Anyone who follows me on Facebook will know that Im no fan of Voter ID laws that seem transparently designed to make it significantly harder for poor, young, and elderly people to vote. Advocates for such laws seem completely unbothered by real-world asymmetries that make it trivially easy for people to exercise their rights as citizens if they own cars and/or live at the same address for many years (and who have little trouble getting time off work to drive to offices to get new IDs on the rare occasions when their address does change) ... and really hard if people dont own cars, change their addresses frequently, dont already have copies of their birth certificates, or have trouble getting time off work to get to the hard-to-reach offices where birth records and ID cards can be obtained. To burden poor, young, and elderly people in such ways when theres essentially no evidence that voter fraud at the polling places is a genuine problem in the United States--and when theres good reason to believe that the real motive for passing such laws is to skew election results so as to favor one party over another--seems to me a betrayal of democracy. All of which is my way of encouraging you to read Judge Richard Posners 31-page brief arguing for overturning the Wisconsin Voter ID law. Posner--one of the smartest and most prolific juges currently serving on the Federal bench, a conservative appointee of Ronald Reagans who can nonetheless be a sharp critic of conservatives and liberals alike--is unsparing in his condemnation of these laws and their impacts on the voting rights of American citizens. Please take the time to read what he says: 1.usa.gov/1p2tQhA
Posted on: Sun, 12 Oct 2014 02:59:27 +0000
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