The Wisconsin Legislature (Republicans) just passed the voter ID bill and a proof of citizenship during a traffic stop is working it's way through. On the surface these sound great. We don't want people who shouldn't be voting, voting. We also don't want people voting in the wrong area. You could change the outcome of the election, if for example a bunch of people from Madison decided that they wanted to vote against Rep. Nass they could go to Whitewater and vote against him. Same thing with the proof of citizenship, we don't want illegal immigrants working or driving cars. The problem with both of these bills they won't solve these problems. For voter ID they will accept a driver's license. The problem is that there are a lot of people who have driver's licenses who legally cannot vote. For example: convicted felons (you lose the right to vote permanently) , foreign nationals who are legal residents, and finally some illegal immigrants. The same problem applies to citizenship. Having a drivers license is not proof. Only a passport is proof of citizenship because it is issued by the State Department and is presumably difficult to forge.
I believe that if you really want to do voter ID you need to come up with a State issued ID for everyone who can legally vote with a renewal of every 2 years so that a reasonable attempt can be made to catch the people whose voter status may have changed. For the proof of citizenship require everyone to carry a passport.
No comments:
Post a Comment