Voter ID

Several days ago, my twin sister and I spent a three hour layover at the Philadelphia airport. This got me thinking about the 33 Republican states that are in the process of passing Voter ID Laws, which require all citizens to carry a government issued photo ID to the poll. According to Attorney General Eric Holder, only 8% of white voters lack photo ID compared to 25% of black voters. As of today, http://www.gallup.com/poll/politics.aspx states that 87% of blacks will vote for Obama while only 37% of whites will support the President. Do the math.

Policies like this make me angry- the nominal incentive is to decrease voter fraud, yet in some states only ten legitimate cases of fraud have been reported in the last decade. DECADE I repeat. A Republican governor- I forget which state he leads- had a fit of candidness and openly admitted that these laws (if upheld by the Supreme Court) will deliver Pennsylvania to Romney in the general election.

A 2008 ruling by the Supreme Court ordained Voter ID legislation just. This precedent would make it easy for the five right of center justices to uphold the status quo. Both parties have and will continue to use these tactics unless a burst of sanity is electroshocked into Washington.

Nate Silver of the New York Times always delivers ingenious analysis; here is his take on the laws:

http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/15/measuring-the-effects-of-voter-identification-laws/

Here is another good New York Times story on the case:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/20/us/politics/tougher-voter-id-laws-set-off-court-battles.html?_r=1&hp

Checks and balances