So in other words, River Tam.

Sophia,

your question about voter ID, etc. is exactly right. Several states have investigated the "problem" of voter fraud and found it to be negligible if not nonexistent. In fact, the documented cases of voter fraud of which I am aware were members of the GOP (Indiana and Colorado, I think).

In principle, I am not sure people are against voter ID, but the implementation is really biased: has to be a state issued id or driver's license, school id won't work. library card won't work. gun license WILL work. This is too much WTF for the world.

Further, PA's voter id was put in place with insufficient time for everyone to get ids. And state offices didn't have enough open hours or staff to process them by elections.

So this is suppression, plain and simple.

Yikes, Theo! Glad the end of that story was good. Scary.

Jesse, that describes my tumblr. I actually set it up for Good Stuff, possibly? Or that was the first thing I ever followed.

I was out of college by the 90s, and I'm thinking I was stuck in the 80s. I never owned body suits, and I was still wearing leggings a lot. And then fairly traditional office suits.

Is that you blonde, Lisa??

Further, PA's voter id was put in place with insufficient time for everyone to get ids. And state offices didn't have enough open hours or staff to process them by elections.

The way the PA law ended up being implemented for the last election, they asked everyone for ID, but you weren't required to show it unless it was your first time voting at that polling place (which it was for me -- I moved to PA in the summer of 2010, but was involved in moving stuff and forgot to register in time for the 2010 election, and then there wasn't anything of importance being voted on in 2011.) For student IDs, Penn State has issued new ones that do qualify for the PA law, but the students who had the old ones had to go get stickers put on them, and there were still some questions about whether they'd count.

Are there ANY voter ID laws in the US that have not been shown, in practice, to be actively suppressing poor/minority voters? Because in the extreme abstract, I don't think showing ID in order to vote is a terrible thing. But I can't think of any real-world example of a voter ID law that isn't horrible and racist.

(In the US, I should say. Maybe other countries have figured it out, especially in places where you can vote online or with your phone.)

Hil, wasn't that a compromise after the original law was deemed unconstitutional?

Jessica,

no. all laws have a disparate impact. The way it wouldn't is if we did something like other countries and guaranteed the right to vote with an automatic free/cheap id as part of it.

Hil, wasn't that a compromise after the original law was deemed unconstitutional?

Yeah, it was. I think the original law did say that SOME student IDs were OK, but only if they had expiration dates on them, which practically no school in the state does. I think that, starting this year, Penn State is putting expiration dates on the student IDs, which means that the students will have to get new ones every year, rather than just keeping the same ID until they graduate or lose the card, like they had been doing.

Oh, yeah -- I loved the 90s look of flowy floral dresses and clompy stompy boots.

I have two weekend modes--fandom shirt and jeans, (preferably maxi) sundress and biker or cowboy boots. Wait--three--mini skirt and cowboy or biker boots and then fandom shirt.

I didn't realise I was keeping the 90s alive, but hey! Snuggle up to the 80s and enjoy the ride!