Hey, we don't need no stinkin' photo IDs:
"Let's not beat around the bush: The ... voter photo ID law is a not-too-thinly-veiled attempt to discourage election-day turnout by certain folks believed to skew Democratic."
That's not be me talking. It's the late federal Appeals Court Judge Terence Evans, left, writing in 2007. In fact, it's the first words of his opinion leading to his conclusion that photo ID laws are driven by partisanship. Evans voted to strike down the Indiana law that was then before him.
But Evans view didn't prevail. He was outvoted 2-1 in the 7th Circuit panel hearing the case.
[. . .]
As you can guess by the chapter title, Hasen believes and argues convincingly that supporters of voter photo ID laws who argue that they are trying to combat a significant form of voter fraud are themselves the frauds. The problem of criminals impersonating voters simply doesn't exist in any serious numbers, certainly not in numbers that would affect an election result.
A new study finds that nearly 2 million dead people remain on voter registration rolls. So tell us again why Democrats oppose voter ID laws that would help prevent these errant registrations from being exploited?
The Pew Center on the States study found that our country's voter registration system is "plagued with errors and inefficiencies." That's putting it mildly.
As many as 24 million registrations are invalid or contain significant errors, including almost 3 million who are registered in two or more states and 1.8 million dead people still listed as active voters.
[. . .]
Democrats make two bogus arguments. First, that ballot fraud isn't "widespread" enough to merit the new requirement, as though there's such a thing as a tolerable level of fraud. Second, that picture ID laws would suppress voter turnout among minorities.
If one side is doing something for "partisan" reasons, it is, you know, quite likely that the other side is as well. Startling!
