Since the lege is bringing back the zombie Voter ID bill, I thought I would repost in full a diary I did last summer. Seems relevant and all. -Clark
We dodged a bullet at the end of the last legislative session when Republicans failed to move a new voter ID bill through the Missouri Legislature before the session came to an end. So why bother with another post on the topic? Because we can't sit on our laurels, especially when the "victory" was just running out the clock. Whether it's voter caging, voter purging, or voter ID laws, Republican voter suppression methods are like zombies - they keep coming back until decapitated. So let's revisit what the voter ID bill means for Missouri, before Republicans resurrect it in the special session, or next regular session, or via ballot initiative.
Secretary of State Robin Carnahan and her office did an excellent job of assembling illustrative anecdotes from real people who would be affected if voters were required to present a government-issued ID (we are already required to present some sort of identification), but as they say, the plural of anecdote is not data. They also released an estimate of how many Missouri voters would be disenfranchised by the government ID requirement, which was about 240,000. But I was curious about where in Missouri these voters might live, so I requested a county-by-county breakdown of how many voters would be disenfranchised.
I was curious to see whether most of those affected lived in the big cities, since the elderly, the poor and minorities would be most affected, and the stereotype is that all poverty and people of color are collected in urban areas. Sure enough, in absolute numbers, Kansas City, St. Louis, and St. Louis County rank at the top of the list.
But added together, the outstate counties actually contain more of the potentially disenfranchised voters. Out of 241,682 disenfranchised, only 40,900 live in the cities of St. Louis and Kansas City, and 57,200 live in the suburban counties of Saint Louis and Jackson. The rest live around the state. Greene County alone (where Springfield sits) has 11,787 potentially disenfranchised voters to Jackson County's 10,365 (suburban KC - a population nearly triple that of Springfield.)
It gets a lot worse (illustrated with a map and tables!) below the flip.
There was a lot of talk at the Missouri Democratic Convention about the new voter ID bill. Robin Carnahan made an excellent speech detailing the problems with the proposed bill (she expanded on this in a Huffington Post diary), and Rep. Lacy Clay highlighted Jay Nixon's strong stance against new voter ID restrictions. Basically, the law would knock up to 240,000 Missourians off the voter rolls to combat a problem for which no evidence exists.
So what do we do about it? The bill is headed for the Missouri Senate, and about the best we can hope for is that a filibuster holds. This would be a good chance for Senator Koster to show he is a true Democrat and is willing to fight for the rights of the elderly, the poor, and minorities who would overwhelmingly be affected by the voter purge. Even in the event of a filibuster, the Republicans will probably break it with a PQ ("moving the previous question", also known as the nuclear option) as they have done in recent sessions to get their way. So it then becomes paramount that the public be made aware of the problems with this bill before they vote on it in early August.
Fortunately, there's also an extremely high profile statewide Democratic primary the same day the voter ID law would be placed on the ballot. Three Democrats are running for Attorney General, and if all of them speak often and loudly against the proposed law, in conjunction with other Missouri Democrats with big megaphones, the larger Democratic turnout might be able to overcome it. Jeff Harris is doing just that with a prominent anti-voter ID tool on his website: http://www.electjeffharris.com...
Let's hope the other Attorney General candidates join him soon in this effort.
This kind of got lost in hotflash's Friday night post about the pre-convention reception, but just as Jeff Harris told her then, he quickly replied to Blunt's e-mail request, saying that he's willing to immediately turn over the 75,000 documents Blunt requested at a cost of $10,000 to the taxpayer. One extra wrinkle - the House generally maintains that individual members of the House are not in of themselves public bodies and therefore not open to scrutiny under the Sunshine Law. Harris maintains that his willingness to comply has nothing to do with the validity of the House opinion.
I'm not sure why Blunt is going this route. Maybe he's hoping that Harris can't produce all of the documents, or that Harris might have some skeletons buried in those hard drives. But it's egg on Blunt's face if Harris can produce and nothing of consequence surfaces. Meanwhile, Harris gets extra press and an opportunity for a fundraising ask - Harris sent out an e-mail to his list calling Blunt's attack a "Badge of Honor" and asked for a small contribution on behalf of the guy standing up to Blunt.
Section 2. All citizens of the United States, including occupants of soldiers' and sailors' homes, over the age of eighteen who are residents of this state and of the political subdivision in which they offer to vote are entitled to vote at all elections by the people...
[emphasis added]
That's a pretty strong endorsement of the right to vote. Too bad they don't have that "problem" in Indiana.
About 12 Indiana nuns were turned away Tuesday from a polling place by a fellow bride of Christ because they didn't have state or federal identification bearing a photograph.
Sister Julie McGuire said she was forced to turn away her fellow sisters at Saint Mary's Convent in South Bend, across the street from the University of Notre Dame, because they had been told earlier that they would need such an ID to vote.
The nuns, all in their 80s or 90s, didn't get one but came to the precinct anyway.
"One came down this morning, and she was 98, and she said, 'I don't want to go do that,'" Sister McGuire said. Some showed up with outdated passports. None of them drives.
They weren't given provisional ballots because it would be impossible to get them to a motor vehicle branch and back in the 10-day time frame allotted by the law, Sister McGuire said. "You have to remember that some of these ladies don't walk well. They're in wheelchairs or on walkers or electric carts..."
Missouri Secretary of State Robin Carnahan issued a press release today:
