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Before Sunday's sermon in many churches in Milwaukee, ministers and religious leaders will ask those sitting in the pews to pull out their photo identification as a step to make sure that their members can vote in Tuesday's primary election. For the first time in Wisconsin, voters will be required to show a government-issued photo ID before they receive a ballot. The new law has been challenged in federal and state courts because many organizations, including the American Civil Liberties Union, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the League of Women Voters, contend it could disenfranchise...

Columbia, South Carolina (REUTERS) - The state that fired the first shot in the Civil War is once again battling the government in a racially charged conflict that is drawing heated rhetoric from Republican presidential candidates. South Carolina is in a standoff with Democratic President Barack Obama's administration over a new state law that would require residents to produce a photo ID before they could vote. Federal officials say it could disproportionately keep black voters away from the polls. Republican candidates are waving the banner of states' rights as they tout their small-government credentials.

Is it racist to require people to show a photo ID when they vote? You need a photo ID for nearly any meaningful transaction, such as cashing checks, including government checks. If this simple requirement “suppresses” the vote, maybe we need to ask why it’s such a great idea to push for universal suffrage for every adult who is merely breathing.

I admit, I squirmed a lot when I watched Bob Costa debate vote fraud on MSNBC last Friday. And it wasn’t because I was worried he was in danger of being lacerated by the jagged edges of one of Al Sharpton’s broken sentences. It was uncomfortable watching the other lefty panelists try to out-smarm each other by beating Costa over the head with a new Brennan Center for Justice report that purportedly shows vote fraud to be nonexistent. The report points out that a minuscule 0.0002 percent of votes cast in Wisconsin in 2004 were “fraudulent,” each one resulting from...

Like most people, recently I’ve been asked to present photo identification on a number of occasions without regard to my race, religion, or national origin. The majority of the requests I’ve received have come in circumstances many would consider more or less routine: checking in for a flight and passing through airport security; registering as a guest at a hotel; using a credit card when purchasing something more expensive than a meal or tank of gas; and buying over-the-counter medications. In addition, I was required to show photo identification while visiting the Department of Justice here in Washington. In the...

Editor's note: Donna Brazile, a CNN contributor and a Democratic strategist, is vice chairwoman for voter registration and participation at the Democratic National Committee, a nationally syndicated columnist and an adjunct professor at Georgetown University. She was manager for the Gore-Lieberman presidential campaign in 2000 and wrote "Cooking with Grease." (CNN) -- Dorothy Cooper is a 96-year-old African-American resident of Chattanooga, Tennessee. She was born in a small town in northern Georgia before women could vote and when Jim Crow laws mandated racial segregation. Her life has spanned nearly a century of progress: The 19th Amendment extended suffrage to women,...

Madison - In approving one of the strongest photo ID requirements in the country for voters, GOP lawmakers and Gov. Scott Walker violated a few little-noted paragraphs of the state constitution - so say opponents of the law who are preparing a legal challenge to it. But Republicans dismissed that claim, saying that in writing the legislation earlier this year they took care not to violate the federal or state constitution. They said the current objections over the state's charter show photo ID opponents are recognizing the difficulties of a federal lawsuit over the law. A lawsuit being prepared by...

Senators Concerned By Photo ID Requirement To VoteSixteen Democratic senators want the Justice Department to look into whether voting rights are being jeopardized in states that require photo identification in order for people to vote. Posted: 4:34 PM Jun 29, 2011 WASHINGTON (AP) -- Sixteen Democratic senators want the Justice Department to look into whether voting rights are being jeopardized in states that require photo identification in order for people to vote. The lawmakers wrote Attorney General Eric Holder on Wednesday to express concern that millions of voters do not have a government-issued ID - particularly older people, racial minorities,...

Democratic National Committee Chairwoman and South Florida Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz isn't very good at retracting statements. Wasserman Schultz was on CNN Sunday when she said Republicans want to bring states back to Jim Crow-era laws, drawing the ire of the National Republican Congressional Committee. She responded by saying it wasn't the right analogy to use, then immediately made the same analogy without mentioning the name "Jim Crow." Here's what Wasserman Schultz said to CNN contributor Roland Martin on Sunday: "You have the Republicans, who want to literally drag us all the way back to Jim Crow laws and literally-and...

On Thursday, the Wisconsin legislature sent a bill requiring photographic identification for voting to Gov. Scott Walker's desk. This follows the enactment of an even stricter law in Kansas a few weeks ago. Drafted by my office, Kansas's Secure and Fair Elections Act combined three elements: (1) a requirement that voters present photo IDs when they vote in person; (2) a requirement that absentee voters present a full driver's license number and have their signatures verified; and (3) a proof of citizenship requirement for all newly registered voters. Although a few states, including Georgia, Indiana and Arizona, have enacted one...

(CNSNews.com) - Voters in Kansas will need to show a photo ID the next time they go to the polls. In a signing ceremony last week, Republican Gov. Sam Brownback signed a bill to protect the integrity of elections, he said: "We must be able to accurately and fairly discern the will of the people of Kansas." While Gov. Brownback said the new law establishes "reasonable steps" to protect the rights of citizens, the American Civil Liberties Union called it a "giant leap backwards." The new Kansas law requires photo ID from all in-person voters at every election. People submitting...

The double talking liberal Democrats in Illinois have voted down a Republican measure to demand photo ID be produced by those attempting to vote. The arguments they made were the same shopworn nonsense they always use: “Such a law will discourage voting” “It disadvantage minority groups” and so on. In spite of the ever increasing movement toward photo identification everywhere we look, these people are able to kill photo ID bills. They have the votes in the Illinois Legislature and fear their fraudulent voters will not be able to keep supporting them if the system all of a sudden became...

HARRISBURG, Pa. (CBS) – Pennsylvania Republicans, who now control both the state House and Senate, have begun a new effort to require photo IDs for voters at polling places. As the House state government committee held a hearing on a voter photo ID bill, the ranking Democrat on the panel, Philadelphia’s Babette Josephs, said with all of the major issues facing the state and the country, people may be especially energized to vote, “Now, it seems to me, is precisely the wrong time to start making it more difficult for people to vote.” Delaware County Democrat Greg Vitali expressed fears...

LINCOLN — Nebraska will keep its split electoral vote system for at least another year, thanks to a split vote in a legislative committee. The Government, Military and Veterans Affairs Committee was divided 4-4 in a straw vote on changing the system, State Sen. Bill Avery of Lincoln, the committee chairman, said Thursday. The informal vote marked the latest defeat for Republican efforts to return Nebraska to a winner-take-all system of awarding electoral votes. Sen. Beau McCoy of Omaha introduced the latest proposal, Legislative Bill 21. Since 1991, three of Nebraska's five votes have been decided by congressional district. The...

Linked is the full opinion written by pdf Justice Hugh Thompson. A defeat for Common Cause and the NAACP. And so ends years of nasty contentious fighting. All the arguments and posturing became as simple as this - from the opinion: "Nor do we find the photo ID requirement to be an impermissible qualification on voting. The 2006 Act does not deprive any Georgia voter from casting a ballot in any election. A registered voter who does not possess a photo ID and who desires to vote in person can obtain a free photo ID at one or more...

DES MOINES - Despite Democratic objections that it was a "solution in search of a problem," the Iowa House approved requiring Iowans to show a photo ID to vote. "This is a bill created to create a problem," Rep. Beth Wessel-Kroeschell, D-Ames, said before the House voted 60-40 to send the measure to the Senate. Floor manager Rep. Renee Schulte, R-Cedar Rapids, called the bill necessary to protect the integrity of elections and to make voting more uniform across the state. Now, election official may ask for a photo ID. HF 95 would remove that subjectivity by requiring everyone to...

There's one thing that the 2010 election and the recent recount in the governor's race made clear: It's time to stop arguing about whether we should institute photo ID for voting and time to start discussing how best to implement it. Readers might have heard about how the "reconciliation" process became a point of contention in the recount. With a photo ID system, coupled with the electronic poll books that photo ID would allow us to use, this issue would go away. There would be no extra "voter receipts" floating around, and voters would receive their "receipts" or ballots only...

Last fall, Center of the American Experiment issued a report recommending 15 reforms of our state's election system, informed largely by experiences from the 2008 U.S. Senate election recount. Through bipartisan effort, the Legislature has passed five of the recommendations into law: moving the primary to an earlier date; providing for barcode technology to bring efficiency to absentee ballot processing; clarifying what ballots should be included in recounts versus court contests; and formalizing processes to count ballots and reconcile ballot numbers. It also passed a law moving in the direction of a sixth recommendation: centralizing absentee ballot processing. This is...

Americans expect to show a photo ID when they board a plane, enter many office buildings, cash a check or even rent a video -- but rarely in voting or applying for government benefits such as Medicaid. Many Democrats seem to view asking citizens for proof of identity as an invasion of privacy -- though what's really being protected is the right to commit identity fraud. Exhibit A is Tuesday's 13 to 10 party-line vote in the Senate Finance Committee rejecting a proposal to require that immigrants prove their identity when signing up for federal health care programs. Chuck Grassley,...

Here is video of Virginia Democrat Congressman Jim Moran unbelievably demanding that a man at a Town Hall Meeting show his I.D. before he would allow him to ask a question. The crowd went crazy, as the man told Moran "You're the Imposter!" and "Let's me see your I.D." Moran looked at the man's I.D. and then told him to "Ask your question." Fox News reports Moran later apologized for asking to see the man's I.D. The video below has more on the confrontation . . . (Watch Video)

Rock legend Bob Dylan was treated like a complete unknown by police in a New Jersey shore community when a resident called to report someone wandering around the neighborhood. The officers asked Dylan for identification. The singer of such classics as "Like a Rolling Stone" and "Blowin' in the Wind" said that he didn't have any ID with him, that he was just walking around looking at houses to pass some time before that night's show. The officers asked Dylan, 68, to accompany them back to the Ocean Place Resort and Spa, where the performers were staying. Once there, tour...

A Texas congressman, worried about disruptions at his town halls, wants to weed out people who want to attend but don't live in his district. Rep. Gene Green (D-Texas) has announced on his website that he will require attendees to show photo identification to get into his town halls to prove that they're his constituents. He said that he's doing so in response to a "coordinated effort to disrupt our town hall meetings." "While I regret this restriction, it is necessary for the safety and consideration of our constituents," Green said in a statement on his website. "Those who do...

This is Congressman Eugene Green (HT to an e-mailer), Democrat from Texas, telling the world that if you're not from his District, you're not welcome at his future town hall meetings -- oh, and how he'll enforce his new rule (bold is his): This is how Gene Green has voted on laws relating to requiring photo identification to vote (from the web site "On the Issues"): Any questions? Oh, I do have a couple: • How many dozen other Congressmen who oppose voter ID laws are going to hypocritically enforce voter-ID rules at their town halls -- And does that...

A St. Cloud lawmaker says a bill that would ban any kind of headwear in a driver's license photo is a matter of public safety. But some Muslims say they have a religious right to cover their heads. State Rep. Steve Gottwalt says banning headwear would make it easier for law enforcement to identify people and it would make it fair for everyone. But Suban Khalif says Muslim women wear a head scarf nearly 24 hours a day as part of their religion, and taking it off — even for a few minutes — is a big deal. Khalif and...

Chief Justice Roberts turn to President Elect-Barrac Obama and extends the Lincoln Bible. President Elect-Barrack Obama places his hand on the bible and Chief Justice says:Before we can proceed I require TWO Photo IDs, a Certified Birth Certificate and Proof of Insurance!

Cannot be posted due to copyright issues: http://www.news-leader.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080511/NEWS01/805110367

The battle over voting rights will expand this week as lawmakers in Missouri are expected to support a proposed constitutional amendment to enable election officials to require proof of citizenship from anyone registering to vote. The measure would allow far more rigorous demands than the voter ID requirement recently upheld by the Supreme Court, in which voters had to prove their identity with a government-issued card. Sponsors of the amendment — which requires the approval of voters to go into effect, possibly in an August referendum — say it is part of an effort to prevent illegal immigrants from affecting...

This election season has been full of stories about bowling scores, barroom boilermakers and basketball. But, recently, a little noticed U.S. Supreme Court ruling may have jeopardized Americans' precious right to vote. In Crawford v. Marion County Election Board, the Supreme Court ruled to uphold the most restrictive voter identification law in the country and failed, I think, in its duty to protect the voting rights of all Americans. In its 6-3 decision, the court sanctioned the practice of requiring Indiana voters to present government-issued photo identification in order to vote. Poll taxes, which were used to disenfranchise Southern black...

Indiana's controversial photo identification rule may not have made a major dent in the state's high turnout, but it did frustrate a small group of voters more accustomed to divine law. About 12 elderly Roman Catholic nuns were turned away Tuesday from a polling place because they didn't have state or federal identification bearing a photograph. Sister Julie McGuire said she was forced to turn away her fellow members of Saint Mary's Convent in South Bend, even though they had been told earlier that they would need to get such an ID to vote.

Indiana nuns lacking ID denied at poll by fellow sister By DEBORAH HASTINGS, AP National Writer 8 minutes ago 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,...

All Wisconsin boaters may be required to carry photo identification as federal officials consider tighter security of the nation's more than 17 million small vessels. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has issued a report calling for stepped-up security of all boats, including the nearly 600,000 registered in Wisconsin, noting that terrorists have used small vessels elsewhere in the world for attacks.Homeland Security's effort to regulate boats represents one of its furthest-reaching security efforts that touch Americans' lives, perhaps only surpassed by airline passenger screening.Boating has long been a largely unregulated activity in some states. In Wisconsin, boaters must register...

Experts say Supreme Court ruling upholding law could disenfranchise minorities, youth and the elderly. Experts say African-American voters — a key constituency of Barack Obama in the primaries thus far — might be disproportionately affected in Tuesday’s Indiana primary by the Supreme Court’s recent decision to uphold the state’s voter identification requirement. Studies show that African-Americans are especially likely not to have the identification necessary to vote on Tuesday. Several other groups, notably elderly voters, disabled voters and young voters, are also more likely than the general population not to have the necessary identification. “The research is pretty clear that...

Today, the U.S. Supreme Court -- in a shock 6-3 decision (shocking because Justice John Paul Stevens was on the side of the angels!) -- held that states could indeed require voters to show photo-ID before voting... causing Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY, 90%) to eructate, "This decision is a body blow to what America stands for -- equal access to the polls" (for senior citizens, minorities, and the poor... most of whom, apparently, carry no identification). The Supreme Court upheld Indiana’s voter-identification law on Monday, declaring that a requirement to produce photo identification is not unconstitutional and that the state...

Congressional Democrats and minority groups assailed Monday’s Supreme Court decision upholding Indiana’s photo-ID law as an affront to voting rights, but political realities in the states suggest that the ruling could have relatively limited impact nationwide. Only three states — Indiana, Florida and Georgia — currently require voters to show government-issued photo IDs before stepping into the voting booth. Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas are considering similar requirements, but it’s not clear whether they can adopt them before the November elections. Democratic insiders fear that a number of states, particularly in the Midwest and South, will copy the Indiana law now...

Showing ID to vote? The horror. Seattle Post-Intelligencer runs whiny AP writer's complaint about Indiana voter law What is it with Democrats and showing ID at the polls? This article from an AP national writer certainly doesn't fit any reasonable standard for a wire service. It's just short of a screed, with no balance...just a minor jeremiad against asking people to show ID at the polls: The Supreme Court's refusal to strike down an Indiana law requiring government-issued photo identification at the ballot box could disenfranchise minority and elderly voters at next week's primary and prompt other states to pass...

CRAWFORD v. MARION COUNTY ELECTION BD. (Nos. 07-21 and 07-25) Web-accessible at:     http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/07-21.ZS.html  Argued: January 9, 2008 -- Decided: April 28, 2008* Opinion author: Stevens ===============================================================   After Indiana enacted an election law (SEA 483) requiring citizens voting in person to present government-issued photo identification, petitioners filed separate suits challenging the law's constitutionality. Following discovery, the District Court granted respondents summary judgment, finding the evidence in the record insufficient to support a facial attack on the statute's validity. In affirming, the Seventh Circuit declined to judge the law by the strict standard set for poll taxes in Harper v....

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court upheld Indiana’s voter identification law on Monday, concluding in a splintered decision that the challengers failed to prove that the law’s photo ID requirement placed an unconstitutional burden on the right to vote. The 6-to-3 ruling kept the door open to future lawsuits that provided more evidence. But this theoretical possibility was small comfort to the dissenters or to critics of voter ID laws, who predicted that a more likely outcome than successful lawsuits would be the spread of measures that would keep some legitimate would-be voters from the polls. Voting experts said the ruling...

The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 Monday to uphold a strict Indiana law requiring voters to present photo identification at the polls, handing Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) a serious setback days before a pivotal primary battle. (snip) Obama, however, will face a significant disadvantage in Indiana because the high court failed to strike down a law that affects two major pillars of support: black voters and young voters. Indiana requires that voters present state or federal government-issued photo identification on Election Day. But a recent study conducted by the Washington Institute for the Study of Ethnicity and Race found that 18...

Elections: The Supreme Court got it right Monday in ruling 6-3 (with even liberal John Paul Stevens agreeing) that states are free to require voters to produce photo identification at the polls.Everyone in the country should be pleased with the news. But, of course, not everyone is. It's almost as if some are disturbed that the ruling will make it harder to commit voter fraud. The American Civil Liberties Union, for instance. It was the ACLU's suit against the state of Indiana over its requirement that voters need to produce a photo ID at the polls that led to the...

The Supreme Court's refusal to strike down an Indiana law requiring government-issued photo identification at the ballot box could disenfranchise minority and elderly voters at next week's primary and prompt other states to pass similar laws, voting advocates said Monday. The court, in a splintered 6-3 ruling Monday, said Indiana's law, which took effect in 2006 and requires voters to present a state or federal photo ID card at the ballot box, does not violate the First or 14th amendments. The court said the law served as a justifiable protection to the electoral process. "It's especially worrisome that the court...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court has ruled that states can require voters to produce photo identification without violating their constitutional rights. The decision validates Republican-inspired voter ID laws. The court vote 6-3 to uphold Indiana's strict photo ID requirement. Democrats and civil rights groups say the law would deter poor, older and minority voters from casting ballots.

Carded at polls: No photo ID, no vote By DEBORAH HASTINGS, AP National Writer1 hour, 40 minutes ago There's the poor, 32-year-old mother of seven who says it would cost her at least $50 to vote in person. There's also the 92-year-old woman who's voted for decades in the same polling place, but now can't vote there because she let her driver's license expire when her eyesight began to fail. These folks live in Indiana, home of the country's most restrictive photo-identification voter law. The U.S. Supreme Court is now scrutinizing whether that statute violates the first and 14th amendments,...

We're used to Democrats saying one thing and doing another, but the hypocrisy that will unfold at some local presidential caucus sites Saturday will surprise even hardened cynics. For decades, Democrats have stood against strengthening voter identification standards at polling sites. Modest identification reforms have been enacted in about half the states, with a handful of them requiring photo identification to prevent election fraud and uphold the integrity of balloting. Although Americans need photo ID to write checks, use credit cards, board airplanes and even collect welfare benefits, Democrats have argued that lower-income and minority citizens are less likely to...

When I was young, I lived in Chicago. As a college student, I lived in Evanston, Ill., which borders Chicago on the north, and later, as a law student, I lived in the heart of the city itself. Richard J. Daley was the mayor, the Democratic Party ran the city, and vote fraud was accepted as a fact of life. One Election Day, I went to my Chicago precinct voting station, and, while I was in line to vote, a car pulled up outside and parked illegally, and six men got out. There was an ordinary looking driver and five...

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A conservative majority of the Supreme Court appeared ready Wednesday to support an Indiana law requiring voters to show photo identification, despite concerns that it could deprive thousands of people of their right to vote. The Supreme Court is reviewing an Indiana law that requires voters to show a photo ID. At issue is whether state laws designed to stem voter fraud would disenfranchise large numbers of Americans who might lack proper identification -- many of them elderly, poor or minority voters. In what has become a highly partisan legal and political fight, the justices wrestled with...

All eyes will be on New Hampshire Wednesday morning for the first true primary in the 2008 elections. But even as hardy New Englanders trudge to the polls, something at least as consequential will happening in Washington, D.C., where the U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments in a major case on election law. In Crawford v. Marion County Election Board and Indiana Democratic Party v. Rokita, the court will tackle the issue of vote fraud. The arguments will revive the debate over voter disenfranchisement that raged after the contested presidential election of 2000.This time the controversy surrounds Indiana’s requirement that...

The Supreme Court will open the new year with its most politically divisive case since Bush v. Gore decided the 2000 presidential election, and its decision could force a major reinterpretation of the rules of the 2008 contest. The case presents what seems to be a straightforward and even unremarkable question: Does a state requirement that voters show a specific kind of photo identification before casting a ballot violate the Constitution? The answer so far has depended greatly on whether you are a Democratic or Republican politician -- or even, some believe, judge. "It is exceedingly difficult to maneuver in...

Voter turnout among Democrats improved slightly last year in Indiana, despite a new law requiring voters to show photo identification at the polls, according to a new report that comes months before the Supreme Court hears a case challenging the law. Jeffrey D. Milyo, a professor at the University of Missouri, compared the 2006 midterm elections — the first since Indiana's law was enacted — to the 2002 elections and said voter turnout increased about two percentage points. He said the increase was consistent across counties with the highest percentage of Democrats. "A lot of the claims out there about...

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Anti-Photo ID Legislation Would Promote Election Fraud, Says Group For Release: November 5, 2007 Contact: David Almasi at (202) 543-4110 x11 or dalmasi@nationalcenter.org Washington, D.C. - Legislation introduced by Representative Keith Ellison (D-MN) to prohibit photo ID requirements for voting in federal elections would promote election fraud, say members of the black leadership network Project 21. "Representative Ellison's proposal is fundamentally flawed and potentially harmful to the integrity of our democratic process," said Project 21 chairman Mychal Massie. "Why invite that which can only lead to unimaginable fraud and corruption?" Imposing existing Minnesota election law on a national scale, the...