The Patriot Post® · No, Obama, IDs Are Not a Problem With Politics

The Obama administration is trying to downplay the need for voter identification at the same time it is pressuring states to implement a federally designed ID system. The Left has argued that the need to present identification before casting a vote is racist, that it discourages otherwise eligible citizens from having their say in the political system. Barack Obama mentioned this policy proposal during his State of the Union Address when he listed his laundry list of changes to how Americans do politics and said, “We’ve got to make voting easier, not harder, and modernize it for the way we live now.” While some progressives might see a future where you log into your computer and play Democracy from the comfort of your own home, the here-and-now issue is over voter IDs. But as Don Palmer, who has worked on two state elections boards, wrote for The Daily Signal, the numbers Liberals tend to cite are inaccurate.

“Opponents of photo ID cite a highly inflated number of voters who do not possess a driver’s license as the universal number of those who are not able to vote,” Palmer wrote, “even though, under all state photo ID laws, various other forms of ID, such as federal and state government IDs, U.S. passports, tribal IDs, and even employer-issued or university student IDs, are also acceptable.” This comes as the TSA unveiled new rules that would prevent travelers from five states from presenting their drivers’ licenses when traveling by air because the IDs wouldn’t be up to the TSA’s standards. Raising the bar on ID’s while simultaneously lowering the threshold in order to fulfill one of a citizen’s most important duties? That’s typically backwards liberal thinking.