“This bill is tantamount to a 21st century poll tax,”
“This bill is tantamount to a 21st century poll tax,”
I didn’t say it, Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer, (D-Md) did. He also said
“It will disenfranchise large number of legal voters.”
He also said some other crap, but I can’t yet find the longer quote on teh inter-tubes.
The comment was in regards to a Republican supported bill that would require government issued IDs to be shown before we could vote in an election. (H.R. 4844: Federal Election Integrity Act of 2006)
Here in teh Free State, the primary preventive measure to keep people from “voting early and voting often” is the small measure of skill it takes to read confirming address information upside down from the voter rolls at the check-in polling station. Meanwhile in the same great state, we can’t: get on an airplane, get a fishing license, check out a book from the library, purchase decongestant, open a bank account, buy cigarettes, get a passport, drive a car, rent a P.O. Box, purchase beer, work legally for an employer…, in short, it’s already nearly impossible to function as a lawful citizen without showing that next best thing to an internal (Achtung!) passport, the federally mandated, state issued, government ID card.
Poll taxes were traditionally used in the past to disenfranchise African-American and other voters. So what my congress-thing is doing here is playing the race card. In real life, just about anyone over the age of 17 already had to suck it up and pay for the privilege of being lorded over, and they are typically excited when the government gives them a permission slip to be able to travel around freely on the commonwealth highways.
So while I can’t exactly endorse the “ID cards to safeguard the vote” scheme, (We do have Diebold electric voter fraud machines, after all, and that’s ahaha funny), my congress-critter seems to be blowing a bunch of hot air.
