Voter ID Battle Shifts to Proof of Citizenship

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/12/us/politics/12vote.html?hp

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 the political process. Critics say the measure could lead to the disenfranchisement of tens of thousands of legal residents who would find it difficult to prove their citizenship.

Voting experts say the Missouri amendment represents the next logical step for those who have supported stronger voter ID requirements and the next battleground in how elections are conducted. Similar measures requiring proof of citizenship are being considered in at least 19 state legislatures. Bills in Florida, Kansas, Oklahoma and South Carolina have strong support. But only in Missouri does the requirement have a chance of taking effect before the presidential election.

others they make up. A store was closed down and the fake card sellers arrested by the police. The immigrant community protested. It's OK to be lawless.

What needs to be done is employers held responsible for hiring illegal workers. There is no will to solve the problem right now.

Make it hurt for the big companies to hire illegals, then the influx will stop.

in Latin America to benefit corporations who need cheap labor down there, too.

I was 56 when I moved to Ga. from Pa. I had to provide my birth certificate and SS card to get my state ID. The quirky twist was when I gave them my birth certificate, they weren't happy with it because it didn't have a State Seal on it. I explained that it's the original, so maybe they didn't do that back then. It didn't matter. I had to order a new one from Pa.

That's the same as proving your citizenship, and if I were an immigrant who had gone through all you have to go through to get US Citizenship, I'd sure as hell keep the proof handy!

and was a citizen most of her life. When my dad drove her to visit a sister in Canada they had to go through the border near Buffalo, NY. She forgot her citizenship papers. She had a thick accent all her life so the border agents picked that up right away. They had to drive one and half hours back home and retrieve it again. My father was very angry at her of-course.

She had to keep it handy back then and that was almost thirty years ago.

I never had to prove citizenship and ran back and forth over the border all the time to the lake and Toronto. I had no accent in their opinion.

A friend of mine from Tennessee would get stopped and questioned all the time when he went to the border.

Today it is different and I bet there is a back up at the border that is worse than before. It was very long in the summer with people traveling to Niagara Falls and the lake. People from Canada also traveled to Buffalo to shop, go for entertainment, etc.

she really SHOULD have remembered her papers. I only visited Canada twice on vacations, but that was quite a few years ago and you didn't need anything more than a DL and not even that if they didn't ask for it. Now I too would have to get a passport to go to Canada or Mexico. I admit, I'm having a difficult time understand exactly why, and I also don;t know how to change it. That's STILL diff. from proving you are a citizen to obtain a voter ID.

restricted since 911. There was even talk of having a letter of permission to leave the country, etc. We'll see what they do after the election. It's looking like a Police State more and more.

I see no problem with having voter ID. People without drivers licensing, etc. should be able to get ID using some other way. A bunch of Nuns couldn't vote because they didn't drive. Older nursing home people are prevented from voting too. All still pay taxes.

With having to show proof of citizenship in order to register to vote. I honestly think there is a problem with allowing illegals to vote.

That attitude of allowing everyone to vote and vote often is not funny.

A few have registered by accident (motor voter, etc.) but they don't do that with an intent to vote and don't actually vote. The penalties on an illegal caught voting are quite severe and they would certainly be deported, so they don't try. All these laws do is prevent mostly Democrats from voting.

with officialdom. There is no problem with them trying to vote.

This is simply vote suppression dressed up as concern.

Probably 1/2 are 18+. That's a potential 4-5% problem....that's completely unproven. I haven't heard any stories about illegals voting...and why would they take that chance? This is a Republican motivated attack on the poor and disenfranchised. I've got a passport, but what are "citizenship papers"? Is this something I need to get from my local Republican Precinct Captain?

Screw these people...they've been screwing our country for years without concern. Now that people are finally starting to catch on, they suddenly need to start limiting Democrats from voting?

We have to stop their cheating @sses. :grr:

I seriously doubt that considering the color, gradation and fonts used by the utilities.

to see the results.

Since implementation in these programs, hundreds of thousands have been dropped from state Medicaid and social security programs. US citizens like foster children or orphans, now adults without the proper 'paperwork', who have contributed to social security all of their work lives are now being denied benefits.

These new programs and requirements that are routinely under resourced and under funded to handle the deluge of paperwork denies access.

lol

Our national patron saint should be Yossarian. :)