My series on discriminatory Voter ID laws continued in my column yesterday. I think this particular chapter contains the most damning information against the laws: mainly, voter fraud simply doesn't exist, leaving no other conclusion but that the Republicans are deliberately disenfranchising Democratic voters.
Imagine you're nearly 100 years old and you've voted in almost every election since casting a ballot for Franklin Roosevelt in 1936. You're a fully registered voter and your tattered, dog-earned registration card has always allowed you access to your constitutional right to decide which public servants should be your representatives at all levels of government.
You're 94 years old. You don't drive. And you live more than a dozen miles from the nearest government services office. And now, in your home state of Pennsylvania, Republican leaders (who have admitted to conspiring to disenfranchise Democratic voters) have passed a law mandating that you somehow have to attain a government identification card if you'd like to vote again.
This is the story of Bea Bookler, 94 years old, of Devon, Pennsylvania who, after all these years, has to somehow find a ride to the nearest DMV, then has to stand in interminably long and potentially confusing lines for hours on end, in order to retain her well-worn right to vote.
"How would I get there and how would I manage to stand in a line?" says Bookler, who uses a walker. She says she can barely make it to the polling place next door to her retirement community. She also doesn't understand why she has to go to all this trouble in the first place. She already has a voter registration card. Continue reading here, and RT often...