Do you protect the rights of citizens if you give them to non-citizens? I think the ACLU is confusing citizen rights with human rights. A hat tip to The Wheeler Report for their link to the ACLU Wisconsin press release regarding a pending State Assembly discussion. The legislature is poised to draft a Constitutional Amendment requiring a government issued Photo ID to vote. The ACLU calls the currently nonexistent amendment “bizarre”.
Oct. 31 Press Release Bizarre Photo ID Amendment Unconstitutional … A proposed state constitutional amendment would require all qualified voters to show a state or federal issued Photo ID at the polls in order to vote unless they belong to a class given preferential treatment by future legislaturesThe ACLU is taking great pleasure that last week a Federal Appeals Judge Blocked Implementation of Georgia’s recently passed Photo ID Law. The Motion of Stay simply allows parties to the legal challenge time to prepare for trial and in no way rules on the validity of the law.
In a recent Georgia case blocking a Photo ID scheme, Federal Judge Murphy wrote, “The Court is mindful that the right to vote is a fundamental right and is preservative of all other rights. Denying an individual the right to vote works a serious, irreparable injury upon that individual.”
The ACLU is correct in the statement that “the right to vote is a fundamental right”, and it is the true basis of American government. The point the ACLU is missing from their own statement is that voting is a fundamental right for “qualified voters”.
Voting is a measurement of the will of American citizens. It is not a measurement of the will of the Canadians, Mexicans, French, Russians, Germans, Chinese, or other non-citizen residents in this country. In this age of global mobility, a persons mere presence in no longer sufficient to establish an individual as a citizen entitled to citizen rights.
Voting is a measurement, and like in all measurements, there is potential variability in accuracy. Complete accuracy requires that a qualified voter votes one time in the correct location. Accuracy requires dual verification of both person and place. You can’t know who is voting if you don’t check who is voting. With 21st century technology there is no reason to accept anything less than total accuracy in our elections. Anything less is neither just or fair.
