ITA with you, OP.

For a campaign to be so sophisticated that it could be able to mount an effort that physically requires people voting multiple amounts of times to be effective, OR requires a multitude of otherwise unqualified/disqualified voters would inherently be a successful campaign that would then NOT need such tactics.

This voter ID is a red herring designed for a chilling effect.  In that way, the issue is useful and does indeed benefit Republicans to a material degree.  

You see, just how many voters (probably in the thousands) are "chilled" away from voting versus the minuscule amount that may be cast illegally?  Unless, of course, the voting is manipulated electronically, which in that case, has nothing to do with a voter ID.

Hello Spencer,

I'm glad to see you posting here. I really enjoyed your C-SPAN appearance a few days ago. You explained the photo id and bilingual ballots issues so well on Washington Journal!! I took Voting Rights Law at GWU several years ago. I wish I had taken the class with you b/c you explained the issues so well but unfortunately, you began teaching at GW about 2 or 3 years after I graduated. I'm not saying that my adjunct professors (2 lawyers from the Voting Section of DoJ) were terrible or anything. I just had a tough time with a lot of the analysis in that class.

It's been a while since I took the class, but I really struggled with understanding Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. If you could, during your series of posts here, please give us a brief synopsis of section 2 as well as section 5 of the Voting Rights Act?

I'd really appreciate it.

Oh, I plan to buy your book. Does it cover Section 2 analysis in it?

Thank you for posting these updates on the Voting Rights Act. It doesn't get a lot of play in the blogosphere, but it's really important for a lot of us.... Also I want to thank MyDD owners for inviting you to guest-blog here. I'm really enjoying these posts!! Keep them coming!! Keep them coming!! :)

Ademption, thanks for your post!  I'll make sure that I talk about the distinction between Sections 2 and 5 in a future post.  I'm glad to hear that you're a part of the GW family, and please look me up when you come back for a reunion.  We're doing our best to ensure that the value of your degree continues to rise.

Why not put the republicans on the defensive and ask them to allocate money to offer free photo ids for all qualified voters? The thing is just saying many don't have photo Id is not a good enough reason. With technology so advanced these days, the voter can get a photoid when he registers.

I lost a few chances to vote because I was too lazy to find out when and where to register. Would you support my right to vote without registration(I actually think registration should be made even easier)? If so, then at least you are consistent.

Missouri.  It was recently enacted.  I hope that the Missouri requirement too will be blocked.

I would like to add one other concern (albeit probably a smalller concern) about the photo ID requirement.  It's been my personal experience that requirements such as these usually are applied unevenly, in that the election judges often will nevertheless let who they deem as the "right" kind of people vote even without an ID while aggresively enforcing such a requirement for those they deem as the "wrong" kind of person.  Kind of like how poll taxes, literacy tests, etc. used to work.  

I'm ambivalent about this idea.  I fully appreciate the bias that comes along with requiring photo ID, but I'm extremely uncomfortable with the current "state an address, go ahead" system.  Seems as though some sort of middle ground should exist.

I live in Atlanta. This issue strikes very close to home.

My view on this matter is, I am not concerned whether or not someone will ask for photo ID. In fact, as we vote now, we normally give our photo ID to the senior citizen running the poll + they look us up with our slightly holographic, arial 10 point name reflecting in their bifocals - we go off to Diebold machines that Max Cleland really got started here in Georgia - and touch screen away to an unsecured Microsoft Access Database, our vote.

No paper trail. No way of verifying it. And of course, record numbers of us are apparently voting as republican, as the manufacture of the machine.

I would gladly trade the position on voter ID for a verifiable vote - something that could keep the machine honest.

How can we keep the process true? If someone, say 1, in a 1,000 people - is not a real voter - and gets turned away at the poll - what is the real answer to the other 999 people whose vote is as easily manipulated as it is to click "file, open" and have a field value changed?

I agree with whomever posted in thread here that the issue is a red herring. I believe the GOP is attempting a fast one with some of these procedures in counting votes.

Now, as I post this, with what looks like War looming on the horizon - perhaps even world war if Israel can't keep it in their pants - I am certain that electoral fraud is a piece of a puzzle that serves only to further the GOP narrative that poor people vote democrat. Or niggers. But certainly not black men like Martin Luther King, or Wyclef Jones. Why the Democratic party doesn't go on the offensive and simply tag the GOP as trying to get away with murder, keeping the process in place but changing the front end - is beyond me.

The democrats, they say - are people that are always ready to believe what they should have stood up for in the first place -

Whatever the voters rights issue points to in identification credentialing - Security is composed of more than just the male view of black belt security guards at the adytum

Security is Authentication, and Certification.
Period.

So fine, The democrats say go for it - lets have a n ID. Let them update a database somewhere.

But then, once that Database is complete - let the Democrats stand for verified voting (California has it right!) , auditable process and certifiability of election results.

Let every vote count.
Count every vote.