The Editorial Page Gets Hysterical Over Voter ID Requirements
Thursday's lead editorial, "Keep Away the Vote," is hysterical in every sense of the word.
"One of the cornerstones of the Republican Party's strategy for winning elections these days is voter suppression, intentionally putting up barriers between eligible voters and the ballot box. The House of Representatives took a shameful step in this direction yesterday, voting largely along party lines for onerous new voter ID requirements. Laws of this kind are unconstitutional, as an array of courts have already held, and profoundly undemocratic. The Senate should not go along with this cynical, un-American electoral strategy.
Gee, nothing overwrought there.
Here's the paper's description of the actual bill that has the Times in such a dither: "The bill the House passed yesterday would require people to show photo ID to vote in 2008. Starting in 2010, that photo ID would have to be something like a passport, or an enhanced kind of driver's license or non-driver's identification, containing proof of citizenship."
Gasp. A photo ID required to vote? TimesWatch can certainly see the profoundly undemocratic and un-American implications of that.
