Media Release (10/18/2018) North Dakota - The Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians, Spirit Lake Tribe, Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, and the Three Affiliated Tribes ("MHA") stand united against North Dakota's suppressive voter ID law. Together with tribal advocates the Native American Rights Fund, Four Directions, Western Native Voice, and Native Vote we are fighting back. Under the Federal District Court Order, tribes are now able to issue tribal documents that contain the voter's name, birth date, and current residential street address in North Dakota. We intend to issue these documents at polling locations within the bounds of our reservations on Election Day. We believe the requirement of a physical, residential property with a street address was intended to disenfranchise Native American voters. To combat the disenfranchisement of our members, we intend to ensure our members that lack residential street addresses can obtain them so they may exercise their right to vote. Due to the financial support of organizations and individual donors, we are able to provide these services to our members. We thank the American people who have donated and have helped us fight this injustice. We still have much work to do before November 6th, and after, to ensure that this suppressive law does not permanently keep Native Americans from voting in North Dakota. We encourage all tribal people to come out to vote on November 6th even if you do not have a qualifying ID. We will not be silenced by the blatant attempts to rob our people of our voice.
From Illinois DHS Applications are taken at DHS local offices. Use the DHS Office Locator to locate the Family Community Resource Center in your county to apply for benefits. What happens next? The application process begins the day your DHS office receives your signed application. You will be asked to come to the office for an interview or participate by phone if you are unable to come to the office. You will be asked for various types of documents such as: proof of your identity proof of your residence proof of Social Security numbers for all people on your application other types of documents depending on your circumstances. The DHS caseworker will tell you what you need to bring. How many recipients would balk at a Voter ID requirement?
I don't get it. Everyone has to show some form of identification to prove they are a resident of North Dakota. They allowed Native Americans the ability to show a document from their tribal government if they couldn't obtain a normal ID. The tribes plan to issue these documents. It sounds like the law is working as intended. So what exactly is the problem? Are they really this upset just because they don't want to be inconvenienced?
So I read that entire paper. Some comments... The initial issue in Texas arose because, up until 2011, voters could use a broad range of ID, including non-photo ID that allowed them to vote until the law was passed requiring one of three forms of ID, either Federal or State issued. I remember when New Jersey had non-photo driver licenses, too. My mother had one. Many states had non-photo driver's licenses. Then, when they moved to photo IDs, everyone had to get one if they wanted to drive. Pretty soon, other agencies and merchants required photo IDs and said you could no longer use a non-photo ID. If you wanted to fly, you had to get photo ID. You're a progressive, this argument on progress should appeal to you. SB 14 (the Texas legislation) was then watered down by the courts to force voters to provide some form of photo ID and a reason why they could not get one of the three accepted forms of ID if they wanted to vote. But a photo ID was still required. When it comes to the actual impact of these laws on who votes, however, there is less clarity. Analyses conducted soon after Indiana’s strict identification law was upheld indicated that it would be difficult to measure the effect of such laws on turnout (An-solabehere 2009;Hershey 2009;Mycoff, Wagner and Wilson 2009;Erikson and Minnite 2009 Hood and Bullock 2012). These methodological difficulties have persisted since;in his review piece, Highton (2017) indicates the challenges that exist when examining state-level aggregate data. However, there are theoretical reasons for the apparently lim- ited relationship; for instance, any negative impact on turnout could be matched (or ex- ceeded) via a “backlash effect” as Democrats in particular mobilize in response to what they perceive as an unjust law (Valentino and Neuner 2017). Civic education efforts in the wake of passage could also mitigate any deleterious effects of voter ID laws (e.g., Citrin, Green and Levy 2014). Or, perhaps disenfranchised voters do not exist in sufficient numbers to affect average turnout rates; in Texas, Jones et al. (2017) found that more than 97% of non-voters in 2016 possessed at least one valid piece of identification. Huh. More than 97%. The paper's next paragraph then details studies that both prove and disprove that ID laws result in some disparity of racial profile being allowed to vote. Gee, who'd have thought. I'd be willing to bet those studies supported the partisan position of those authors as well. As for the 16,000 people who cited reasons for not being able to get ID (by the way, they weren't denied voting) these were the reasons they chose: Work obligation preventing them from getting ID? You need ID to get paid, and you need a valid social security number for tax purposes, and an I9 requires valid photo ID, so I don't even get this one. ID was lost or stolen - then they should have replaced it. If they wanted to vote, that is. Lacks necessary documents to do what? The Federal Government gives everyone a social security card which you can use to get a valid state ID. Another bullshit excuse. Lack of transportation to do what? Get ID? Or get to the voting station to complain about not having ID? Applied but not received? Want to vote in the election? Apply sooner. Disability and Illness might be the only valid reason one could claim, but if they were too sick to get ID, but not too sick to show up at a voting station, that kinda makes me skeptical. And then "Other Reason" which is probably more "too lazy to admit why I don't have ID and just want to take advantage of the waiver allowing me to vote without it". Oh, and there were more white voters who filed this waiver than other ethnic groups, but the argument democrats use is that as a percentage certain ethnic groups are more affected. Clever.
Guess what? If hundreds of thousands of people suddenly rushed the DMV for a driver's license, there'd be a problem too. Ever try to go to get your driver's license renewed on the last day of the month? Best solution: PLAN AHEAD. The state isn't liable for you waiting until the last minute because you suddenly get it in your mind 5 minutes before 12 to vote.
That's exactly what it is. And liberals latch on to these things to enable people to behave like this, so people feel they have a right to act that way. Like spoiling a petulant child.
Both Usualname and Here4money ignore this, falling back on the excuse that it is not a "constitutional right". Convenient, eh? All those who claim they have no ID to vote get that ID pretty friggen fast when they have to present it to get food stamps or medical service. Suddenly all those reasons that they are unable to get an ID go away real fast.