Wayward5oul
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Joined: 11/9/2014
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Greta75
quote:
ORIGINAL: DesideriScuri
It can happen where a poor person, or a very old person can't come up with an original (not a photocopy) birth certificate, or a passport. Without those, it's really tough to prove the first 3 elements. And, it can be tough to get those documents (and there's usually an expense to it).
So it means these people cannot open bank accounts too? I believe there would be quite a number of super old generation that maybe do not have the documentation to even get a State ID. Perhaps the rule should be people from certain generation do not need ID to vote, but all the younger generation, should have no excuse.
Just some things I have run across today...
Nearly one in five citizens over 65 lack a current, government-issued photo ID, a 2006 Brennan Center study found. Most people prove their eligibility to vote with a driver's license, but people over 65 often give up their license and don't replace it with the state-issued ID that some states offer non-driving residents. People over 65 also are more likely to lack birth certificates because they were born before recording births was standard procedure.
http://www.brennancenter.org/sites/default/files/legacy/d/download_file_39242.pdf
Some anecdotal stories from across the web, about specifically elderly citizens who had issues.
Thelma Mitchell, Nashville, Tenn.
When Thelma Mitchell, a retired state employee, learned that her old employee ID (which was issued by the state and included her photo) wasn’t sufficient for the new voter ID law, she went to obtain a valid photo ID. The agency asked her for a birth certificate, but she didn't have one and was denied her request for a new ID.
Mitchell, 93, has never had a birth certificate. She wasn't born in a hospital and was delivered by a midwife, in Alabama in 1918. Birth certificates, particularly for African-Americans in the South, weren't regularly generated at the time. As a result, Mitchell may not be able to vote this year for the first time in decades.
Florence Hessing, Bayfield, Wis.
At age 96, Florence Hessing is disabled, rarely leaves her home and votes by absentee ballot. She has a driver's license that expired a few years ago. She wrote to the state asking the requirements for obtaining a new photo ID under the state's recently enacted voter ID law. The response she received outlined the requirements and included a $28 fee — which angered Hessing because she expected the ID to be free.
Hessing first had to come up with a birth certificate. She wrote to Iowa, where she was born, but the state had no official record.
"I think that's a shift if I can't vote," Hessing said in an interview. "It'd feel like I was thrown out."
Ruthelle Frank, Brokaw, Wis.
Like Hessing and Mitchell, Frank, 84, was denied in her application for a new voter ID because she lacked a birth certificate. She was born in Wisconsin, has lived in the same home for 83 years and never had need of the document.
"After I was married, we made several trips into Canada. I used my baptismal certificate to cross all the time," Frank said. "That's all I ever needed."
She called her county's registrar of deeds, to no avail. The state's vital records office managed to find her birth certificate, but there were other problems — both her parents' names were misspelled, rendering the document invalid.
"In order to get it corrected, I'd have to amend it. And it would cost $200," Frank said. "I decided I didn't want to spend $200 for the right to vote because I've always thought the right to vote was free. I don't think it's fair."
There are lots, lots, lots more. But you get the idea of what some are dealing with that others of us take for granted.
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RE: Voter laws - 
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