S.C. votes without new voter ID law

[The Straight Story]

SUMTER, S.C - Dr. Brenda Williams, who grew up in the segregated South, has spent 30 years helping patients register to vote. She considers the state's new voter ID law a reminder of when blacks were forced to sit in the back of the bus.

...

In all, 85,000 registered voters in South Carolina are without the kind of ID that would be required under the new law, according to a vetting of the voter rolls by the state's department of motor vehicles.

According to the state's own data, blacks in South Carolina are 20 percent more likely than whites to lack a driver's license or a state-issued photo ID. The Justice Department flagged that statistic as evidence that the new law would be discriminatory and blocked it from taking effect under the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

In addition, many older blacks, born outside of hospitals during segregation, don't even possess a birth certificate, which is required to get a license or state-issued photo ID.
...

Without a photo ID, obtaining your birth certificate in South Carolina costs $30, plus shipping costs, and double that if you were born out of state.

"This is a poll tax. This is requiring people to pay money to cast a ballot, and I don't think we want that in this country," Joe said.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-250_162-57363426/s.c-votes-without-new-voter-id-law/

[wildeyed]

1. They claim to have witnessed voter fraud, but never come up with the proof.

They are investigating voter fraud, but never actually find it. And yet these laws continue. And people's racist and classist assumptions continue to enable them as well. Makes me so mad.

[mojowork_n]

2. The other shoe...

Last edited Mon Jan 23, 2012, 12:54 AM - Edit history (1)

There was a post elsewhere that had the South Carolina Attorney General making the
claim that 953 persons of the no-longer-with-us (legally deceased) type had cast
ballots in the primary.

I don't have the link but it looked like a local TV station. Could it be that some folks --
maybe some of the same people in charge of running the election? -- stuffed a few
ballots, to manufacture voter fraud?

I won't be surprised if no one ever gets to the bottom of who cast the illegal votes,
if there is never a smoking gun found, just a general stink. Reinforcing the call and
rallying all the "we have to have Voter ID" folks.

Edit to add link to the news report, and quote:

http://www.wtoc.com/story/16571904/south-carolinas-attorney-general-detects-voter-fraud-for-primaries

South Carolina's Attorney General, Alan Wilson has notified the U.S. Justice Department of potential voter fraud.
Wilson says an analysis found 953 ballots cast by voters were people who are listed as dead.
He has asked the State Law Enforcement Division to investigate.