Pennsylvania Latest Voter ID State

This sort of thing used to really bother conservatives.
Image from BartCop.

See, here's the thing I don't get. . . Several years ago, here in Nevada, there was a battle being waged by the American Independent Party to be recognized as a force in the state. Not independents, mind you, this was a party that used the word in their name, probably to confuse voters into think they actually were independents. No, they were extraordinarily fringy right-wingers, and they also seemed to be related to each other. Hanson? Hansen? Something like that. Anyway, the AIP was really irritated about having to have government IDs. No driver licenses for the AIP! It's downright un-American!

So, it's weird that there is a GOP-headed effort to pass voter ID laws all over the country. The funny thing about it is, they have a really good messaging campaign behind this one. It make sense, sounds reasonable (but contains just a hint of that GOP-brand meanness). I mean, who doesn't have ID? Honestly! You need an ID to rent a video (if people still did that). You need an ID to buy Jägermeister. And who wants a bunch of phony voters using dead peoples' names, cartoon character names, voting once, twice, a dozen times? So, it sounds like it makes hella sense, right?

And it does. Except that there aren't throngs of fake voters out there (other than Ann Coulter and perhaps one Willard Mitt Romney, but more on that later). In fact, actual voter fraud is vanishingly rare. So, is this one of those "solutions in search of a problem" laws that conservatives are always accusing liberals of? Yes and no. Actually, this was the solution to a different problem: how do conservatives prevent at least a slice of the Democratic electorate from voting? Because that is the reason for Voter ID laws, no matter how good the justification for them is. And it isn't just guesswork, or some wacky conspiracy theory either. They're actually admitting it.

[Excerpt]

Smile, Pennsylvania, You No Longer Have To Suffer The Agony Of Voting!



Good video, Pennsylvania! Very melting pot and clear-skinned and chipper, we’re sure! There may be a little bit of an omission about how 10 percent of your voting populace won’t get to actually vote under your new voter ID law, but we’re sure if they just show up with the birth certificate and the marriage certificate and the name-change order from when they got their sex change and also four other forms of photo ID all notarized and with the raised seal (AND DON’T FORGET THE LONG-FORM!), they too can get state-approved papers in order to exercise their constitutional right of suffrage. . . 

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