It is 2am. I have been listening to the Senate debate voter ID suppression for the past 16 hours. I hope all of you have been following us on Twitter, as some of those tweets were quite entertaining.
I have heard the arguments. Here are my opinions:
Those opposed to voter ID have successfully proved that this is a solution to a problem that does not exist. Period. Years of investigations by the AG’s office costing millions of dollars and not a single indictment.
However, those who are in favor of requiring voters to present picture ID also have a compelling argument that they claim not one person has been kept from voting. But, I hate to ruin a good story with the facts, but that just ain’t so. According to the Houston Chronicle today yesterday, over 4200 voters were kept from voting in the 2008 election in Georgia alone, whose law the proposed bill is based on.
As I tweeted earlier, one of the expert witnesses claimed that based on demographics and the experience in Georgia and Indiana, 162,901 Texans would be disenfranchised.
Sounds like a big hurdle for voters to “solve” a problem that doesn’t exist.
I have to get up in 4 hours and go to Dallas. I’m beat. I’ll keep the Senate testimony on all night and let it permeate my dreams (scary, no?) Maybe by the time I wake up they will have gotten to public testimony and I can swing back by the Capitol and testify before heading to Dallas. Not bloody likely, but I can dream….
