Could tougher voting laws squelch the youth vote?

CHICAGO (AP) — Gone are the days when young voters weren’t taken seriously. In 2008, they helped propel Barack Obama into the Oval Office, supporting him by a 2-1 margin.

But that higher profile also has landed them in the middle of the debate over some state laws that regulate voter registration and how people identify themselves at the polls.

Since the last election, Pennsylvania, Kansas, Wisconsin and Texas and other states have tried to limit or ban the use of student IDs as voter identification. In Florida, lawmakers tried to limit “third party” organizations, including student groups, from registering new voters.

“In this day and age, nothing could be more rational than requiring a photo ID when voters come to the polls,” Pennsylvania’s senior deputy attorney general, Patrick Cawley, said recently when defending the state’s new law in court.

Others see these efforts as attempts to squelch the aspirations of the budding young voting bloc and other groups, and they’re using that claim to try to get more young people fired up.

“You think your vote doesn’t matter? Then why are they trying so hard to take it away from you?” asks Heather Smith, president of Rock the Vote, a group that works to register young voters. “It does demonstrate the power they have.”

Smith notes that it’s not just an issue for college students.

She was teaching a civics class for graduating seniors at an inner-city high school in Philadelphia this spring and asked how many among them had driver’s licenses that could be used, if the Pennsylvania law requiring a photo ID to vote were to survive the legal challenge.

“They looked at me like I had two heads,” she says. Only two students in the room of 200 raised a hand; few of the students had cars.

These are the sort of stories that have led some students to get involved, particularly on college campuses.

 

They are looking for any reason what so ever to complain about voter ID’s; I swear.  

 

I really wish they would stop trying to make a mountain out of a molehill and the media normally lie trying to convince people that it is only rich conservative whites that can afford an I.D. or allowed to get one.

 

 They always seem to base this on race or income, the sheeple truly buy into this nonsense.

 

Throughout the years, and I’m talking all through history politicians have always encouraged new immigrants, refugees what have you that come into this country to vote for their party; by giving them this or that and I think that these newcomers should show proof of their new United States Citizenship to be allowed to vote.

 

I had to have a State Issued ID when I registered to vote when I was a Senior in High School at the age of 17 because  I was going to be 18  come the next presidential  election.  When registering to Vote at school, that was an honor and I proudly showed my Government issued proof of who I was, luckily I’d had one since I started working a ‘job’ at the age of 16.  

 

What is so hard about getting an ID, whether it was a Drivers License, or State Issued Identification card?  shera

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