My mother won't be able to vote if voter ID becomes law

proud2BlibKansan

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Fri Sep-22-06 12:20 PM
Original message

My mother won't be able to vote if voter ID becomes law

Six months ago I would have said there is nothing wrong with asking voters for ID. Who doesn't have ID? Who is unable to prove who they are? I had no idea how this would affect my own mother.

Then MO passed a Voter ID law. My mother moved from KS to MO just a few months before the law was passed. My mother had not only never missed voting in any election since 1946, she also worked on every presidential campaign since then and canvassed for state and federal representatives. She donated money to every candidate she endorsed. Sometimes it was only a few dollars, but she gave enough and gave often enough that I still remember the mail she got at election time asking for her support. One of my earliest memories is knocking on doors for Kennedy when I was 6. So the political process and supporting candidates has always been important to my mother.

When she moved in March, she asked me to help her get registered to vote. I said okay, where is your driver's license? But she didn't remember what happened to it when she quit driving 10 years ago. So I said well, Mom, I know you have a passport, where is it? She went to the metal box my dad had used for years to store important documents but instead of documents, my mom had put snapshots of her wedding and some of our baby pictures in there. Those pictures are important to her now. Her passport was not and she could not remember where she had put it. She said but I knew I would never go out of the country again, so why do I need a passport? So I suspect the passport was thrown away.

My mother had worked for 40 years for a defense contractor here. Her job was purchasing some of the parts that went into nuclear missiles. Every 2 or 3 years, the FBI came to our house to speak to my dad, interviewed our neighbors and our relatives and declared that my mother was not a security risk so she got to keep her job. Each time she went through a clearance, she received a new picture ID badge that she had to wear to get in and out of the plant where she worked. I can remember playing dress up with her old IDs when I was a little girl. So I asked my mom where her work badge was and didn't she still have several of those lying around. She said yes, she remembered now, my dad had put those in that metal box. But that box only contains wedding pictures and baby pictures now. Those are important to her, her work badge is not.

So I said Mom let's just get a copy of your birth certificate and go from there. She said did you forget, Dear, I was born at home and I have never had a birth certificate. Remember how hard it was for me to get a passport and they said without a driver�s license it would have been really hard to get that passport? No I had not remembered that but 20 years ago when she got that passport I was busy raising little kids. So I said well you were baptized, weren't you? Let's contact the diocese and get your baptismal certificate.

Turns out her church had a fire in the 1940s and many records stored there were destroyed, including - you guessed it - my mom's baptismal certificate. There was also a flood in 1951 so those records were doomed one way or another.

So I decided to contact my mom's state reps. I emailed her congressperson and state senator. Turns out her senator knew my dad and was thrilled to hear from me and promised to help get my mom registered. But without ID, even he hit a brick wall. Her state rep said well you can get a birth certificate if you send an affidavit from a family member or anyone who knew her family when she was born and is willing to verify that your mother was born on such and such a day. But since my mom was both the oldest child and the oldest grandchild, she has no relatives who can verify her birth. Another brick wall.

Then the man who works at the local election board said get a copy of her current voter registration card from KS and maybe the state will accept that as proof of identity. So we did and they didn't. No picture on the voter registration card. We also sent copies of her SS card and Medicare card and Blue Cross card. No luck. They want a picture ID with her birthdate listed.

Four months after my mom first asked me to help her register to vote, we have hit one dead end after another. Bottom line - we can't get Mom registered so she can't vote. She will be given a provisional ballot, which won't be counted since she cannot prove her identity.

Now if anyone thinks this is okay, I want to hear from you. I want to know why it is acceptable to disenfranchise an 81 year old woman whose only crime is being senile enough to lose her drivers license and passport (neither of which she needed anyway).

This is what is wrong with Voter ID. I know for a fact that my mom is not alone. There are estimates of anywhere from 12,000 to 60,000 voters without a picture ID in MO.

So PLEASE, before you go on about nothing wrong with showing ID to vote, remember my mother. She has never been arrested, she has always had great credit, she worked hard all her life and raised 4 kids, she is a life long Democrat, she is the smartest woman I have ever known, and now that she is 81 and should not have to worry about a thing, she can�t vote.

Do you get it now? Voter ID is evil. Please speak out. Copy this post if you want and send it to your Congress critters. Get this legislation thrown out. PLEASE.