The State of Missouri, ever mindful and fearful of illegal immigrants, wants to make sure these illegal immigrants don’t show up at the polls in November and attempt to vote.
The interesting thing is that Missouri law already requires proof of citizenship in order to register to vote. Somehow, the current law just isn’t enough for these Republicans. Fear rules in their world and fear is their only means of controlling others.
Excerpts are from the New York Times:
Supporters of the measures cite growing concerns that illegal immigrants will try to vote. They say proof of citizenship measures are an important way to improve the accuracy of registration rolls and the overall voter confidence in the process.
State Representative Stanley Cox, a Republican from Sedalia and the sponsor of the amendment, said that the Missouri Constitution already required voters to be citizens and that his amendment was simply meant to better enforce that requirement.
“The requirements we have right now are totally inadequate,” Mr. Cox said. “You can present a utility bill, and that doesn’t prove anything. I could sit here with my nice photocopier and create a thousand utility bills with different names on them.”
From October 2002 to September 2005, the Justice Department indicted 40 voters for registration fraud or illegal voting, 21 of whom were noncitizens, according to department records.
Wow – a whole 21 non-citizens. Now that is a frightening number especially since it happened within a 3 year span. What does that make it, 7 non-citizens/year?
The Missouri Supreme Court already ruled a photo identification law as unconstitutional so now the Missouri lawmakers believe it is time to change the Missouri State Constitution. What this change would do is disenfranchise some elderly who can’t get copies of their birth certificates.
Lillie Lewis, a voter who lives in St. Louis and spoke at a news conference last week organized to oppose the amendment, said she already had a difficult time trying to get a photo ID from the state, which asked her for a birth certificate. Ms. Lewis, who was born in Mississippi and said she was 78 years old, said officials of that state sent her a letter stating that they had no record of her birth.
“That’s downright wrong,” Ms. Lewis said. “I have voted in almost all of the presidential races going back I can’t remember how long, but if they tell me I need a passport or birth certificate that’ll be the end of that.”
A naturalized citizen that comes from a third world country may not have access to an original birth certificate and if they were a refugee, they might not even have a valid passport or their passport may have expired.
So the nuns that were turned away in Indiana may just be the tip of the iceberg. Guaranteed… there will be mores stories like these. After all, how else will Republicans win in November? They have a flip-flopping liar as their presidential nominee who is not inspiring to anyone and who would only bring a third Bush term which would perpetuate all the financial and economic disasters of the past 7 years.
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