Lawyers Already Debating Voter Rights?

We’re still a year out of the election, but don’t think that we’ve fallen behind on what really matters in November of 2012. Apparently, Democratic lawyers are already gearing up their objections to Voter ID and other voter protection laws that have come on the books since the voter fraud disasters of 2008.

Now, not every city is Chicago, where the dead rise in huge numbers to turn out for Election Day, but nearly every state experienced some form of voter fraud activity during the first Presidential election, with the alleged help of that reliable left-wing “assistance” organization, ACORN. But with unions out to protect their influence over the White House and an increasingly desperate administration looking at horrible poll numbers, is it any surprise that the first legal debate of the year had law school professors hashing out the downsides of keeping laws requiring identification at the voting booth on the books?

Nahhhhhhhhhhhh.

Professor Tokaji challenged the evidence of proponents of voter ID by saying: “I don’t think that the supporters of those laws have met their burden of justification.”:  According to von Spakovsky, photo identification laws prevent voting under fictitious voter registration, double voting by people registered in more than one state and voting by illegal aliens.:  He said that there are “voter fraud cases all over the country in different places” and such fraud “can make a difference in a close election.”

Professor Tokaji’s next argument was that “Voter identification laws pose an unnecessary burden that is likely to have an adverse impact on voting rights particularly those of low-income and racial minorities.”:  He claimed that voter ID laws are “hitting people of lower socioeconomic status the hardest.”

According to Heritage Foundation scholars, the assertion that minorities suffer when voter ID laws are enacted is simply false. University of Missouri, Heritage Foundation and University of Delaware studies have all shown that there is no marked decrease in minority voting when a law requiring voters to show some proof of residency in their precinct take effect. As far as lower income voters, well, alongside nearly every voter identification law is a companion law that allows people in lower socioeconomic situations to obtain a state-issued identification card for free. Luckily, Heritage foundation scholar Hans von Spakovsky was on hand to set the record straight.

It’s good to know, though, that we’re already looking at months of Democrats playing the politics of fear over voter registration. Actually, it kind of gives me hope. Not that I hope they decide to repeat 2008, register tons of ineligible people and put the Black Panthers in charge of polling places, but that they’re so terrified of potential Republican candidates that they’re already putting their affairs in order. It’s a bittersweet hope. But it’s better than Changey Hope. I think.

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