It was more an opinion than an assertion, so I don't think I really have to "justify" it, but here's why I think that. Additional hurdles to voting discourage people from voting, and they disproportionately discourage Black, Latino and other minority and/or non-English-speaking people from voting, because such measures have often been used (and in fact were often implemented for no other reason) to discourage minorities from voting, and because those communities know that they have. I said "poll tax" because that's a convenient shorthand for regulatory vote suppression, but the fact that state ID isn't very expensive, or could even be made free, isn't actually relevant -- "literacy tests" didn't cost voters anything but they were still a barrier.
To argue a broader point, we have voter check-in and check-out at polling places partly to confirm that people are registered (and to confirm that they're in the right precinct), and partly to compile turnout statistics. There is no epidemic of people who haven't registered trying to cast fraudulent votes, or of illegal immigrants trying to vote, or anything like that, and in cases where it's suspected that people have votes fraudulently, there are adequate procedures in place for challenging votes after the fact. In the absence of any such crisis which would demand it, a requirement to show ID essentially constitutes a "guilty until proven innocent" attitude toward voters.
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Date: 2006-11-08 08:00 pm (UTC)To argue a broader point, we have voter check-in and check-out at polling places partly to confirm that people are registered (and to confirm that they're in the right precinct), and partly to compile turnout statistics. There is no epidemic of people who haven't registered trying to cast fraudulent votes, or of illegal immigrants trying to vote, or anything like that, and in cases where it's suspected that people have votes fraudulently, there are adequate procedures in place for challenging votes after the fact. In the absence of any such crisis which would demand it, a requirement to show ID essentially constitutes a "guilty until proven innocent" attitude toward voters.