Chris Rickert Nails It On Wisconsin Voter ID Bill

First off I like Chris Rickert.  He is an effective writer, using facts and a bit of humor to make the larger point about this or that topic.  Today I felt his column in the Wisconsin State Journal was perfect.  That the topic of the Wisconsin voter ID bill is something I am really concerned about is one reason this column resonated in the way it did.  The other reason is just the way Rickert composed the words.

The State Jounral was mighty smart when they added Chris Rickert to the paper.

In part…..but I really think the whole piece needs a read….comes this…

But under the bill, Flowers would almost certainly need a Wisconsin photo ID, something that itself would require his certified birth certificate and Social Security card and a trip to the DMV.

Would Flowers be likely to go through all that just to vote? “If I had to go wait in the DMV line, no,” he said.

Ergo, disenfranchisement. And it would apply to anyone who is similarly young, transient and more likely to be a Democrat —whether they are out-of-state UW students or the down and out.

This latter group is of particular interest to Steve Schooler, executive director at Porchlight, which provides housing and other services to the homeless.

“This will have a real impact,” he said of the Republicans’ bill, “because in order to get an ID, you need a birth certificate and these are not cheap anymore, particularly from states like California.”

You can reasonably argue that the barriers to voting under the bill aren’t very high.

But then Constitutional rights apply even if you aren’t so organized as to keep a certified copy of your birth certificate lying around, or you go to college out of state, or you don’t have a permanent home. We don’t apply such litmus tests to the right to free speech or the right to trial by one’s peers, so why apply it (as a practical matter) to voting?

In short, why are my demographic brethren so keen on messing with the Constitution?