Way to go Kansas Sec. of State Kris Kobach (R)! You caught another one!
When Hiller arrived at the polls, however, she was told that she could not exercise her right to vote after all. Hiller was turned away because she did not have a photo ID, and Kansas has a strict voter ID law that disenfranchises voters without identification…
See the full story from Ian Millhiser here. Hiller wasn’t allowed to vote by provisional ballot, though it likely wouldn’t have helped either her or the other elderly voters on the same bus who were turned away that day.
We’ve covered Kobach’s long, embarassing, shameful, dishonest and continuing efforts to keep certain voters from being able to vote, by lying about “voter fraud” to Kansans, for some time.
As the Topeka Capital-Journal reported the story of what happened to Hiller and the other senior citizens who lost their voting rights in Kansas during the recent primary, “Kobach spearheaded the ID law and a proof-of-citizenship requirement to register, saying the measures are necessary to prevent voter impersonation and protect the state from ‘alien’ voters.”
Of course, despite his pretend claims and his 2010 SoS campaign promise to “STOP VOTER FRAUD”, Kobach has been unable to find any of it. But, hey, at least he’s keeping some of the oldest people in his state from being able to participate in their “representative democracy” at all! That’s gotta count for something!
Jerk.
Ah, but there’s a silver lining. If Republicans can pass photo ID laws to prevent citizens from participating in our “democracy,” perhaps Democrats should pass a law mandating that any corporation that wishes to be considered a “person” for the purpose of making a campaign contribution, must first secure a photo ID in the form of a state-issued driver’s license, and, must prove that it is capable of operating a motor vehicle without the aid of a real, live human being.
Unless she is independently wealthy, she is on Medicare and would have had to provide proof of citizenship at the time she became eligible. She also has to provide proof of identification to reside in the nursing home. If she actually exists (Think Progress is not a trustworthy, legitimate news source), I suspect someone is using that poor lady for political purposes that she is not even aware of. Shame on them. In addition, unless the people at the nursing home are brain dead, they would have know she needed to provide proof of identity in order to vote. It has not been kept a secret. So I can only conclude this was a set up. In one Maryland county in 2012, 38 percent of the voters were not legal residents of the country.
Lydia Lozano @2 writes:
Kindly provide links for the source of this astounding claim.
We found FL Gov. Rick Scott (R) making a similar claim as he attempted to purge 182,000 eligible voters from the Sunshine State’s eligible voter rolls as potential “non-citizens.”
An extensive investigation revealed only nine (9) instances out of 11.2 million legally registered voters in which non-citizens were on the rolls, and most did not actually vote.
I suspect the reason you don’t regard Think Progress as a “trustworthy, legitimate news source” is probably due to your foolish belief that Fox “News” is a reliable source of information.
Lydia Lozana @ 2:
Citizenship wasn’t an issue here. In Kansas, that only matters for people when they’re registering, and as she’s been a registered voters for decades, what you just offered is sometimes called a red herring.
But here is where you seem to really not understand how polling place Photo ID restrictions work. “Proof of identification” is easy. Most states already require such proof when voting (and all 50 states, under federal law, require it when registering to vote). It’s the very narrow, very specific, state-issued Photo ID that is a problem for millions of American voters. The woman’s drivers license may have suffice just fine when she move into the nursing home, if “proof of identification” was required. So would a bank statement or a veterans ID or a social security card.
But if her drivers license had expired a couple of years ago and she no longer drives (because she’s 97!) Kansas, and the other state’s where Republicans have been able to institute polling place Photo ID (voter suppression) laws, would not have allowed any of those “proofs of identication” to allow her to cast her otherwise legal vote.
So, you did know that “proof of identification” is not what is needed in those states, right? That’s what needed to register in ALL of them. But voting is a different issue in the states where you support Republican voter suppression laws.
It’s not a news source at all. But, had you bothered to actually read the story, and learn what you were talking about, you’d have seen that they link to the original news reports on her and the others whose rights you seem quite giddy were lost.
Good work. That way you won’t have to hate yourself for hating American values like democracy. Makes sense.
Ernie already asked you for the evidence of that. But perhaps you have “concluded” that no evidence is actually necessary in order for you to believe things you want to believe, or have been duped into believe by fake, illegitimate “news” sources, like Fox and friends.
This is a throwback to scandal in Arizona of a 97-year-old woman blocked from voting in primary I reported for Huffington Post and other outlets several years ago:
http://crooksandliars.com/2008/06/11/97-year-old-arizona-woman-disenfranchised-by-voter-id-law