Couched in the guise of preventing "rampant" voter fraud, Wisconsin's Republican Assembly approved the voter ID bill late Wednesday night, making it just an inevitable skip through the Senate and on to Walker to bring this further attempt at Republican-fueled, apparent world-domination into law.
It's not necessary and it's not a good idea for the voters of the state. Republicans know this. This is a calculated move to make a variety of voters--college students, the elderly, minorities, heck, anyone most likely to vote Democrat--less likely to vote. According to research presented to the Wisconsin Government Accountability Board earlier this year, "ethnic and racial minorities, high school and college students, senior citizens and disabled, women, and those with low incomes" are more likely not to possess state-issued, photo identification.
A UWM study from 2005 found about 23% of those Wisconsin residents age 65 and older, don't have a state photo ID (177,399 people). Nor do approximately 100,000 Wisconsinites from age 34-65. That's a lot of people left out in the cold.
College students could use a college ID, if it had their current address on it, which no UW system school presently provides.
When you bring minorities into the equation, voter ID seems downright racist. According to the same UWM study, Milwaukee County had only 47% of African American adults and 43% of Hispanic adults with valid drivers' licenses. The rest of the state came in at 85%.
Even in Indiana, where folks claim voter ID is working, those without ID are more likely to be Democrats that Republicans due to accessibility, familiarity and comfort with bureaucratic red tape, fewer resources, and less knowledge of political processes.
And the fraud won't even be prevented. It's thought that such a measure would prevent people from voting as someone else, but not one of the 20 voter fraud cases from Milwaukee County in 2008 were even of that variety.
Oh, yeah, and it'll cost in the vicinity of five million dollars, likely with additional costs per year.
So what does it sound like: a really necessary idea advanced for the good of the people, or more of the same self-serving legislation advanced for the good of the Republicans?
As echoed through the Assembly chamber to protest this bill on Wednesday afternoon, "Shame, shame, shame!"
For a visual take on this deplorable issue check out this Phil Hands cartoon of the Wisconsin State Journal.
This makes me so mad. And sad. We're just taking one step backward after the other!
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