The ID Divide

Typical half truth from the liberal press. Those nuns were offered assistance in obtaining state ID cards and they declined.

And your proof of your claim is where?

It's not like it's hard to get an ID.

The people who make the argument that ID is onerous are just fans of voter fraud.

Heard it twice. On NPR and from Neil Bortz.

To get an ID you need:

a) A birth certificate b) Your SSI Card c) A current bill with your name and address on it.

Seriously, how many nuns have part c?

Not being a nun, I wouldn't know. How do kids get their first drivers licenses? Few to none of them have bills.

I'm sure if you drill down ionto the ID law you'll find an exception whereby someone who doesn't have any bills in their name but does have a valid birth certificate and Social Security card can get someone to vouch for the identity of the person needing a state ID.

My observation is that the people who are most vocal about voter fraud,

1) can identify few or no actual convictions for this felony, so have little concrete evidence that it exists to any significant degree, and 2) don't care if actual citizens are prevented from voting (if said citizens are in a group that might not vote the right way).

Logically, blocking a citizen from voting is even more abhorrent than failing to stop a fraudulent vote.

But try as I can, I can't find a way to work telephones into the argument.

Dave

***** Moderator's Note *****

I recall the story of a Chicago Alderman who asked that he be buried in his old neighborhood so that he could stay active in local politics.

BTW, voting by telephone _has_ been seriously proposed.

Bill Horne Temporary Moderator

(Please put [Telecom] at the end of the subject line of your post, or I may never see it. Thanks!)

I argue for making it as EASY as possible for *ELIGIBLE* people to vote and as DIFFICULT as possible for *NON-ELIGIBLE* people to do so. Thus, I *STRONGLY favor requiring voters to show a government-issued photo ID to vote.

'Non-eligible' includes, but it not limited to, those whom are:

-not USA citizens,

-not a resident in the district for the required amount of time (10 days in Wisconsin - in that case you vote at your previous address),

-underage,

-convicted felons (unless restored to civil rights and unless the felony is non-payment of taxes - see Amendment 24, US Constitution), and

-those whom have already voted in the election.

And, to comply with the 24th Amendment, I also *STRONGLY* favor issuing the required base ID document free of charge. Other things added to it, such as proof of driving privileges, can be charged for.

Showing photo ID is a necessary fact of life for doing a LOT of things, like entering a bar, cashing a check, borrowing a book from a library, traveling by air, entering many federal government buildings, etc, why not require it to maintain the integrity of that most precious act of citizenship of all?

BTW, people have been prosecuted in Milwaukee, WI for voter fraud in the 2004 election.

In the case of kids, mom or dad is usually required to verify the information.

As I understand it, it has always been a principle of American society that, unlike Europe, we will not force citizens to carry any kind of national ID card. Our country believes in the individual's privacy; we don't like the scenes of the rest of the world of, "Your papers? These papers are out of order, you will have to come with us!". We don't want that happening here.

But it seems that various public and private organizations are pushing for just that under various excuses.

It used to be businesses sought ID to protect their getting payment. If a customer was willing to pay in advance, and many were, the business did not require any ID, it was happy with cold cash. (I remember when I first established telephone service: Bell gave me a choice--either I could send them an advance deposit or go through a cumbersome ritual. I sent them a deposit which they refunded, with interest, later on. Everyone was happy.)

What bothers me is that some of the excuses for requiring official ID are flat out lies. For example, we're told ID is necessary to prevent "terrorism". But it turns out (as we learned from the Gov. Spitzer case), that terrorism had nothing to do with it, they were tracking money laundering and ordinary crimes.

I'm not sure how the founding fathers, who purposely included a clause about being secure in one's home from unspecified government searches and fishing expedititions, would feel about that.

Today one can buy an anonymous cell phone. I wonder if some elements in both the private and public sectors are frustrated by their existence since it thwarts their monitoring efforts. It wouldn't surprise me to see such phones banned or perhaps IDs required and recorded of people purchasing them.

The private sector likes ID for its own purposes as well. Today, unbeknownst to us, private companies share information about us with each other. So if you apply for a job they'll check your credit report and other databases. (That you being unemployed might have contributed to bad credit does not seem to be considered). Car insurance checks credit.

I think this is wrong. If I apply for a credit card, I could understand them wanting to see how I pay my bills to other creditors. But the rest of my life is none of their business. Likewise with a job, they have a need to contact prior employers and schools to check my qualifications, but nothing else.

What really bothers me are checks conducted without my knowledge, to databases I don't even know exist. That's wrong.