Re: Bad News for Bigots
Posted by:
TheRealGeorgeTheLast
()
Date: August 03, 2016 07:55PM
Why do civil rights groups oppose the laws?
They say they discriminate against low-income and minority voters — groups that tend to vote Democratic. About 25 percent of eligible black voters and 16 percent of Hispanic voters don't have photo ID, compared with 9 percent of whites, according to the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University. The center says many poor voters can't afford cars or vacations abroad, and thus don't have driver's licenses or passports, and will be unfairly burdened by the $75-and-up cost of obtaining birth certificates and traveling to a government agency to secure a photo ID. In a recent opinion condemning Wisconsin's voter ID law, U.S. Circuit Judge Richard Posner — a President Reagan appointee — compared the laws to the poll tax implemented to stop blacks from voting in the Jim Crow–era South. The only reason to impose voter ID laws, said Posner, "is to discourage voting by persons likely to vote against the party responsible for imposing the burdens."