Conservative
Type 40
Alabama Voices: Should have supported voter ID law | The Montgomery Advertiser | montgomeryadvertiser.com
(patiently awaits cries of 'Uncle Tom' from the usual suspects).
I've changed my mind on voter ID laws -- I think Alabama did the right thing in passing one -- and I wish I had gotten it right when I was in political office.
When I was a congressman, I took the path of least resistance on this subject for an African American politician. Without any evidence to back it up, I lapsed into the rhetoric of various partisans and activists who contend that requiring photo identification to vote is a suppression tactic aimed at thwarting black voter participation.
Voting the names of the dead, and the nonexistent, and the too-mentally-impaired to function, cancels out the votes of citizens who are exercising their rights -- that's suppression by any light. If you doubt it exists, I don't; I've heard the peddlers of these ballots brag about it, I've been asked to provide the funds for it, and I am confident it has changed at least a few close local election results.
But demanding integrity in voting is neither racist, nor raw party politics.
I was disappointed to see Bill Clinton, a very good president and an even greater ex-president, compare voter ID to Jim Crow, and it is chilling to see the intimidation tactics brought to bear on African American, Democratic legislators in Rhode Island who had the nerve to support a voter ID law in that very liberal state.
The case for voter ID, however, is a good one, and it ought to make politics a little cleaner and the process of conducting elections much fairer. I wish I'd gotten it right the first time.
(patiently awaits cries of 'Uncle Tom' from the usual suspects).