Friday, November 23, 2018

Visiting Column #1 -- Voter ID and Yahoo's Bias

So please don't think I'm going to do this too often, but once in a while there surely will be a stimulus for a column, and this one is it.
Yahoo, as we know, has allowed its leftist leanings to show itself more and more in recent months.  I've written to that, of course, as their "news" feed, that is supposed to be somewhat neutral (if it wants to call itself "news"), will offer ten stories, nine of which lean hard left/anti-Trump and the other is some fluff piece about this or that pop tart.
Today their tippy-top piece was about the Republicans in North Carolina.  It shouldn't have been, but it was.  Here is the headline:
"After referendum, North Carolina GOP tries voter ID again"
 Now, what does that suggest to you?  To me, it would sound like the Republicans in the state are trying to re-institute a voter-ID law requiring that you prove who you are in order to vote, right?  The word "tries", though, suggest that there would be a challenge and that the GOP was trying to do something nefarious.
Well, here's the thing.  The referendum the headline refers to was one that was on the ballot here in North Carolina a few weeks ago.  the voters of the great State of North Carolina voted overwhelmingly -- more than 55% -- to authorize a requirement for voter ID in the state, in the form of authorizing a constitutional amendment.
So the job of the legislature is to implement that.  Now, what the mechanics of that are, I don't know, but obviously in the aftermath of the election, the legislature is mandated to create a model to implement that requires voter ID.
The article suggested that in the waning weeks of the legislative year, before a new and less-Republican legislature takes office, the current legislature would try to implement the new amendment as law before the no longer veto-proof majority takes over.  The governor, Roy Cooper, is a Democrat, you see, and might veto such a move despite the -- did I mention this -- 55% majority vote demanding voter ID be written into the State constitution.
I don't know.  I don't know what Yahoo has against requiring that people be required to demonstrate who they are in order to cast a vote.  I don't know why they don't want North Carolina voters to be protected against the weakening of our votes by illegals and non-citizens voting.  I don't know why it should be an issue to require the same demonstration of identity to vote that is required to drive a car or buy beer.
Well, I do know, actually.  The ballot box has not always been kind to the left.  In 2016, all of Hillary's lead in fund-raising was not enough to overcome the country's revulsion at what a crummy candidate she was, and how she had no evident reason for running, and that she was demonstrably corrupt.
The left would prefer that it not have to risk actually asking Americans to vote for them, and just to take and hold power.  Governing is really not the big deal for them; power is.  Whatever means are necessary to grab power, even allowing hordes to storm our sacred borders, or to have people vote illegally or vote often, well, my diluted vote is just collateral damage to them.
And even when the people stand up against that and vote to amend our constitution to mandate voter identification, we have Yahoo protesting away that showing who you are in order to vote is somehow "racist", their go-to word for everything (hint: they've cried wolf on that one a few too many times).
Well, I wish the NC Republicans well and hope they can get the procedures legislated into law quickly and reasonably.
I hope to show up at the ballot in a year or two with a photo identification and actually be asked for it.
Copyright 2018 by Robert Sutton
Like what you read here?  There are over 1,000 posts from Bob at www.uberthoughtsUSA.com, and after four years of writing a new one daily, he still posts thoughts once in a while as "visiting columns", no longer the "prolific essayist" he was through 2018, but still around.  Appearance, advertising, sponsorship and interview inquiries cheerfully welcomed at bsutton@alum.mit.edu or on Twitter at @rmosutton

1 comment:

  1. George here....

    You can do that today in Georgia. Our new governor-elect was the most recent secretary of state. He has been vilified by democrats as the embodiment of voter suppression. In fact, he simply upheld a law, passed in the '90s by both houses in the legislature - at the time majority democrats - and signed by our then governor, a democrat. This law provided for purging the voter rolls of stale registrations (i.e. people who had NOT voted in 3 elections, had been contacted repeatedly by the election board, and had never responded or registered again).

    BTW, the charges of suppression are specious. The blatantly racist assumption that African Americans are too poor and uneducated to get an ID are belied by 1) the state will give you one for $5, 2) Georgia has the highest number of African American professionals in the US, 3) you need an ID to receive benefits from any one of many government programs, and 4) these same African Americans are rather angry at that assumption when you ask them.

    Mr. Kemp, the governor-elect beat the democrat opponent by a solid 2.5%. Despite that she was calling voter fraud - a charge that rightly should be applied to democrats in parts of Florida....

    The nonsense never ends. The democrats have benefited too often by using similar tactics.

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