Oh by the way

[polerin]

Did I mention that there is a photo ID law proposed for Tennessee this year?

Comments

[hartley.livejournal.com]

Aw, shit. People have been fighting these for years in other states, with very little success.

Even though they blatantly violate the 24th, unless the photo ID is free, and even then it's iffy.

[eclexia.livejournal.com]

yeah. They make arguments that as long as you sign a paupers oath you can get an id for free, if you qualify. That's *not* what the amendment specifies. It's not just "you can charge those who can afford it." it says "you shall not impose a tax". period.

[evildagmar.livejournal.com]

Literacy is a cool thing. It's a shame the person who wrote the article doesn't have it. The proposal they're in a snit about does say that people without photo IDs will be allowed to cast provisional ballots, which is the same thing they generally do if you show up with no voter registration card or show up at the wrong polling place.

[eclexia.livejournal.com]

Actually I was one of the ones that brought that bill to her attention. provisional ballots are inferior in many ways to a standard ballot. You've got the google fu to go look it up, so I don't really need to link you to anything on it.

[evildagmar.livejournal.com]

"Inferior"? What, like if you use a provisional ballot your vote only counts as three-fifths of a vote or something?

They actually use a lot of provisional ballots--I know someone who had to use one in this last election because she hadn't updated her registration yet so her local polling place wasn't going to have her on the rolls. The only real difference is that provisional ballots involve more effort for the system to process, but they're in no way "inferior".

[eclexia.livejournal.com]

Since you apparently can't be bothered to go look for actual informations, here's something off the first set of results for "Drawbacks to provisional ballots"

In the 2006 general election, the second general election since the
passage of HAVA, the nationwide rejection rate was over 20%. The
majority of those rejected ballots may have been cast by registered
voters, and the rejection rate varied widely from state to state.
Specifically, in 2006, almost 800,000 votes were cast provisionally,
approximately 171,000 (about 21%) of which were rejected. While
almost 44% of the ballots rejected were cast by individuals not
registered to vote, a large percentage of the rejections were due to
preventable errors, such as “wrong” precincts, incomplete ballot
forms, and missing signatures"

Taken from http://www.advancementproject.org/pdfs/Provisional-Ballot-Report-Final-9-16-08.pdf (http://www.advancementproject.org/pdfs/Provisional-Ballot-Report-Final-9-16-08.pdf)