The N&O has reported that the State Board of Elections (SBOE) has released new analysis showing that almost 10 percent of voters may not have a state issued driver’s license or state issued ID card. The N&O reports that the new analysis compared Division of Motor Vehicles records to state voter lists and 612,955 voters names, etc could did not match the DMV records. They go on to say that 53 percent of the voters in question are Democrats, 30 percent are black and a quarter are over age 65.
We should know that the SBOE search depends on exact matches, so that if a voter’s name is misspelled (or changed) or a birth date is off by even a day, then the record will not match the DMV’s data, and that voter will be placed in the “may not have a state issued ID category.
Let’s look at some facts pertaining voter photo ID in Georgia, a state that enacted a stringent voter photo ID law in 2006. Georgia’s law is very much like the one North Carolina legislators, in both houses, passed in the 2011 session that was ultimately vetoed by then Governor B. Perdue.
In this article from the Atlanta Journal Constitution (AJC) it is reported that African-Americans in Georgia cast more than one third of the early votes in Georgia in the 2012 General Election. The reporter, admitted surprise at the high turnout in the African American Community (African Americans make up just 30 percent of the total voters in the state of Georgia):
“Early voting in Georgia concluded on Friday. The most surprising number: Without an overt campaign in this state on behalf of President Barack Obama, African-American turnout for early voting matched the 2008 rate, at 34 percent of all advanced ballots cast.”
This January 8, 2013 AJC article titled, “Despite voter id law, minority turnout up in Georgia,” gives a good history of Georgia’s law and explains the steady rise in participation among black voters since the voter photo ID law was enacted.
In March of 2012, Georgia’s Secretary of State, Brian Kemp, reported that Georgia had issued only 26,506 free voter photo ID cards in more than 6 years since the law had been enacted in his State. The opponents of voter photo ID in Georgia had sounded the same false alarms as they do in North Carolina now. They tried to frighten people and bully them into believing that hundreds of thousands of people would be disenfranchised. The liberal left’s tall tales, half truths and conjured up data have been exposed in Georgia and will soon be exposed in North Carolina.
The facts on voter photo ID just don’t support the liberal liberal left’s (yes, I am including the North Carolina State Board of Elections when I talk about the liberal left) claims that a requirement for voter photo ID results in voter suppression.
Voter suppression? I don’t think so – In November, Georgia’s overall voter turnout was 72.19 percent compared to North Carolina’s 68.42 percent.
I suppose you could look at that statistic and presume that thousands of lawfully registered voters may find it more difficult to vote if Voter ID is enacted. I suppose… OR… it could mean that there is a much higher number of folks currently on the voter rolls that shouldn’t be than previously thought.
I vote for Ed’s second possibility!
If you are of voting age and don’t have a valid photo ID, what’s your plan? How are you going to do anything? You can’t even buy donuts at Krispy Kreme with a without a photo on your debit card!
The number of licensed drivers and the number of voters is almost the same (within 20,000). So, remove perhaps 130,000 16 and 17 year-olds, we’re to believe that there are about 490,00 licensed drivers who are either felons or non-citizens? Out of about 5.6 m?
I wonder how many of our illegal aliens are actually Middle Eastern illegal alien terrorist that has been infiltrating this nation since before 9/11 and cultural Marxism has prevented our government and media from saying anything?
At the last few elections, I saw where black churches were bussing hundreds of black voters to vote. them to get a voter ID,That’s fine, but why can’t they bus them to get a voter ID,eh.