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They are the latest examples of how we have gotten so obsessed in this country with making sure that the wrong people don’t vote that we are leaving behind scores of citizens whose rights are denied: elderly persons who no longer drive, persons who cannot find their birth certificates to prove citizenship because the records were destroyed or never existed, the poor who don’t own a car, persons with disabilities.
And, now — nuns.
Last week, Sister Sandy Schwartz of the Franciscan Sisters of Mary in St. Louis assessed what would happen in her order if Missouri passes a photo ID requirement.
Of 35 nuns there, she said, 15 lack government-issued photo identification.
“This may sound like a good idea at first,” she said, “but once you stop to think about who would really be affected, this is going to keep a lot of our loved ones from being able to vote.”
Kansas legislators passed a photo ID law before adjourning last week. Gov. Kathleen Sebelius hopefully will consider the impact on some of her state’s most vulnerable citizens and veto it.
Missouri in 2006 had a photo ID requirement, but the state Supreme Court threw it out because it made it too difficult for people to exercise their constitutional right.
The U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision upholding Indiana’s photo ID law has fueled lawmakers’ interest in passing another one. Why, photo ID proponents rail, is it unreasonable to require everyone to produce the same documentation that they produce to write a check? Or to rent a video? Or to get on an airplane?
But not everything we do in society requires photo identification. I don’t produce a photo ID to rent a video. I don’t produce a photo ID every time I write a check, either. It depends on where I am and who knows me.
Also, a lot of folks never have and never will fly because they can’t afford it or they don’t need to go someplace that requires air travel to get there.
A photo identification requirement presents a roadblock to certain Americans, usually the poor and elderly. The reason largely is that documentation, usually a birth certificate, is required to get an ID.
A birth certificate can take weeks to get, and it costs money. It may not even be available, which often is the case for people born at home or in another state, or whose records were lost.
Lillie Lewis, a St. Louis woman who says she was born in 1935 or 1936, told reporters last week that she has tried to get a birth certificate from her birth state of Mississippi, but there is no record.
One survey found that 17 percent of people over age 65 don’t have access to documents that prove citizenship. Many women don’t have birth certificates that match their current names. Many college students don’t have IDs that show their place of residence.
“You ought to have to identify who you are” before voting, says Missouri Secretary of State Robin Carnahan. “The question is, what is a reasonable form of identifying yourself?”
“For most citizens, more than 90 percent, this (a photo requirement) is not a burden because they have a driver’s or nondriver’s license,” she says. “For the percentage that it is a burden, we have to protect their rights, too.”
A photo isn’t necessary to prove who you are. Missouri’s current voter ID law protects against voter fraud but it gives options for identifying yourself at the polls.
Those who don’t have a driver’s license or nondriver’s ID can present a utility bill, bank statement, paycheck or government document that shows name and address. Identification issued by a government agency, or a university, also is allowed.
That ought to be sufficient to protect against voter fraud.
In fact, it is.
The last two secretaries of state, Carnahan and Matt Blunt, reported no instances of election fraud by persons impersonating legitimate voters. The real deception is being perpetrated by legislators, whose claims of fraud are driving what appears to be a political agenda.
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