Originally Posted by PaulS
"What difference does it make why it is harder? Blacks and Latinos say it is harder.
Show me a post from a black who says it's harder because they are black, and why.
It not that it is harder specifically bc they are black. It is harder bc of the circumstances they are in - and those circumstances effect blacks at a higher % than whites. The judge said that once NC (and other states) realized that, they changed the laws and that impacted blacks "with surgical precision".
Hargie Randall, 72, was born in his family’s home in Huntsville, Tex., and has lived in the state his entire life. Randall, now living in Houston’s low-income Fifth Ward neighborhood, has several health problems and such poor eyesight that he is legally blind. He can’t drive and has to ask others for rides.
After Texas implemented its new law, Randall went to the Department of Public Safety (the Texas agency that handles driver’s licenses and identification cards) three times to try to get a photo ID to vote. Each time Randall was told he needed different items. First, he was told he needed three forms of identification. He came back and brought his Medicaid card, bills and a current voter registration card from voting in past elections.
“I thought that because I was on record for voting, I could vote again,” Randall said.
But he was told he still needed more documentation, such as a certified copy of his birth certificate.
Records of births before 1950, such as Randall’s, are not on a central computer and are located only in the county clerk’s office where the person was born.
For Randall, that meant an hour-long drive to Huntsville, where his lawyers found a copy of his birth certificate.
But that wasn’t enough. With his birth certificate in hand, Randall went to the DPS office in Houston with all the necessary documents. But, DPS officials still would not issue him a photo ID because of a clerical mistake on his birth certificate. One letter was off in his last name — “Randell” instead of “Randall” — so his last name was spelled slightly different than on all his other documents.
Kamin, the lawyer, asked the DPS official if they could pull up Randall’s prior driver’s-license information, as he once had a state-issued ID. The official told her that the state doesn’t keep records of prior identification after five years, and there was nothing they could do to pull up that information.
Kamin was finally able to prove to a DPS supervisor that there was a clerical error and was able to verify Randall’s identity by showing other documents.
But Myrtle Delahuerta, 85, who lives across town from Randall, has tried unsuccessfully for two years to get her ID. She has the same problem of her birth certificate not matching her pile of other legal documents that she carts from one government office to the next. The disabled woman, who has difficulty walking, is applying to have her name legally changed, a process that will cost her more than $300 and has required a background check and several trips to government offices.
Let me see if I have an accurate grasp of your position here...
Paul: it's harder for blacks to get the id
Jim: how is the process harder for one race than another
Paul: because I say soNo, I told you why - they are poorer and don't drive so they don't have licenses in the same % as whites.
Is that about right? That's your argument? Paul, just last night, my 5 year-old told me I was a rotten father because I made him eat his veggies. He said I was a rotten person. Was I being mean? Nope. But he said I was.
Just because someone says something, doesn't make it so. If blacks freely choose not to get the id, that's their choice, it's not something that whitey forced upon them.
How did your grand uncle cash a check?Went to the bank and they let him with his bank book. I think he dealt mostly in cash.
People in cities may not need drivers licenses. That doesn't mean they don't need a photo id. Correct, and many of those laws don't allow those IDs to be used for voting - things like student IDs.
Requiring a photo id is viewed by some, as a way of safeguarding the integrity of the process. I don't doubt that d requirements suppress more black votes than white votes. But that doesn't make it racist. It's only racist, if it's harder for blacks to get the id than whites. And I explained above why the laws effect more blacks than whitesIf the process of getting an id is too cumbersome, we need to address that. But if it's just a matter of people being too lazy to get the id, the fault lies with them, not with the law.You shouldn't have to go 250 miles to get an ID to vote.
"word leaks out that a Rep. state rep. said something like "this will help keep the Dem. voter turnout down".
Then that person should be hounded from public service.
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