To The Editor:
A lot of states governed by Republicans have passed laws this year requiring voters to show a photo ID at the polls. Rhode Island, Texas, Wisconsin, Tennessee, Alabama, Kansas and my home state of South Carolina. Republicans say the new measures aim only to prevent voter fraud, but Democrats see them as part of a concerted campaign to suppress the vote of students, minorities and legal immigrant groups that generally favor Democratic candidates.
This will effect over two hundred thousand citizens in South Carolina. To Governor Nikki Haley, are you trying to take back our voting rights? You just got in office and you and most of the Republican Governors just elected start messing with our voting rights that lots of citizens died to get. We let you get in and that tea party make laws to hurt the old middle class and poor citizens of South Carolina?
Why do the Democrats object? They say voter ID laws discriminate against poor people, young people, and minorities. Many foreign-born Americans lack the papers, such as a birth certificate, required to obtain a driver’s license or state ID. Texas accepts gun license as proof of identity, but not student IDs, making it harder for college students who voted two to one for Democrats in 2008 to cast their ballots. To get a “free” ID in South Carolina, voters must first pay for either a birth certificate or a passport. Rep. John Lewis (D-GA), a veteran of the civil rights movement called the raft of new laws a deliberate and systematic attempt “to discourage millions of poor and minority people from voting.”
I was asked are voter ID laws like the old poll tax laws. I answer yes. They will undoubtedly discourage some people from voting and most of them will be young, poor, or racial minorities. But that doesn’t mean voter ID laws are illegal or unconstitutional. In fact, the U.S. Supreme Court validated a voter ID law passed in Indiana in 2008. This leads to another problem if it goes to the U.S. Supreme Court. Justice Clarence Thomas must recuse himself from that vote, for his wife Ginni Thomas is a long time lobbyist for the tea party being paid over one hundred and thirty thousand dollars a year for at least 5 or more years!
Senator Gerald Malloy is in charge in Marlboro County Dist. #29 and is working with the chairlady of the NAACP, Mrs. Pearlie Lawson, and some church leaders. This is pushed into law. Governor Nikki Haley should tell her citizens what she is doing with our voting rights. Someone said they also want to change the early voting law and will pick up the old and the cripple and take them to get this new photo ID.
Average American,
John T. Nickoless
Bennettsville, SC
