Disclosure Statement:
Any time I write anything political I feel it necessary to preface it by
stating that I am an independent. I've
never voted in a primary for either party.
I'm liberal on some issues and conservative on others. That said -
I was scrolling through Facebook today and noticed a few,
shall we say, "less informed" people whining about the Voter ID laws
in Texas. One in particular from someone
I don't know (and after this I assume would not accept a 'Friend Request' from
me) stated:
"Just watched someone get denied the right to vote
because they moved recently and the address on voter registration didn't match
her ID. Hooray for the Texas voter ID law denying law abiding citizens the
right to vote since 2013!"
This prompted me to sit down and shoot out a few Things I Think I Think about voting in
Texas.
- The issue above (if true) would have nothing to do with the Voter ID law. In Texas you are registered to vote in a certain district. If you move, you must re-register in the new district you have moved to. It's free and can be done on-line. Additionally, there is no address matching requirement to the Texas Voter ID law, so even if for some stupid reason you moved and took the time to update your voter registration but not your official ID (which would be required by law if it's a driver's license), you would still be able to vote. Also, even if you're dumb enough to try to vote in violation of the Texas Voter ID law, you would still be allowed to cast a provisional ballot by law. It happens in every polling location every single year. They have them set up and are ready for a flood of people who for whatever reason just can't seem to get a grip on the almost idiot-proof voting system in Texas. Sorry pal - calling BS on that one.
- The Voter ID law in Texas provides seven different ID options that will work. If you don't have ANY of them, first off how the hell do you live, and second, Texas will give you one for free! You can obtain either a Texas Personal Identification Card or a Texas Election Identification Certificate free of charge with a simple trip to the DPS.
- Democrats and Liberals are claiming (in court) that the Texas Voter ID law is discriminatory against poor people and minorities (their words, not mine). What they state in their argument to the 5th Circuit Court and the Supreme Court is that "Minorities are less likely to have the required ID, therefore more likely to be disenfranchised by the law." I could go on quoting from the rather comical claim but I'll go ahead and break it down for you. The ID is free to anyone for the asking, so what they really mean is that minorities are less likely to make the effort to get one. What they're basically saying is that minorities - like myself - are lazier than white people! If you read the case, that's the entire premise. Sad.
- I agree with liberals that there are people in the state that might be too lazy to go get an ID to vote (although, unlike those liberals I don't think the problem is exclusive to blacks and Latinos). That said, if someone is too lazy to make the effort to get a free ID, do you really believe that they are going to make the effort to vote?
- Texas may be the easiest state to vote in that there is. We have early voting for a couple weeks straight in just about any district of size and you can submit an absentee ballot by mail if you aren't going to be around or can't make it to the polls like my father.
- The bottom line is that if you can't cast a ballot in the State of Texas, it's your fault and no one else's!
A side note on another legal issue pending in the Supreme
Court about voting redistricting:
The national media constantly reports that the Texas Senate,
which is overwhelmingly Republican, is trying to re-draw district lines to
(once again) "disenfranchise minority voters". It's true that the Republican controlled
senate is trying to re-draw the district maps and it's also true that it would
undoubtedly cost Democrats some seats in the US House of Representatives. However, if you get your news from MSNBC
exclusively there is, as usual, more to the story.
- The Texas Senate is required to redraw the district lines because the 2010 US Census left Texas with four additional seats.
- The current district map was drawn by a Democratic controlled Texas Senate many years ago that "created" minority districts by tying minority areas together using ditches and pipelines, etc. If you look at the map, it looks like a spider web in many large cities because they wanted to create districts for specific minorities. The philosophy of the Democrats at the time was "The population of Texas is 22% black so 22% of the congressional seats should be held by black elected candidates". Hispanics 38%....etc. Here's the map around Houston:
Take District 18 for
example. This is the District of Sheila
Jackson Lee (who, regardless of your political affiliation, you have to concede
is one of the worst members of Congress maybe ever - and that's saying a
lot). It was drawn by connecting a few
black neighborhoods together to create a "black" district. It makes no geographic sense, no economic
sense, no sense of any kind. They did
the same thing in South Texas to create Hispanic districts. If this map makes sense to you then you've
got issues!
I think voting districts
should be set geographically (accounting for population of course) and for no
other reason. That's sort of the beauty
of Texas - no one cares what you are or what you believe in, even if they disagree with you. It's a true mix that
works great!
Our street has 11 homes on
it. The makeup is a lot like Texas:
1 Black family
1 Asian family
1 Same-Sex family
2 Elderly families
1 Hispanic family (that's us
I guess although Nel doesn't really look the part)
2 Eastern European families
3 White families
