If I stood in front of a polling location on election day telling people they needed to pay in order to gain entrance to vote, I'd be hauled out of town and tried for crimes against humanity. But that's essentially what's happening in Wisconsin with the Voter ID Bill.
Those arguing against this bill on the merits that it disenfranchises people are picking the weakest point of the plethora of problems. In order to vote, citizens are now going to have to take a couple of days off from work to visit the notoriously unresponsive DMV to pay $30 for a state ID for what is a fundamental right. Yes, you need a picture id for doing many other things such as driving, renting a car, banking, buying booze, getting a lap dance from Fantasia at your favorite nudie bar.. But these things are not fundamental rights. Voting is a right. And we have a right to not have to pay to do it.
The solution is simple. The Republicans could have allocated the $25 million dollars it would have cost to offer free photo ids to the 870,000 people who don't drive. Of course not all these folks would seek out ids even if they were free, and certainly not all of them would turn out to vote, but that doesn't matter. In the case of voting, the State owes it to the electorate to provide the means to get through all hurdles to proving identity with as little red tape and in as little time as possible.
As for those of us with a driver's license, we're not out of the woods either. In some cases, the bill calls for county clerks to record license numbers. The law does not call for all license numbers to be recorded, but for ease of process, I can see the confused elderly election volunteers in some locales recording everyone's number or even photocopying licenses to ensure compliance. This is a privacy nightmare since operator license numbers are considered personally identifiable information by HIPAA and certainly recording of PII should not be necessary for most cases (I can prove I am who I say I am and be checked off by name and address without being associated with other data attributes). In other cases, like moving to a new home, I'm not going to update my license with my new address before I move there, and within the first 28 days of moving the last thing I'm thinking about is getting acquainted with the local DMV for a new ID. I think a root canal is higher on my priority list at that point. Furthermore, even more questions arise around circumstances like what if your wallet or purse is lost or stolen before the election? What if you get pulled over for speeding and the officer asks you to surrender your license to ensure you show up to court or pay the fine? I think we will find many other unforeseen aggravations as these rules are rolled out.
Then we need to examine possible political motivations. Since many poor tend to vote Democrat, you eliminate them first with any barriers since they have the fewest resources at their disposal to break through barriers. If Republicans were ever so inclined to give themselves a slightly better edge in the next election, all they would need to do is raise the cost of getting an operator's license or state id. Eliminate those on tight budgets and increase revenue at the same time to help close any budget gaps without raising taxes. A win-win!
I think the process of voting itself bears more scrutiny than who we keep from voting. Certainly ballot forms, display of candidates, marking methods, tabulating machines, poll workers, certifying authorities, results reporting and laws about felon's rights to vote could and should be standardized and documented within the state and even across our nation before we go on voter fraud crusade like this; a solution largely in search of a problem.
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