Gov. Bob McDonnell (R, VA) signs Voter ID bill.

Because statewide elections matter

Executive summary: the new legislation now requires people filling out provisional ballots from lack of acceptable ID at the polling station “to subsequently submit identification to the electoral board if they want their vote to be counted.”  The list of acceptable forms of ID was also expanded to include things like current utility bills and valid student IDs, which will no doubt raise eyebrows among people familiar with voter fraud; but making voters responsible for verifying their own provisional ballots is a pretty important step.

Naturally, agents of the Left (like Anna Scholl of ProgressVA) are livid about this legislation passing.  As usual, they’re taking the (heavily racist) position that black people are too stupid to remember to bring their voter registration card, Social Security card, driver’s license, state college ID, employee photo ID, utility bill, bank statement, government check, and/or paycheck to the polling station*. Or perhaps Scholl simply doesn’t believe that black people have any of those things: it’s been my experience that hardcore progressive activists are often suffering from raging cases of epistemic closure… Continue reading Gov. Bob McDonnell (R, VA) signs Voter ID bill.

Election reform bill passes WI state house.

Wisconsin’s voter ID bill passed, 60-35; it now goes to the Senate, to be worked on next week.  The bill will require that voters show picture ID before voting: what really has Democrats in a tizzy about this is that to be valid a student ID will need “current address, birth date, signature and expiration date.”  This effectively removes all Wisconsin student IDs from consideration… and if they start adding that information it will become abundantly clear, very quickly, that a lot of students are not going through the hassle of changing their legal address every year to reflect their attending college.  Which is another way of saying that a lot of students are voting in districts that they’re not actually supposed to be voting in.

This is the real issue for Democratic party bigwigs, methinks – and for all that they pretend that it’s a minority voter issue.  The reality is, people will bend over backward to make sure that the urban poor get ID to keep from being disenfranchised: this country takes voting seriously; it’s the right thing to do; and – if the first two reasons aren’t enough – the federal government will come down like a hammer from orbit on anybody trying anything different.  But students being told that they can’t vote in Madison because they actually live in Sheboygan?  Yeah, that’s going to get less sympathy. – even if the Democratic party would rather have that vote count in Madison. Continue reading Election reform bill passes WI state house.