Ironically, the much vaunted claim that Voter ID laws would PROTECT the 'purity' (racial purity?) of elections from fraud by requiring ID, in states like Indiana did not do so. Notably the Republican Indiana Secretary of State, Charlie White, elected in the 2010 election cycle, was convicted in February of this year on six felony counts of voter fraud, theft, and perjury. White used his state-approved photo ID, his driver's license, to vote. The Wikipedia entry on Charles 'Charlie' P. White noted:
Conviction of voter fraud
On February 4, 2012, a jury found White guilty of six of seven felony charges, including false registration, voting in another precinct, submitting a false ballot, theft, and two counts of perjury. He was acquitted on one fraud charge.[18]Did Photo ID prevent voter fraud? No. Did Photo ID help detect or prosecute voter fraud? No; voter fraud was discovered because Democrats in Indiana protested the election and registration, along with protections in place prior to Voter ID. Voter ID did NOTHING to make that election free of fraud. Voter ID would not prevent any other problems with voter fraud occurring, despite the political right insisting that Democrats steal elections through voter fraud - and unsubstantiated, unproven and totally specious claim. We do not have a problem with voter fraud 'stealing' our elections; not by Democrats, not by illegal immigrants, not by the elderly, not by former felons legally allowed to vote, or any other group that would be affected by Voter ID.
What Voter ID does is to make it harder for certain targeted groups to vote or register to vote. In Texas, an estimated 600,000 (later revised to more than 800,000) minorities, mostly people who were Hispanic, would have been disenfranchised. Given the reluctance of the legislators passing that legislation to be transparent and open about their legislation, it was arguably their intent to do precisely that. From the Houston Chronicle, April 11, 2012 (my emphasis added in bold- DG):
AUSTIN - The U.S. Justice Department says there is substantial evidence that Texas' Voter ID law will discriminate against minorities.In court papers filed Wednesday, the department was explaining why Texas lawmakers should turn over their papers and communication regarding the law. Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott has argued that lawmakers should not have to reveal their internal deliberations.I can't come up with a single reason that 'deliberations' about voting should not be public. If there is ANY topic about which ALL deliberations should be open and public, voting would be at the top of the list, because it is so fundamental, so essential to representative government.
But the Justice Department says no such privilege exists and that the evidence presented so far shows that 600,000 people will be unable to vote if the law is enforced. The department added that minorities would be impacted the most.
Currently Texas law requires that a voter present a registration card or a photo identification card to vote. The law would require everyone to present an official photo ID card.
We do not have a problem with illegal immigrants voting in our elections; not in Minnesota, not in the nation. What we DO have is a problem with LEGAL communities, like Hispanic voters, being denied the vote by right wing efforts to suppress voting. And we have resistance to any non-European originating participation in the control and operation of this nation on the part of conservatives, as evidenced by white supremacist anti-non-European descended white people at conservative gatherings such as CPAC over a period of years, and behind legislation such as the anti-marriage equality amendment in North Carolina that just passed. We have it in conservative movements such as the Full Quiver movement, where the term 'Demographic Winter' is used by the right wing extremists - the same people in many cases promoting Voter ID laws - to create fears of white people in the U.S. and Europe losing their majority status:
"Demographic Winter is an argument being advanced by right-wing “pro-family” activists who claim that low fertility and falling birthrates in Europe auger a massive depopulation crisis that threatens the way of life of the white, Christian West. Particularly, they forecast a “death of Europe,” wherein hedonistic, atheistic and gay- and abortion-rights-friendly Europeans will bring about their own extinction by failing to have enough children to keep Muslim and Global South immigration at bay. Though there have been drops in fertility in Europe in recent decades, and it is a topic that numerous other organizations and governments and scientists are examining, the labeling of the phenomenon as a “Demographic Winter” apocalypse by the U.S.-based pro-family movement is a prelude to their offered solution: the revival of large, patriarchal families where the woman is a stay-at-home mother to a full quiver of children, and the father is a benevolent leader of his wife and children. In this way, coalitions like the World Congress of Families have neatly been able to co-opt a population trend, turn it into a crisis, amplify its threat and raise nationalistic support by drawing on centuries-old religious and racial conflicts, and provide the reactionary solution."
