification.
Zifnab
No “Assholes” tag?
beltane
Perhaps the Republicans just want students and poor people to take to the streets in a show of direct democracy rather than bothering with that pesky voting thing.
Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen
Freedumb isn’t free!
The Populist
Students are taxpayers in a way. They pay local taxes, if they work anywhere that get payroll taxes deducted and if they go to school in that state, in a sense they are a part of the community.
Leave them alone GOP.
PaulW
We need universal voter registration. Make it a federal registration, not a state one. Maybe then we’ll see an end to this BS.
The Dangerman
Fuckers aren’t even pretending any longer; let your Klan Flag fly high and proud.
cleek
if a person lives beyond walking distance of their polling station, it costs some amount of money to get there (buy a bike, burn gas, pay for the bus, cab, etc.). is that also a “poll tax” ?
i agree the GOP is seeking to disenfranchise people, but requiring ID is not a tax. it’s a hurdle.
Bizono
More good news for Ohioans (I grew up there and have family stuck there). I’m sure that, somehow, this will create jobs for the unemployed, like candidate and now Governor Kasich promised …Right?
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
I can’t wait for Joe Beese’s comment on how this is Obama’s fault.
beltane
@PaulW: But that would be soc1alism and an unpardonable attack on the proud American tradition of voter suppression.
Alex S.
@The Populist:
They vote blue. And they are intelligent and have a future which makes them perfect targets for resentment.
one two seven
I can’t even get outraged about this stuff anymore. There’s nothing anyone can do to stop it. This legislature and this governor will do whatever they want and no amount of shouting or hand wringing is going to change that.
kay
@cleek:
Click on the link and read the case law. They know it’s a problem, because they make the state photo ID free. But of course it’s not “free”.
You can’t make a payment a requirement of voting in the US. It’s a poll tax.
Do you know how many people in this case have a suspended driver’s license?
geg6
I heard on last night’s local news that our wonderful governor and his pet rocks in the state legislature are mulling a voter ID law for PA. Currently, the only time you have to prove your identity to vote here is the very first time you vote. After that, you only have to provide a signature. Haven’t seen the specifics of the new proposal, but I’m sure that disenfranchisement is the absolute goal.
kay
@geg6:
That’s how the Ohio law started out, as a one-time thing, because that’s the (suggested) rule in the Help America Vote Act (HAVA).
Ohio started there, and then passed a restrictive law, and now has introduced a more restrictive law.
Assume Pennsylvania will do the same thing, if conservatives stay in power.
Davis X. Machina
What little actual voting — not registration — fraud there is, is invariably in the context of absentee voting.
Which never gets policed. I wonder who’s relying heavily on absentee voting?
artem1s
this is targeted principally toward Athens, Miami, and Yellow Springs. 5-10K potential voters in vast wastelands of rural agricultural areas.
Blackwell was the devil when it came to ways to disenfranchise voters. His best trick was to provide LESS voting stations in heavily democratic voting precincts during the 2004 Presidential elections than those precincts normally got for SPECIAL elections. Voters spent upwards of 7-8 hours in line in some polling places.
And the 80 lb. paper ruse was targeted toward a voter sign-up initiative that printed registration forms in all of the major papers in the state. The initiative was SPONSORED by the Board of Elections. There were over 155K provisional ballots cast that year in the state. It’s estimated that about 92K were not counted, mostly from African American dominated precincts.
beltane
@cleek: What is the dollar amount that would move this from a fee to a “hurdle”? The $60 or so that a driver’s license costs is a big hurdle for someone whose unemployment has run out. Hey, in Minnesota the Republicans want to make it illegal for anyone on public assistance to posses more than $20. It is kind of unreasonable to ask people to go hungry for a few days so they can save up enough money to procure the documentation necessary to vote.
There comes a point where large swaths of the population are going to decide the rest of the country can take their “democracy” and stick it where the sun don’t shine.
JMG
People denied the right to vote by their government have every moral right to take up arms for the violent overthrow of that government.
toujoursdan
I’ve never understood the whole “You must register ‘X’ number of days before an election” requirement in many States.
In many countries you just show up the polling place in your electoral district with proof of address (or someone who can legally vouch for you) and vote.
That also seems like an unnecessary hurdle which must disenfranchise many people, but no one gets upset about it.
Davis X. Machina
Maine GOP’s gunning for an end of a decades-long successful experiment in same-day registration.
I’ve worked that table, and it skews young.
Which is why it has to go.
kay
@Davis X. Machina:
Bingo. This new law takes that to an extreme. The disfavored voter groups vote early in person. In Ohio, that’s a variety of bsentee.
The voter ID law only applies to in person early voting. It doesn’t apply to mail-in absentee ballots, which is what conservative voters use.
They’ve gotten really blatant.
Commenting at Balloon Juice since 1937
How come in NY I don’t have to show any ID to vote, ever? (except for local school budget) Voter registration is ‘fill out a post card’. Then they compare your signature when you vote. I don’t think we ever have to prove who we are.
Martin
And the homeless.
We’ve got a few groups here in CA that work with the homeless communities to get them registered and voting. Further, CA is again looking at expanding voting rights beyond citizens. Only citizens can vote in federal elections, but the state can expand that for state and local elections to other residence groups. Giving permanent residents the right to vote in CA elections would have massive consequences.
kay
@beltane:
The assumption that everyone has a driver’s license is a class thing. A lot of people don’t have driver’s licenses, and never will again, because they can’t pay the fees to reinstate once the license is suspended.
The case law on voter ID laws is amazing to read, because federal judges apparently have no idea how actual people live in this country.
There’s all these conclusive statements about how everyone has photo ID. It isn’t true, but that doesn’t stop judges from relying on it.
BFR
@cleek:
That’s my take on this too. Requiring people to not show up naked to vote is a tax in the same respect.
beltane
@Commenting at Balloon Juice since 1937: If you had elected Carl Paladino that would have changed. Remember, as the numbers of old white conservatives dwindle they will have to work ever harder to rig the system in their favor. Without a skewed playing field there are few endeavors in life these people are capable of succeeding in, so their answer is to skew the playing field.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@kay: Yup. They aren’t even trying to fake it anymore. Now, if you are in a group that might not vote for them, they make it just this side of absofuckinglutely impossible for you to vote. Fucktards.
kay
@Commenting at Balloon Juice since 1937:
Voter ID laws are meant to stop one thing: “voter impersonation fraud”.
That would be where I would go into your polling station and pretend to be you, and sign the book.
If that sounds ridiculous, it is, and it never happens.
So why are they making elaborate laws to solve a problem that doesn’t exist?
Pococurante
@cleek: Agreed, it is a hurdle. It is not a poll tax. Let’s leave “Teh Shrill™” to the Firebaggers.
That said, at this point watching the GOP attempting to literally hand over municipal civics to corporations this one rates pretty low on my limited pool of outrage juice. But it still sucks.
Nerull
Someone in the comments at dkos once suggested that a poll tax and literacy tests weren’t really that bad of an idea, because the poor and illiterate are more often republicans, right?
People are morons.
This was, of course, in a discussion about Walker’s proposal to require photo ID to vote in WI, which costs money. And who is far less likely to have photo IDs? Minorities and students. Both of which are concentrated mostly in Madison and Milwaukee, the lonely islands of blue in the giant sea of red that is WI. But this couldn’t possibly be bad for dems, could it?
http://www.politico.com/2010/maps/#/Governor/2010/WI
Hrmm…
Chris
They really should just come right out and say “must present Republican registration card”….
terraformer
Agreed on the outrage fatigue. Not helped by the inevitable:
“Some say that voter fraud is a problem in Ohio, while others say that this move by Republicans disenfranchises voters.”
…and with ne’er any attempt to inform what position is actually truthful.
beltane
@kay: I grew up in NYC and never got a driver’s license until I left at the age of 32. Only a couple of my friends’ parents had cars and it was kind of an “Oooh, they’re rich” thing. The rural area I live in now also has a surprisingly large amount of people who don’t own or drive a car and rely on friends and family to give them rides.
kay
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q):
Remember when Obama took all that shit for saying he wanted judges with “empathy”?
If you look at the voter ID opinions, you see what he meant.
They blithely announce that everyone has photo ID, because everyone they KNOW has photo ID! Ya know, lawyers and judges and such.
Might be time for them to venture outside into the real world once in a while.
Nerull
@cleek: If voting requires someone to purchase this thing which costs money – that is a poll tax. The last poll tax to be stuck down was $2. That’s several times less than a photo-ID, which they want to require, costs here in WI.
kay
@Nerull:
22% of African American men between the ages of 18 and 24 in Wisconsin have a valid driver’s license.
cleek
@beltane:
you can’t get a job (and hence you won’t be getting unemployment) if you can’t complete an I9, which means you already have all the ID required.
(exception if you’re self-employed)
PurpleGirl
@Commenting at Balloon Juice since 1937:
Don’t you realize that NY politicians depend on voter fraud… /snark
I really don’t know the why of NYS procedures but am happy that I don’t have to keep track of separate card for elections.
Poopyman
@Commenting at Balloon Juice since 1937: Here in the Republic of Maryland all a voter needs is her name, address, and date of birth. Asking for more info is a no-no for us poll workers. If a poll-watcher challenges, that’s a different story, of course.
Punchy
I thought a pole tax is what those in Warsaw spend to support their roads and bridges.
PurpleGirl
@beltane: Because of the need for a photo ID, NYS DMV does have a “non-drivers license”. It is relatively inexpensive to get and maintain. My last renewal cost something like $10 for 9 years. (I first got mine when I wanted to pay retail stores with checks and they wanted a photo ID like a Driver’s License.)
comrade scott's agenda of rage
Anybody who thinks this isn’t a poll tax any other name needs to read this:
http://www.occasionalplanet.org/2011/03/16/hidden-costs-of-%E2%80%9Cfree%E2%80%9D-photo-voter-ids/
C’mon people, this is the modern Republican party. They don’t call it “creationism” anymore, it’s “intelligent design”. Do you really think they’d call the spade they want to create a spade?
srv
Is any organization providing a fund for voters to use to pay for a birth certificate copy or state ID fees?
A lot of states have non-driver IDs that are cheaper than a DL. Don’t know about Ohio.
Martin
@kay: Well, it doesn’t ‘never’ happen, but the documented cases each election are in the single digits nationally.
More commonly people register outside of their residential area – but this is almost as common a form of fraud among people running for office as it is for voters.
mk3872
Wouldn’t this get struck down in a court anyway?
cleek
@Nerull:
so, the gas required to get me from my house to the polling place is a poll tax.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
@mk3872:
It did in Missouri in 2006. It isn’t stopping our Repup dominated state house, ie, the reigning National Laboratory for Bad Gubmint champion, from trying to pass a new law getting around the courts.
geg6
@cleek:
You do not need a photo ID to complete an I-9. The proposed PA voter ID law will require a photo ID.
Nerull
@PurpleGirl: Any cost is too much. Mississippi’s poll tax was $2. It was $1 in Louisiana. The point isn’t the the cost is prohibitive, but that there is a cost at all.
kay
@cleek:
I’m nit-picking here because it’s important.
If this is a right, then it’s fundamentally different than a privilege. The state can put all sorts of burdens on privileges, and they do.
Conservatives have succeeded in presenting this as burdening a privilege. That’s why people so easily accept the burdens, because they compare it to cashing a check, or driving a car, or entering a bar. They shouldn’t. Voting is too fundamental to be treated as a privilege. They’ve misrepresented the issue, and changed the question.
Dork
@Punchy: Perhaps it’s what strippers pay the IRS.
low-tech cyclist
Sounds like this law could be challenged under both the 24th Amendment (which banned poll taxes) and the 26th (which said that persons 18 or older could not be denied the vote on account of age).
The failure to treat student IDs from state universities as valid voter ID could not be more clearly aimed at making it difficult for persons of a certain age to vote.
That said, what we really need is a Constitutional amendment clearly defining the right to vote. The Constitution says that right can’t be denied on account of race, color, sex, or age (once you’re over 18, anyway), and can’t be denied through the mechanism of a poll tax. But it otherwise leaves voting requirements in the hands of the states.
I’d suggest the following, cribbing from the wording of the 24th Amendment:
“Every citizen of the United States who is 18 years of age or older has the inalienable right to vote in any election or primary for President or Vice President, for electors for President or Vice President, or for Senator or Representative in Congress. This right shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State for any reason.”
Judas Escargot (aka "your liberal-interventionist pal, who's fun to be with")
@kay:
The assumption that everyone has a driver’s license is a class thing.
Also an age thing. And a rural/urban thing.
I know zilch about the OH lege and its rules/procedures: Is there any way at all for the Dems in Ohio to poison-pill this bill somehow?
Maybe tack on a “manditory drivers test for drivers over 65” clause to it or something, to sink it? I mean, if they want class/age warfare, might as well play the same battlefield.
Dreaming, I know.
Mnemosyne
@cleek:
Here in California, it will cost you $16 to get a copy of your birth certificate (which is required to get an ID or license) and $31 to get the license or ID. You also need a copy of your Social Security Card, but as far as I can tell there’s no charge for that, only the time required to go down to the SSA office and apply for a duplicate.
So right there, that’s $47, which I think might be slightly more than a cross-town bus ride would cost you. Plus you could buy at least two outfits at Old Navy with change left over.
Nerull
@cleek: No one is requiring you to buy gas and drive to polling place. You can walk. You can carpool.
This is about requiring someone to buy something to vote. Photo ID cards – the cheapest accepted under the law being considered in WI – cost $28.
gbbalto
What happens if you are homeless and changing addresses frequently? Do these ID cards require proof of living at a fixed address?
geg6
@cleek:
Don’t mean to pick on you, but you need proof of birth here in PA to get a driver’s license (or a PA photo ID). In order for someone here in Beaver County to get a birth certificate, they have to travel all the way to New Castle, about 25 miles away in another county (no public transportation available) to get the birth certificate as you must request it and pick it up in person. Once they have the birth certificate, they have to get to the one and only driver’s license center in Beaver County (again, no public transportation available to the center, though there is a bus stop on a major highway about 2 miles away from which you presumably could walk along said major highway to get to the center) in order to get the driver’s license (or PA photo ID).
And that’s not even taking into consideration the cost of the birth certificate or license/photo ID.
Easy peasy, isn’t it? /snark
kay
@Martin:
There was one documented case in Ohio. A mother voted as her daughter. One.
I think it’s important to differentiate between voting and registering, so I don’t like to group the two. The reason ACORN handed in registration forms with “Mickey Mouse” filled in as the name is because ACORN can’t decide who is a valid registrant and who isn’t. The poll worker has to make the call, or there would be all sorts of mischief, where ACORN could register people and then just discard the registrations. So, they bundled the collected registrations and turned them in, which is actually in compliance with the law.
Julia Grey
Wouldn’t this get struck down in a court anyway?
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
El Cid
It is not only just but necessary to make the possession of a driver’s license a precondition for being allowed to vote.
Without a driver’s license, it’s possible that people may vote to support interests other those desired by drivers, such as fewer approvals of gigantic road expansions, or greenspace requirements, or support for various forms of mass transit.
It’s best not to take the risk.
kay
@low-tech cyclist:
There will be a challenge, under equal protection, and (I think) it will succeed. We’ve gotten very good at election law in Ohio. We’ve had to. Conservatives try this shit constantly.
The problem is the constantly changing rules cause chaos, in the interim. I think that’s the point of constantly changing the rules. If you don’t know if you can vote, you’re less likely to go vote.
Mnemosyne
@cleek:
So only employed or recently employed people should be allowed to vote?
Hey, if it cuts out the Republican-voting oldsters, I might be willing to go along, but I seriously doubt that would happen.
cleek
@kay:
hmm. i definitely don’t see it that way. to me it seems that their game has always been about making it more “secure” and insuring the “integrity” against “fraud”, etc..
@geg6:
OK. thought we were talking about the Ohio law.
and just FYI, dozens of states already require an ID when voting – some only require it the first time you vote, some require it every time. some of those states require photo ID.
cleek
@Mnemosyne:
yes, that’s exactly what i said.
cleek
@Nerull:
right. that’s why i explicitly qualified, in my first comment (@cleek), that my hypothetical was about people who don’t live within walking distance. and since we’re being pedantic, carpooling still costs money – it just happens to be someone else’s money. call it a gift, a loan, or charity.
PurpleGirl
@Nerull: The non-driver ID is good for any situation in which an ID is needed. As someone else noted in NYS he’s never been asked for ID when voting. Neither have I. But to use a check in a store I had to have ID. Hence I got the non-driver ID.
cleek
@Mnemosyne:
i don’t know how the difference in cost is relevant.
kay
@cleek:
Respectfully, if you’re comparing it to getting a job, they’ve succeeded in changing the nature of the thing from “right” to “privilege”.
It’s not a privilege. It’s not like the ID requirements for a job. It can’t be burdened in the same way a privilege can be.
Do you see why I’m pushing back so hard against you using what I consider a “privilege” analysis? I can’t let them reclassify voting as akin to check cashing. The two things are not the same.
I know they’ve succeeded because people usually tell me they need a photo ID to cash a check, so no harm, no foul. But voting isn’t cashing a check. If we’re comparing it to cashing a check, they’ve won the basic argument, and they can add as many burdens as it takes until they get the result they need.
artem1s
@beltane:
I had to explain to family after Katrina why there were so many people who didn’t leave. They just could not wrap their brain around the idea that someone might not own a car, that there were that many people who routinely lived their lives without the use of a car.
geg6
@cleek:
Yes, as I said in an earlier comment, that is how it currently is in PA. Doesn’t seem near the burden to me (unless, as kay mentions, it’s a slippery slope sort of thing) as requiring photo ID every time you vote. Many low income people move around a lot. Which, under this proposed law would necessitate getting a new ID (with a cost involved every time and, basically, no public transportation to the licensing center) every time you move. And hopefully, you didn’t lose the birth certificate in the move or you have go to the next county to get another copy (and remember, no public transportation to the next county).
Voting, for many people, is difficult. The logistics can be too much for people with little personal time and money. Anything that makes it more expensive and more logistically challenging is, in effect, a poll tax.
cleek
@kay:
the only reason the “getting a job” stuff came up is because beltane mentioned unemployment. my response to his specific scenario was that collecting unemployment means you probably completed an I9, and that means you probably have all the IDs you need (except for a handful of states which already require photo id). just running down one hypothetical.
look, i’m not trying to defend these laws here. i just don’t think it’s a “poll tax”. or, if it is, then so are a lot of other things that we take for granted (getting to the polling place, taking time off work to vote, etc.).
Mnemosyne
@cleek:
Really? It’s not relevant that you’re comparing a $2 bus ride and a $47 photo ID and arguing that they’re equal burdens so there’s no problem with requiring a photo ID?
Kryptik
@PurpleGirl:
I kinda get that, as there are things which will necessarily require proper identification.
But the thing I’m surprised folks even here are overlooking is that Voting is supposed to be a right, not a privilege. I mean, the exercising of a right should not require a cost, especially one as basic as voting. And regardless of how expensive or cheap an actual ID is, even minor expenses just for the sake of exercising voting rights might be too much considering how some people are living check by check who wouldn’t even be able to spare the extra money needed for an ID, even at the simplest cost and requirement.
This is all about disenfranchising those who the GOP knows either can’t afford the run-arounds they want to institute, or they know will get discouraged with a process that has become needlessly complex, as well as keeping alive the spectre of ‘DEMS ARE DEFRAUDING YOUR VOTES! THEY THINK THEY COUNT MORE THAN YOU DO!’ bullshit.
BFR
@kay:
I’m in agreement with Cleek on this – which isn’t to say this is a good thing, just that it’s not a poll tax. Poll taxes were targeted at specific constituents in a way that this just isn’t.
Conceptually, it’s no more of a poll tax than locating urban polling places in an areas not serviced by transit.
The one portion of this that seems the most objectionable on “poll tax” grounds isn’t that they are requiring ID, it’s that they’re going to ignore student IDs issued by state institutions – it’s hard to argue that this doesn’t target a specific constituent group.
Roger Moore
@kay:
They’re making an elaborate law to solve a problem that does exist (too many of the wrong kind of people voting) and lying about its true purpose. Standard practice for Republicans. But I guess you knew that already and are asking a rhetorical question.
debbie
An impressive article from Moritz, considering how un-liberal they usually are.
One thing would stop this in its tracks: Simply asking the bill’s writers to provide documented evidence of anyone having voted twice. I remember reading some huge study (it may have been after the 2004 election) which investigated the thousands of accusations and found four incidents in total, which got nowhere because the poll workers caught them.
I listened to an interview of the bill’s originator this morning, and he said he was just waiting for all the groups like the ACLU (even on my radio, you could feel him itching to say the word “thug”). I hope he’s right.
kay
@cleek:
Too, cleek, you favor slippery slope arguments, but in this one you’re going in the wrong direction. A required payment for access to a voting booth is a poll tax.
You can’t slippery slope it the other way, and disprove a concrete payment by pointing to gas to get to the polling station.
We actually had poll taxes, and no one is trying to expand the definition. No poll taxes. That’s the rule. We don’t want to redefine poll taxes to include all manner of things, and therefore exclude a concrete payment by inclusion in a group of you’ve decided to rename “pol taxes”.
In your definition, the poll taxes we outlawed would be lawful, because everything’s a poll tax. Wrong way.
kay
@debbie:
The single evidence they submitted consisted of a Rasmussen poll.
They also had Skype testimony from Indiana, where (as you know) the GOP elections official is under indictment for registration fraud.
I can’t make this shit up. They took testimony from the office of the election official who was just indicted for fraud.
They don’t have anything.
cleek
@Mnemosyne:
do they not both fall into the category of “anything that makes it more expensive and more logistically challenging” ?
i’m pretty sure i never said that.
(odd how i always end up saying that to you, ain’t it?)
Xenos
Wow. When I last lived in Massachusetts the local polling place was in a location that only had paid parking available. On election days they put the red hoods on the parking meters to show that they were out of commission. Otherwise the $0.25 that you would have to pay to get a parking spot could be an illegal poll tax.
rikryah
this is who they are. this is who they’ve always been. absolutely no shock whatsoever.
Mnemosyne
@cleek:
I don’t think anyone is arguing against having voters present some form of ID. I think the objection is that these states are switching to requiring a very specific form of photo ID that you can’t get unless you pay for it. I don’t see why someone presenting a utility bill that has the same name on it as the one in the voter book should be turned away because that bill wasn’t issued by the state’s DMV.
So the Indiana law, for example, would not count as a poll tax in my book because you can get a free voter ID with your picture on it if you don’t have another form. That seems fair enough.
debbie
@ Kay:
The real problem with the Ohio law was the way the educational literature for the workers was written. It was something like “The following are acceptable forms of identification” and then there was a series of bullet points, like this:
xxx,
xxx,
xxx,
xxx, and
xxx
It was the “and” that threw everyone. Some people took that to mean that you need those two items in combination. I don’t know if it was intentional, but it sure was sloppy writing.
Kryptik
@kay:
It’s truly amazing how this, like almost every goddamn issue in this country, has been gamed and flipped around to lay the burden on Dems, liberals, essentially everyone except the GOP, when they’re the most guilty of it. The only ‘fraud’ the media or anyone else seems to talk about is registration fraud and impersonation, when we have several noted, and some even indicted and convicted cases of people falsely throwing people off the rolls, or unlawfully destroying registrations precisely because of party identification.
But no, instead the spectre of ACORN still lingers because apparently the hippies are all wanting to subvert the system the godly Megamerican GOP wants to protect.
Amanda in the South Bay
@cleek:
What if your ID expires while your are on unemployment?
kay
@BFR:
No. That’s a logistics problem for the voter. The voter can vote without paying, any number of ways, without paying.
Again. This voter without a birth certificate cannot cast a valid ballot without paying a fee. That’s why it’s a poll tax.
They knew it, too, in Georgia and Indiana. That’s why they had to make the ID available “free”. The problem is it’s NOT free.
I actually don’t think this law will survive a challenge, and the Moritz election law expert doesn’t either. You cannot make voting contingent on paying 1 dollar, or 15 dollars, or 60 dollars.
Tokyokie
From what I’ve read here, a U.S. passport, the most reliable, most difficult to forge form of ID, would be insufficient to vote in Ohio. And for the last several years, my wife (a naturalized citizen) and I have been toting our passports with us to the polling station.
Bubblegum Tate
@Kryptik:
It’s this and nothing more. I can’t help but wonder what, exactly, happened to conservatives to make them such despicable people.
john b
completely disagree here. this is aimed at young people and poor people. period.
Mnemosyne
@cleek:
You must make a much better salary than I do if you think that paying $2 and paying $47 is an equal burden.
Then what did you say? I think most people would consider bus fare to be a reasonable burden, especially if there’s no additional fee to get into the polling place. I think those same people would consider shelling out $47 in order to get the ID you need in order to vote to be an unreasonable burden.
ETA: For me, the difference between “reasonable” and “unreasonable” is, have you given people more than one option?
kay
@Kryptik:
I’m a fucking broken record, but I blame media. They will not or cannot think through the actual process. The ACORN thing never should have been an issue. Registration is different than voting, and ACORN cannot throw out registrations they determine to be invalid. They know “Donald Duck” isn’t valid. But they can’t start using discretion, or they could throw anyone’s registration out.
It’s not that hard. They just have to go through it, logically, step by step.
We all vote, but no one thinks it through.
Sue
Voter ID is the next item on the agenda in WI. It’s been pushed heavily by my elected representative and most people in my area have bought into the ‘this is necessary to prevent the rampant voter fraud in WI’ mentality.
Yes, there is so much fraud that we now have a Republican governor and legislature. Those black people in Milwaukee and those students sure did a number on us.
Ruckus
Even when you have ID there can be hurdles. I have a non residential address so the county I live in will not assign me to a polling place. In effect they can not. In this state though I can get a permanent absentee ballot but it is a pain in the ass without a “normal” residence. I had to insist (somewhat forcefully) that the clerk use the address I gave him (which is on my DL). Works fine but it took almost a year, 2 applications, phone calls, showing up in person at the registrars office, knowing the law, and being as I said respectfully forceful.
If I thought that my vote was fairly meaningless or that I was going to get screwed anyway or if I couldn’t take the time off, that would have been a lot of work. As I don’t see the world that way it was worth it.
kay
@BFR:
I’ll ask it the other way.
Is there any possible way I can get a copy of my birth certificate without paying for it?
I don’t have it. I need to get it to vote. Anyway I can do that? I can’t vote without it.
No? Then it’s a poll tax.
That’s why it’s different than bus service. I can get to the polling place free. It might be difficult, but I can. I can’t vote without paying for the predicate to the ID.
Felanius Kootea (formerly Salt and freshly ground black people)
@cleek: So what do you think about the fact that this disallows student IDs from state universities in Ohio? Is it possible that there are students of voting age who do not have a drivers license (note: I attended college in NYC from the age of 17 – 20 and it never occurred to me to get a drivers license because I walked or used the subway)? Might this impact their ability to vote?
cleek
@kay:
yup: just like gas or bus fare.
and they were actually taxes collected at the polls, or were specifically targeted at the act of voting. a photo ID is neither of those things, nor is gas. i just got a new passport last week (picture is horribly off color! grr!) – did i pay a poll tax (hypo: let’s assume NC has photo ID req’s), or did i get a document that will allow me to identify myself anywhere in the world for almost any purpose ?
kay
@cleek:
Can I get to the polling place without paying?
Yes.
Can I get the required documents without paying?
No.
One’s a poll tax. Which one?
cleek
@Amanda in the South Bay:
beats me. time to get it renewed!
@Mnemosyne:
once again: i never said that.
please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, stop putting words in my mouth.
cleek
@kay:
Can everybody ?
No.
consider yourself privileged to live so close.
cleek
@Felanius Kootea (formerly Salt and freshly ground black people):
i think it sucks.
still doesn’t make it a poll tax, though.
debbie
@ artemIs:
I remember those “disappearing” voting machines. As I recall, all but one machine “disappeared” from the precinct that included Ohio State University. Those kids had to wait hours to vote. Weren’t those “disappearances” all last minute?
kay
@cleek:
Look, you bought the basic argument. You’re analyzing this as a privilege. You can do that, but then they’ve won the argument. You’re framing this the same way conservatives do. I won’t do that. I don’t accept the question. It’s the crux of the argument between liberals and conservatives on voting, and it’s been going on a long time.
Courts won’t use your analysis, cleek. Yet.
Ruckus
@Bubblegum Tate:
I can’t help but wonder what, exactly, happened to conservatives to make them such despicable people.
Nothing.
Nothing changed.
geg6
@cleek:
But you can vote without driving or taking a bus. You can walk, you can get a ride with someone else. But you can’t get ID (with a cost burden here in PA; perhaps other states differ) without a birth certificate (again, you must pay for it).
The logistics of voting for the poor and working poor are already almost insurmountable. Now requiring them to pay $50 or so to get the docs in order to vote is not a problem in your mind? How is this not a de facto poll tax?
kay
@cleek:
Courts don’t agree with you.
“a state violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution whenever it makes the affluence of the voter or payment of any fee an electoral standard. Voter qualifications have no relation to wealth.”
Payment of ANY fee. There’s a lot of case law. For example, conservatives in Ohio tried to make voting contingent on the voter getting a new driver’s license when their address changed.
Since the voter would have had to pay for a new license prior to expiration, that’s an additional fee, so it was a poll tax. No go. Failed.
Poopyman
@kay: I just did an experiment and used WhitePages.com to look up anyone with the last name of “Duck” in one state. There were at least five pages’ worth. And yes, there was one “Donald Duck”.
So no, they couldn’t throw them out even if they thought the name was made up. All the more reason the attack was total bullshit.
Mnemosyne
@cleek:
And yet I’m not the only one here who thinks that you’re arguing that a $50 fee and a $2 bus fare are the same burden, so if someone has to take the bus to their polling place, that’s exactly the same as making them pay to get a driver’s license to present as ID once they get to the polling place.
Perhaps you should make your argument clearer.
RobNYNY1957
I’m not sure what the logic is for showing a birth certificate. Even if it shows you were born in Ohio, it doesn’t mean that you live in Ohio or in the town where you were born. And if it shows you were born in another state, I’m not sure what good it is at all.
kay
@Poopyman:
Well, you could see what would happen, right?
Both sides could register voters and then sort of cull the registrations for sketchy voters.
The voter would then assume he or she was registered, go to the polls, find out some 9 dollar an hour canvasser had determined the registration was invalid, and be out of luck.
It would be ripe for abuse. So ACORN has to turn in the whole stack, and let the election official disqualify, which is what they did.
Felanius Kootea (formerly Salt and freshly ground black people)
@kay: This illustrates why the conservative framing works. It seems like common sense to most people who cannot imagine what it’s like to be poor, without a license or birth certificate and more inclined to stay put or work a job on election day than go out to vote. It seems reasonable until people like you come along and expose it for what it is. And to the groups being disenfranchised, in many cases it’s simply another reason not to bother voting – the rules may seem reasonable to most but the burden is too high for some.
cleek
kay, geg, Mnemosyne, et al :
we’re just going in circles. i think we’re just going to have to disagree on this one.
cheers.
Poopyman
@kay: Exactly! And how many times did we hear that explanation?
Kryptik
@RobNYNY1957:
It shows that you’re not a MusliKenyan Usurper Bent On Godless Marxism.
Ruckus
@kay:
Your class in presentation was well worth the time and money.
You have made a perfect argument. It is about the right to vote, not some privilege. If I’m not mistaken, a criminal loses the right to vote, not the privilege.
Just for the record
24th amendment section one.
The right of citizens of the United States to vote in any primary or other election for President or Vice President, for electors for President or Vice President, or for Senator or Representative in Congress, shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State by reason of failure to pay poll tax or other tax.
Poll or OTHER tax.
IANAL but that sounds pretty clear to me.
kay
@Poopyman:
That’s why I got upset at media. They know this. They vote. All they had to do was think it through, independent of the press release they got from conservatives.
“Does what they’re saying make any fucking sense?”
That’s all they had to do. None of them did it.
“Donald Duck is voting!” I mean, Jesus. Little common sense here, please.
kay
@Ruckus:
That’s another tell that illustrates the huge liberal/conservative divide on voting.
What possible justification can there be for denying a former felon the right to vote? He or she has done their time. We don’t deny them other rights based on being a felon, but we (happily) deny privileges.
The only possible justification is if you don’t think it’s a right, but is instead a privilege.
Conservatives don’t think it’s a right. They can’t. If they did, they couldn’t deny felons who are done with the punishment phase the vote.
Mnemosyne
@cleek:
I think our argument is that having a state-issued driver’s license that you have to pay a fee to get be the only allowable form of identification at the polls is a de facto poll tax, because it requires an extra burden of both time and money that, say, bringing your electric bill with you does not.
john b
@debbie:
my first experience with voting was in the 2000 election at NC State University (i know. i’m young). but the BOE in NC mysteriously lost lots of new voter registrations from (you guessed it!) the district that covers nearly exclusively the university. so if you wanted to vote, you had to wait in an hours-long line to get a provisional ballot. and, being a student who had a test that day, I didn’t vote. This was actually something that made me become much more active in politics.
there are instances like this all the time in college areas. smaller cities with large college populations are even worse. williamsburg, va had a particularly egregious law meant to disenfranchise college students there that was overturned.
go to any college campus during election season and you’ll see lots of people (usually republican, but sometimes just entrenched local politicians) who give students bogus information about only being able to register in the place where their parents live (ie where they don’t live for 9 months of the year or more and where they likely won’t be in november weeks before finals).
ETA: and often times college administrations feed into the misinformation, either because they just don’t know any better, or their interests lie more with conservative politicians who don’t want the voice of the young to be herad in the city where they go to school.
Kryptik
@kay:
But felons might vote for Dems since everyone knows they’re soft on crime! Conflict of interest!!
But yeah, I never understood the hard-on for stripping voting rights for former felons like that. Especially after seeing Florida scratch the law for that, only for Rick Scott to gleefully reinstate said law again.
Mnemosyne
@RobNYNY1957:
In most states now, you have to prove you’re a citizen or legal resident by showing your documentation at the DMV in order to get a driver’s license or ID card. So the argument is that, in order to vote, people will first need to get their birth certificate and Social Security card and take them down to the DMV in person so they can pay the fee to get the ID that will allow them to vote. As opposed to, say, bringing your electric bill with your name on it to the polls to show that you live in the precinct.
kay
@Kryptik:
I read some idiot on Sullivan on it and it was just incoherent. They speak a different language.
“Because they have shown disrespect for the law, they should not have a say in making law, ever”.
So much for “restore rights” post-punishment. It’s some weird Victorian notion that they pulled out of their ass. It’s about…respect…or..something.
That will all change when one them gets convicted of one of the 5 zillion felonies, of course.
PeakVT
Tribe and hierarchy is what they’re about, and to hell with ideas like “democracy”. Bastards.
Kryptik
@kay:
…and…the irony of the statement makes the fact that Rick Scott is the one stripping folks of voter rights all the more blithely ironic.
kay
@Kryptik:
I forgot that. He’s himself a criminal.
There were so many disappointments in 2010, but that was one of the biggest. I love state races, so I follow them. They’re always more bizarre and interesting.
I thought his opponent was really strong. I was impressed with her. I thought she’d win, right up until she…didn’t.
Hungry Joe
“Then there was the educated Texan from Texas who looked like someone in Technicolor and felt, patriotically, that people of means — decent folk — should be given more votes than drifters, whores, criminals, degenerates, atheists and indecent folk — people without means.”
— Joseph Heller, “Catch-22”
Davis X. Machina
@mk3872: No. Indiana’s very restrictive registration law was upheld last year.
Wolfdaughter
@comrade scott’s agenda of rage:
Hey, I resent that! I live in Arizona and I think OUR Lege deserves the Bad Gubmint Champion award!
Ruckus
I just love that people have so twisted one of the main concepts of this country. One that is so predominantly displayed on the statue that also represents this ideal.
The New Colossus by Emma Lazarus
The concept that a right for everyone is, well not so much if we accept current events. But it states in our basic laws (well now it does) that we all have the same rights, that they can not be removed. Yet people keep trying, day in and day out to do just that. Some do it right in your face, like conservatives. Some do it with out realizing it by imposing sanctions on our rights because they don’t think through the ramifications from all points.
It pains and tires me that we have to continuously fight this battle among ourselves.
kay
@Davis X. Machina:
This is more restrictive still, and the SCOTUS opinion on Indiana was narrow. Still wrong, but thankfully narrow.
I don’t know if this will survive. An election lawyer I know says “no”. He says it will be hung up in court(s)past 2012, on an equal protection claim.
BerkeleyMom
CA state photo IDs cost money (more than $30 if I remember from my son) and it took over 60 days to arrive in the mail after a two-hour trip to the DMV. That’s a pretty high hurdle to overcome.
DS
I’m sorry, but showing some form of ID is the standard in every other western democracy so I just don’t see how this is some form of “poll tax”. Also, the United States is the only western country where you physically have to register to vote. Perhaps the solution would be some form of national ID card? This way everyone would have right to vote without actually having to register to exercise your democratic rights.
Davis X. Machina
North Dakota doesn’t actually have voter registration.
They seem to be proud of it. There’s an affadavit, and a 30-day residency requirement. That’s it.
TooManyJens
@cleek:
If there were a law that specifically required voters to drive or take a (not-free) bus to vote, that would be a poll tax too.
People who walk or get a ride to the polls aren’t barred from exercising their rights as citizens. People who don’t or can’t pay for documents are.
weaselswords
Kay,
thanks for this post. And for really pushing back in the comments. My first reaction reading the post was similar to some of the other commenters, “yeah, it sucks and I don’t like it, but it’s not a “poll tax”. Let’s stay reasonable, &c..”.
But you’re right, it is a tax, and we need to keep fighting the frame that says it’s not.
Xenos
@DS:
Every other western democracy has some form of official, national identification card. We don’t have that in the US, because conservatives consider it to be some sort of indice (what is the singular of indicia?) of tyranny. So we have a hodge-podge of official and semi-official documents, and deliberately mistrained officials and volunteers enforcing them.
RobNYNY1957
In Latin, “indicium.” In English, “indicator” is probably the closest.