<strong><span class="subhead">Photo IDs for voting</span></strong></p><p>After reading Laura Scott&#8217;s commentary (5/12, Opinion) about the Voter ID bill and the non-driving nuns who didn&#8217;t have driver&#8217;s licenses, I couldn&#8217;t help but ask: Why are some people so scared to prove who they are before they vote?</p><p>Surely Republicans aren&#8217;t the only people concerned about voter fraud, are they? Don&#8217;t Democrats want an honest and fair election as well? A Missouri non-driver license (ID card) is $11.</p><p>Missouri provides millions of dollars in financial aid to underprivileged residents every year. The majority of these underprivileged people already have ID cards so they can receive benefits. Is it too much to ask the others to spend $11 to ensure that the constitutional voting process Ms. Scott mentions is not made a mockery of?</p><p><p align="right"><strong>Steven Christensen</strong></p> <p align="right"><em>Blue Springs</em></p> I sympathize with those who are unable to obtain photo IDs. In the &#8217;60s, when my father was ready to apply for Social Security, he obtained affidavits from older people who knew of his birth. Several years ago, when we first heard of photo IDs, I took my mother to the license bureau to get one.</p><p>While I realize I am fortunate to have a car to take my mother to the license bureau, isn&#8217;t this an opportunity for volunteers to step up and assist? In the big picture, isn&#8217;t one instance of election fraud too many?</p><p><p align="right"><strong>Theresa Cotter</strong></p> <p align="right"><em>Belton</em></p> <strong><span class="subhead">Combining FYI and Preview</span></strong></p><p>I was disappointed to find that the Thursday FYI section of <em>The Star </em>has become part of the Preview section.</p><p>During the eight years my husband and I have lived in the Kansas City area, we&#8217;ve watched <em>The Star </em>shrink to fewer and fewer pages. Now, someone decided that if the paper reduces the size of the comic strips and crams them onto the smaller pages of Preview, another section of the paper can vanish.</p><p>The Monday edition of the paper is now so brief that I wonder if it warrants the use of the carrier&#8217;s gasoline to make deliveries.</p><p>Please, the U.S. newspaper industry is faced with ever-declining readership. The answer to this dilemma is not to decrease the number of pages. Instead, work toward improving quality of content.</p><p><p align="right"><strong>Jane Henley</strong></p> <p align="right"><em>Lee&#8217;s Summit</em></p> As an attorney, I frequently have to read the fine print, but your newly shrunken comics section in the Preview section is nearly unreadable. Is it your plan to continue to shrink them until everyone over 40 stops reading them?</p><p><p align="right"><strong>William E. Pray</strong></p> <p align="right"><em>Leavenworth</em></p> <strong><span class="subhead">Reining in environmentalists</span></strong></p><p>Ross Balano (5/10, Opinion, &#8220;To fix energy ills, rein in environmentalists&#8221;) has a misunderstanding about environmentalists and ethanol. The force driving increased ethanol production is agricultural interests.</p><p>Mr. Balano would expand oil drilling, but the Department of Energy estimates that the U.S. has less than 2 percent of the world&#8217;s oil reserves. The U.S. consumes more than 25 percent of the world&#8217;s oil, so expanded drilling would not significantly increase supplies or reduce prices.</p><p>Mr. Balano would increase the use of coal, since new technology reduces pollution. He fails to consider the environmental damage just from mining the coal (mountaintop removal throws pollutants right into our rivers), greenhouse gas emissions from burning coal and the rising cost of coal due to increasing worldwide demand and the inevitability of carbon taxes.</p><p>Money, time and effort would be better spent on reducing our reliance on oil and coal with increased efficiency and renewable energy. Not doing so only prolongs the problem.