Posted on 10/27/2014 3:17:15 PM PDT by MNDude
Ever since he turned 18 he has made a point of voting in general elections, having been brought up by his African American parents to think that it is important, part of what he calls “doing the right thing”. He remembers the excitement of voting for Barack Obama in 2008 to help elect the country’s first black president, his grandmother crying tears of joy on election night. “My grandfather and uncle, they used to tell me all the time there will be a black president. I never believed it, never in a million years.”
He voted again for Obama in his re-election bid in 2012, and turned out for the 2010 midterm elections in between. But this year is different. Kennie is one of an estimated 600,000 Texans who, though registered to vote, will be unable to do so because they cannot meet photo-identification requirements set out in the state’s new voter-ID law, SB14 .
But last week, in the early hours of 18 October, when most Texans were sleeping, the US supreme court snuck out a one-line judgmentthat allowed the voter-ID restrictions to be applied this election cycle. Without any explanation, a majority of the justices effectively threw Eric Kennie and many thousands of others like him – particularly black, Hispanic and low-income Texans – into a state of democratic limbo.
“This is the first time the courts have allowed a law that actually keeps people from voting to go into effect, even though a judge found it was passed for the purpose of making it harder for minorities to vote,” said Wendy Weiser, head of the democracy programme at the Brennan Centre for Justice.
(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...
It’s a mite pricey but the birth certificate needed by most places can be had by express mail.
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He has a birth certificate but it doesn’t pass muster as it list his last name as his mother’s
last name even thought his mother and father were married at his birth. He apparently is
using his father’s last name. Next he had a legal ID but let it expire in 2000 when he could have
renewed it but chose not to. Yes he’s got problems but most of them are of his own making.
He’s looking for someone to take his hand and lead him to the finish line it appears.
Just my read on the situation.
If so, the political climate certainly is ripe for handing a huge megaphone to these chance cases of bad luck.
black criminals refuse to show ID in the Texas ghettos
To get an EIC, Kennie needs to be able to show the Texas department of public safety (DPS) other forms of documentation that satisfy them as to his identity. He presented them with his old personal ID card – issued by the DPS itself and with his photo on it – but because it is more than 60 days expired (it ran out in 2000) they didn’t accept it. Next he showed them an electricity bill, and after that a cable TV bill, but on each occasion they said it didn’t cut muster and turned him away.
Each trip to the DPS office involved taking three buses, a journey that can stretch to a couple of hours. Then he had to stand in line, waiting for up to a further three hours to be seen, before finally making another two-hour schlep home.
In one of his trips to the DPS last year they told him he needed to get hold of a copy of his birth certificate as the only remaining way he could meet the requirements and get his EIC. That meant going on yet another three-bus trek to the official records office in a different part of town.
The cost of acquiring a birth certificate in Texas is $23, which may not sound much but it is to Kennie. He is poor, like many of the up to 600,000 Texans caught in the current voter ID trap.
The outcome was perhaps predictable by now: the birth certificate wasn’t up to scratch either. When he took it to the DPS (another three buses there, three buses back, another two hours waiting in line) they told him that the name on the birth certificate didn’t match the name on his voter registration card. The birth certificate has him down as Eric Caruthers – his mother’s maiden name – even though his parents were married at the time he was born.
Oh, good grief. So now it's racist to make this guy take a long bus trip, stand in line, get a copy of his own birth certificate, and fix a 45-year-old error (on his birth certificate) that his parents never caught or tried to fix themselves?
I early voted yesterday. I gave them my drivers license and they gave me a ballot after checking the voter registration roles.
I had no problems.
And where are the Donks... they don’t want him to get that ID either, and a conscientious one could probably cut that Gordian knot for him in a few days. But what political use is that compared with getting him to scream in frustration?
Ooh thats right. I have to show my DL when I sell acrap, as well as provide my license plate number.
texas has automatic voter registration when at the dmv for a drivers license
he’s 45 years old.
Voter ID laws limit their ability to commit vote fraud. That's why Democrats are opposed to this. No other reason.
Thanks for Texas voter registration education.
“He works as a “scrapper”, foraging in people’s garbage to collect cans, bottles and metal for recycling.”
In Texas (I looked it up), in order to sell scrap to a recycler, you have to have a photo ID...
http://www.scraplaws.com/scrap-laws-by-state.php?stateid=TX
Pathetic.
Cry me a river, then jump into the river and drown.
People THIS stupid shouldn’t be allowed to vote.
I went for a mammogram last week- gave the girl my insurance card and she said I need to see photo ID. Then pointed to a sign that says “Due to identity fraud photo ID required”.
texas has automatic voter registration when at the dmv for a drivers license
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Apparently he doesn’t have a DL or he’d have valid photo ID.
Then it’s working the way it is supposed to work.
I didn’t understand it either until:
My son lost his SS card- he doesn’t drive because he is mentally impaired- he is higher functioning-able to read, write and get around on the bus. Doesn’t drive. Anyways, for him to get his State ID he needed his SS card, to get a replacement for SS card he needed a photo ID that had his birth date and his SS # on the card. Took him a month before he found an old bus card that had that information on the ID.
So there are folks that can’t get a Photo Id due to the above example. Also, if you owe fines(unpaid parking tickets, court fee’s, etc) you can’t get a State ID until they are paid.
I learned also that you can only get a maximum of 10 replacement SS cards in your life-time.
I don’t hear liberals complaining that Texans must show an ID to buy guns, booze, ammo, houses, get loans, open bank accounts, get a job, or anything else...just when it comes to illegal voting by illegal aliens they bitch.
But just not a valid or lawful one.
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