(Key part of the GOP strategy to disenfranchise voters. (Portion moved below the fold.) - promoted by William Tucker)
Next Tuesday, April 12, at 1:00 p.m. the New Hampshire House Election Law Committee will hold a hearing on SB129, AN ACT relative to presenting photo identification to vote in person and relative to the election fund.
Senate Bill 129, passed in the Senate last week, purports to be aimed at preventing voter fraud but is, in reality, nothing but an attempt to prevent certain groups of people from voting. The primary target is the 80,000 college students who are currently eligible to vote in NH. The collateral damage will be to the 40,000 or so elderly, disabled, poor and members of minority groups who don't have current government issued photo IDs.
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Under SB129, people already registered to vote would have to produce a current military ID, current passport, current NH driver's license or current NH non-driver ID before receiving a ballot on Election Day. The bill allows student IDs and employee IDs with an expiration date but, since NH student IDs and state employee IDs don't include an expiration date, they can't be used.
If you don't have one of the IDs, you'll have to have a picture taken at the polling place before you can get a ballot. The digital mug shot will be kept "on file." SB129 doesn't address privacy or security concerns. It doesn't explain who will have access to the photos or if they can be used for purposes other than voter identification. Will the photos be stored with your voter registration form which includes your name, birth date, place of birth, current address, partial social security number and signature? Will they be stored online and subject to hacking?
There is no form of voter fraud that can be prevented by taking citizens' pictures at the polling place on Election Day. The only possible result of this legislation will be to discourage certain groups of citizens from voting.
While many people think everyone has a driver's license, the truth is that tens of thousands of citizens in NH don't have a photo ID that meets the requirements of SB129. These include elderly people who stopped driving years ago, disabled people who have never had a driver's license, poor people who can't afford the documents needed to acquire a driver's license, minorities who are less likely to own a car or drive, and thousands of students who don't bring cars to school so have never needed to get a NH license. Most students without a NH license are underage so they have no reason to pay for a NH non-driver ID either.
All of these citizens can appear at the polls on Election Day and register to vote using other forms of identification to satisfy NH's voter registration laws. They will not, however, be given a ballot unless they agree to let someone at the polls take their picture.
For the elderly, just getting into another line for another process may be too physically demanding. For those who are too poor to get a license, the process will be humiliating. For many disabled people who struggle already to get to the polls, this is another obstacle to full participation in society. And, for many young people it will, undoubtedly, be seen as a hassle and unnecessary waste of time especially in one of the many polling places that handle 10,000 or more voters on Election Day.
This bill is being pushed hard by Speaker O'Brien, the Republican House leadership and by a number of national organizations like ALEC. If it passes, the electoral landscape could radically change by 2012.
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