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South Carolina Disenfranchises Non-Photogenic Voters
Ahead of its 2012 GOP presidential primary, South Carolina is under fire for having enacted a voter identification law that would require citizens to show poll workers a photo ID before voting. (You know-sort of like having to pay a poll tax and prove your ancestors came over on the Mayflower.) The law is intended to curb voter fraud, which is more prevalent in South Carolina and other southern states and states with relatively small populations. Some states' historically corrupt local governments and proximity to the Mexican border have yielded a disproportionate incidence of voter-impersonation fraud, including non-citizens voting, ex-felons voting, and dead people voting. Small populations increase the influence that a handful of invalid votes can have on a precinct's outcome. Seven states besides South Carolina require a government-issued photo ID to vote: Texas, Georgia, Tennessee, Mississippi, Indiana, Wisconsin, and Kansas. Seven additional states require a simple photo ID: Florida, Alabama, Louisiana, Michigan, South Dakota, Idaho, and Hawaii. Three states passed photo ID laws in 2011 but were blocked by their governors' vetoes. Sixteen other states require non-photo identification.
Twenty years after that historic split of India, civil war breaks out in a country hundreds of miles away from India. The war which was dubbed 'Biafran war ' started seven years after the colonial leaders departed the country. Though some would argue that the warlord who led the faction that wished to secede had a personal agenda, the popular outcry at the time echoed that in India before the split i.e. that the geographical area named Nigeria was a creation of the colonial master and not a true nation with inhabitants who wilfully decided to come together. Of course the split of India did not go without hitch. Once the decision in favor of partition was made, the parties next faced this nearly impossible task of fixing a border between the new states. The Muslims occupied two main regions in the north on opposite sides of the country, separated by a majority-Hindu section. In addition, throughout most of northern India members of the two religions were mixed together - not to mention populations of Sikhs, Christians and other minority faiths. The Sikhs campaigned for a nation of their own, but their appeal was denied.
Democrats use this tired old tactic time and again: Take a perfectly neutral, fair-minded policy whose originators don't consider or mention race in the slightest, then twist it to make it look as though people who support it are bigots. College admissions committees should be color-blind? Racist. Black firefighters should pass the same test as white and Hispanic firefighters? Racist. Voters should produce photo IDs before they vote? Racist. Opponents of the law argue that, since getting a photo ID costs money, the voter ID requirement constitutes an illegal poll tax. Never mind that it's free to get a state-issued ID in South Carolina, and that Governor Nikki Haley has supplied taxpayer-funded, free carpools to take people to pick up their free IDs at the DMV.
The Supreme Court concluded, in its 2008 rejection of a challenge to Indiana's voter ID law, that requiring voters to obtain an ID is not an unseemly burden. Tellingly, the plaintiff was unable to produce a single witness who couldn't meet the voter ID requirement. Even liberal stalwart John Paul Stevens joined the 6-3 majority and penned its consensus decision. (In his dissent, Justice Souter wrote that the state must provide evidence of voter fraud before it could pass a voter ID law, which is like saying that a jurisdiction must provide evidence of identity theft before it can pass a law against identity theft.) Another nonsensical argument is that South Carolina is using a states' rights position to defend its law, which it used to defend slavery and racial segregation; therefore, voter ID laws are racist. Yet South Carolina has been battling the federal government recently over other states' rights issues, such as ObamaCare and the NLRB's lawsuit against Boeing for moving jobs from Washington to South Carolina. The Palmetto State is currently ground zero for states' rights defenses against federal overreach, and none of it has a whit to do with race.
Different groups sprung from the Niger-delta states all agitating for more funds to be spent developing their region especially after the devastation caused by oil exploration companies. A few of the groups became militant adopting tactics ranging from kidnapping of oil company workers to blowing up of oil installations.
It is very doubtful that Iran would ever fire a warhead against Israel on a first-strike basis, but the same does not hold for Israel's response to the perceived threat of attack by Iran.
Voting is a right-but it doesn't take place in a vacuum, and states may use constitutional means to enforce fair, non-fraudulent voting activity on their turf. No one's saying we need voter ID laws in every state, or that such laws can't vary in strictness. But on this states' rights issue, South Carolina has determined it needs this law to ensure the integrity of its elections.
Twenty years after that historic split of India, civil war breaks out in a country hundreds of miles away from India. The war which was dubbed 'Biafran war ' started seven years after the colonial leaders departed the country. Though some would argue that the warlord who led the faction that wished to secede had a personal agenda, the popular outcry at the time echoed that in India before the split i.e. that the geographical area named Nigeria was a creation of the colonial master and not a true nation with inhabitants who wilfully decided to come together. Of course the split of India did not go without hitch. Once the decision in favor of partition was made, the parties next faced this nearly impossible task of fixing a border between the new states. The Muslims occupied two main regions in the north on opposite sides of the country, separated by a majority-Hindu section. In addition, throughout most of northern India members of the two religions were mixed together - not to mention populations of Sikhs, Christians and other minority faiths. The Sikhs campaigned for a nation of their own, but their appeal was denied.
Democrats use this tired old tactic time and again: Take a perfectly neutral, fair-minded policy whose originators don't consider or mention race in the slightest, then twist it to make it look as though people who support it are bigots. College admissions committees should be color-blind? Racist. Black firefighters should pass the same test as white and Hispanic firefighters? Racist. Voters should produce photo IDs before they vote? Racist. Opponents of the law argue that, since getting a photo ID costs money, the voter ID requirement constitutes an illegal poll tax. Never mind that it's free to get a state-issued ID in South Carolina, and that Governor Nikki Haley has supplied taxpayer-funded, free carpools to take people to pick up their free IDs at the DMV.
The Supreme Court concluded, in its 2008 rejection of a challenge to Indiana's voter ID law, that requiring voters to obtain an ID is not an unseemly burden. Tellingly, the plaintiff was unable to produce a single witness who couldn't meet the voter ID requirement. Even liberal stalwart John Paul Stevens joined the 6-3 majority and penned its consensus decision. (In his dissent, Justice Souter wrote that the state must provide evidence of voter fraud before it could pass a voter ID law, which is like saying that a jurisdiction must provide evidence of identity theft before it can pass a law against identity theft.) Another nonsensical argument is that South Carolina is using a states' rights position to defend its law, which it used to defend slavery and racial segregation; therefore, voter ID laws are racist. Yet South Carolina has been battling the federal government recently over other states' rights issues, such as ObamaCare and the NLRB's lawsuit against Boeing for moving jobs from Washington to South Carolina. The Palmetto State is currently ground zero for states' rights defenses against federal overreach, and none of it has a whit to do with race.
Different groups sprung from the Niger-delta states all agitating for more funds to be spent developing their region especially after the devastation caused by oil exploration companies. A few of the groups became militant adopting tactics ranging from kidnapping of oil company workers to blowing up of oil installations.
It is very doubtful that Iran would ever fire a warhead against Israel on a first-strike basis, but the same does not hold for Israel's response to the perceived threat of attack by Iran.
Voting is a right-but it doesn't take place in a vacuum, and states may use constitutional means to enforce fair, non-fraudulent voting activity on their turf. No one's saying we need voter ID laws in every state, or that such laws can't vary in strictness. But on this states' rights issue, South Carolina has determined it needs this law to ensure the integrity of its elections.
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