Thursday, January 10, 2008

Better Get A Better Example

McIlheran and Sykes are still trying to argue for the need for voter suppression voter ID. They cite as an example a elderly woman who is registered to vote in both the States of Florida and Indiana. McIlheran is even considerate enough to provide a supporting article.

This supporting article as this in the story:

Ewing said Monday that her license is a “regular” one that she uses in both states. She renewed it in 2007 on a Punta Gorda, Fla. address.

At the Charlotte County, Fla. voter registration office, Sandy Wharton, vote qualifying office manager, said Ewing registered to vote in Charlotte County on Sept. 18, 2002, and signed an oath that she was a Florida resident and understood that falsifying the voter application was a third-degree felony punishable by prison and a fine up to $5,000. Wharton said her office checked Ewing’s Florida residency and qualified her on Oct. 2, 2002. On Oct. 4, 2002, they mailed her Florida voter card to her, to the West Lafayette, Ind. address that Ewing gave as a mailing address.

However, Ewing didn’t vote in Florida that year, nor has she ever voted in Charlotte County, Wharton said. But, just a month after receiving her Florida voter card, she did vote in the November 2002 elections in Tippecanoe County, Ind., according to Heather Maddox, co-director of elections and registration in Tippecanoe.

Ewing confirmed that she is registered in both states to vote, but at first said the Florida registration came automatically with her driver’s license. She repeatedly denied signing the oath on the Florida application. She also said Indiana mailed her an absentee ballot, but she didn’t use it or vote that year.
In other words, she did have an ID, from both states. It sounds like a bureaucratic snafu, and at the end of the article we see:

“(Ewing) is an example of how difficult it was to get an ID, period,” (Joanne)Evers (president of the Indiana League of Women Voters) said. “This law was intended to catch someone who is impersonating someone else and votes twice, not to catch someone who is perhaps trying to understand the bureaucracy of two states.

“I don¹t think Faye was trying to do anything illegal. The fact that she did not vote in Florida leads me to believe she did not intend anything criminal. I was at the poll when she was unable to vote and saw what she had to go through to get an Indiana ID card. I think (all of this) is part of the confusion. I hope the law is not to befuddle people trying to do the right thing.”

Evers pointed out that many other voters experienced similar problems, including a disabled senior citizen who had been voting all of her life and who didn¹t have the proper ID for the new law.
Not only does the article disprove the pro-suppression ID group's position, it goes on to prove the anti-suppression groups points of how difficult it is. No wonder the right is always so cranky. They don't even know how to win without cheating.

5 comments:

  1. Call Heir Bucher! He's great on those evil doers. If she's over 80 blind and a democrat that's better yet.

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  2. No, anony. Herr Bucher would only be interested in pursuing the matter if she was also an illegal immigrant.

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  3. If you listen to Jessica and Paul speak, you may wonder if they should have their papers checked before voting.

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  4. I wish the Republicans would save themselves the trouble. The voting requirements they want have already been written. They were called the Nuremberg Laws.

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  5. Bucher could prosecute a liberal that voted twice and wanted to start WWIII over an alleged open meeting violation but didn't discover campaign finance fraud and wouldn't pursue tax fraud violations by right wing individuals and orgaizations?

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