Posted on 09/27/2004 3:45:17 PM PDT by ambrose
September 27, 2004
Voter ID scuffle coming to a head
By Deborah Baker The Associated Press
SANTA FE - For years, voter identification has been a back-burner issue in New Mexico, a Republican favorite killed by majority Democrats in Capitol committee rooms.
Its advance to the front burner comes in a red-hot election year.
President Bush and John Kerry are locked in a tight race in a state haunted by a number: 366, the number of votes by which Bush lost New Mexico in the last election.
This year, Democrats and Republicans are determined to leave no voter - none of their own voters, anyway - behind.
The voter ID dispute to be heard by the state Supreme Court today stems from conflicting interpretations of a 2003 state law requiring some first-time voters to show identification at the polls.
At the core of the fight is the thousands of New Mexicans who have registered during voter drives at grocery stores, coffee shops, gas stations and malls.
Secretary of State Rebecca Vigil-Giron, a Democrat and the state's top elections official, says the 2003 law does not require those first-time voters to show ID at the polls.
Chaves County Clerk David Kunko and state District Judge Charles Currier - both Republicans - disagree with her.
The statute says first-time registrants must provide ID, whether voting at the polls or absentee, if their voter registration forms are "not submitted in person by the applicant."
Kunko claims that means "in person" at the county clerk's office. A first-time voter who registers anywhere else - even at a motor vehicle or welfare office - would have to show ID in order to vote, under his interpretation. Currier concurred.
Vigil-Giron says that's misreading the law. "In person" means anyone not registering by mail, she says - including those who register in front of a person at a mall.
Kunko's interpretation, she argues, conflicts with another section of law, to the effect that voters who showed up at the polls would face stricter ID requirements than those who voted absentee.
There are other legal issues, too: whether the county clerk is obliged to comply with the secretary of state's directive, for example, and whether the Chaves County ruling was flawed because the secretary of state wasn't made part of the case.
Kunko says the law is clear and Vigil-Giron's interpretation is "just wrong," so he doesn't have to follow it.
The voter ID laws, he says, "were enacted to combat election fraud and to protect the integrity of the electoral process."
The Democratic Party, in documents filed with the court, accuses Republicans of trying to disrupt the presidential election with "false and trumped-up claims" of widespread voter registration fraud.
They say the GOP doesn't want newly registered voters - nearly 120,000 of them in the past year - to be allowed easy access to the polls. That's because about 44 percent of them registered as Democrats, the party says, while about 24 percent are Republican and 32 percent unaffiliated.
Democrats also argue that tens of thousands of new voters were told they wouldn't have to show ID unless they registered by mail, and it would be impossible to notify them all of new ID requirements before absentee voting begins Oct. 5.
And Democrats are falling back on a longstanding argument against voter ID: that it tends to disenfranchise poor, rural, student, Hispanic and Indian voters.
The challenge to Vigil-Giron's ruling was first brought in Bernalillo County, where Judge Robert Thompson, a Democrat, concluded it would be too disruptive to the election and rule out too many voters to impose the broader ID requirement argued by Republicans.
GOP challengers had better luck in Chaves County and then in Otero County, where GOP judges upheld their broader interpretation.
The secretary of state then took the matter to the Supreme Court, citing the need to have the law applied uniformly throughout the state.
Pinging sweetliberty.
I think with the exception of job related and military absences, you should have to take your lazy ass to a place to vote and show some ID.
All this BS about voting on the internet and motor votor crap is an invitation for fraud.
In Florida you need two forms of ID, a voter registration card and photo id.
If you show up without them, there is some provision ballot you can fill out, but those ballots are highly scrutinized for authenticity.
If you don't have a photo ID, you can get one from the driver's license bureau without getting a license.
It's a no-brainer that one of the best ways to prevent voter fraud is to require voters to present ID at the polls, yet Dems always oppose this - I wonder why?
Nobody cares about that arguement anymore, except politicians who think that Dan Rather is the bomb.
What she is actually saying is - "You can't disenfranchize our illegal voters!"
Please Pass Emergency Anti-Vote Fraud Measure Immediately!
Vote fraud threatens the very core of our republic, and it directly threatens our sovereignty
Please send the following message to your Congressmen and Senators:
Please pass, on an expedited basis, emergency legislation to require voters to show ID at all polling places on Election Day.
Vote fraud threatens the very core of our republic, and it directly threatens our sovereignty. There is a significant amount of evidence emerging that evinces a wide-spread plot to engage in massive voter fraud. Thus, Congress must take immediate action to counter this potential menace.
Congress has the express power to dictate the time, place, and manner in which federal elections are held. The congressional power to make or alter time, place, or manner of federal elections extends to the regulation of voter registration. Federal regulation of the electoral processes, including the regulation of federal voter registration, is also consistent with the Tenth Amendment and permissible; although states do have broad discretion to enact and implement registration procedures, states may not transgress the Constitution. It follows that state voter registration and Election Day statutes that are inconsistent with federal voter registration and Election Day mandates are preempted.
As per the Federal Court in Byrd v. Brice, the government may require a voter to furnish proof of identity at the polling place on Election Day. Such a measure would go a long way in protecting citizens’ federal voting rights from fraudulent practices.
Please set to work immediately on enacting emergency legislation to require a valid ID at the polling places on Election Day.
http://capwiz.com/congressorg/issues/alert/?alertid=6486121&content_dir=ua_congressorg&mailid=custom
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