In the article titled "Federal Judge Strikes Down Wisconsin Law Requiring Photo ID as Polls," Davey and Yaccino discuss the 2011 law that was struck down earlier this year. The judge ruled that this law violated the 14th Amendment and the Voting Rights Act because proportionally, there are more black Wisconsin citizens living below the poverty line than white citizens. Those who live below the poverty line have more trouble finding transportation to obtain photo IDs, and they are less likely to use these photo IDs for things like banking and international travel. Critics also point out that this might have proportionally prevented more Democrats from voting than Republicans. However, advocates say that this law helped prevent fraud and increased confidence in the voting system.
This decision shows that the judicial system is using the 14th Amendment to protect the basic rights of people. However, a Supreme Court decision on a law in Indiana upheld a similar law in 2008. It will be interesting to see if this law gets appealed to the Supreme Court.
Until fraud becomes a major issue, I think that restrictions like these should not be allowed because everyone has the natural right to vote. However, if voting fraud begins to increase, a measure may need to be found that helps prevent fraud at very little inconvenience to the voting population.
How would they determine who has voted and who has not?
ReplyDeleteI think it would actually make sense to have to have photo IDs for Voting because of the fraud problem. But i guess it can be seem as something like what they used to do to keep blacks from voting after the civil war.
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