2007 Articles Index
America Can Be Better
Our Most Fundamental Right:
To Vote without Identifying
Ourselves As Legitimate Voters
What am I missing? How is this "shredding the voting rights of elderly, disabled, minority and low-income voters? Why are they "unlikely to produce a photo ID"? Why can they not "produce the ability to easily obtain one"? (I'm pretty sure the writer didn't mean to say that these voters would produce the ability, but that's a point for a different discussion.)
Read the email yourself. While I don't doubt that some Republicans do indeed lie, primarily because history provides us so many sad proofs, is this presentation truthful in some way that I am not seeing? Or is this a case of someone saying, "Here, listen to my lies about the lies those guys are telling you!"
From: TX Democratic Party [mailto:democrats@txdemocrats.org]
Sent: Wednesday, April 25, 2007 3:12 PM
Subject: Help Stop Republican Lies
Dear fellow Democrats,
I had hoped differently, but Texas Republicans did exactly what we feared. Under the pretense of a fake "epidemic" of voter fraud, Republicans are working overtime to trample the voting rights of millions of Texans for raw partisan political gain. Today, Republicans in the Texas House passed legislation (HB 218) requiring voters to show election officials, in addition to a voter registration card, a photo ID or two forms of non-photo ID in order to cast their vote.
It's Tom DeLay style politics at its worst. Republicans are shredding the voting rights of elderly, disabled, minority and low-income voters -- all unlikely to quickly produce a photo ID or the ability to easily obtain one-and more likely to vote Democratic.
This Texas Republican voter suppression effort is part of a larger, national Republican voter suppression scheme designed to keep certain groups of people away from the polls. It's the same partisan agenda that Karl Rove that has orchestrated within the scandal-ridden U.S. Justice Department and Texas AG Greg Abbott has pursued through his high-profile phony "mail ballot enforcement" campaign that overwhelmingly targets seniors and minorities.
. . .
But it's no surprise that Republicans want to build a wall around the ballot box. Republicans will stop at nothing to retain power, even if it means running roughshod over the most fundamental right of our democracy, the right to vote.
You don't have to sit idly while Republicans destroy the fundamental rights that protect our freedom. You can join the Texas Democratic Party in fighting back.
Make no mistake. This type of disenfranchisement is a political response from a Republican Party whose failed agenda was rejected by voters across Texas and the nation last year.
. . .
Don't let Republicans win by using dirty tricks and denying citizens the fundamental right to vote!
Your friend and fellow Democrat,
Boyd L. Richie
Chairman
