The Senate State and Local Government Committee meets tomorrow morning in Legislative Plaza Room 12 to discuss two important election bills. The first, SB1999 by Senators Norris and Ketron (companion HB1838 by Rep. Curry ToddR, Collierville), would require “citizenship status to be proven prior to registration to vote and requires certain procedures to ensure identity and citizenship status prior to voting.”
In last week’s meeting they discussed Senator Ketron’s other voter suppression bill that would require photo IDs to vote (SB150) – except of course if you swear that you’re poor or have a “religious exception” to being photographed. Surprisingly, an exchange with Senator Thelma Harper (D-Nashville, the fightin’ 19th!) shows what Senator Ketron really believes – that we should simply “trust” those who require the exception in the case of the photo ID:
Senator Harper: So what is it they’re going to say?
Senator Ketron: “They’re gonna say they object to furnishing a photo ID based on their religion. Now for me to question what their religion is…I…
Senator Harper: I guess the concern that I have is that we want people to register to vote and we want the legitimacy there. But we’re putting an awful lot of stumbling blocks in folks way in order for them to register to vote, change their voter registration, just to move from other states and cities here to register to vote. I just wonder if this is really poppycock and we’re just curtailing the number of people who attempt to vote. I think we should be removing barriers rather than placing barriers in their way.
Senator Ketron: Senator, by them signing it, they signed the affidavit under oath that they are saying who they say they are.
So the question remains, why does Senator Ketron implicitly trust those who claim indigency or religious exemption and not the rest of us? Every time we vote we sign a sworn statement that we are who we say we are so aren’t we setting up an unequal system if some are allowed to continue do this and others aren’t?
Senator Ketron’s latest is SB1999, would require proof of citizenship status prior to registering to vote. Again, we already swear to this – under penalty of law – so why the extra added protection? Do we have an inordinate number of non-citizens clamoring to vote that we – or more importantly, the law – doesn’t know about?
The answer is no. But we do have proof that photo ID laws et. al. disenfranchise legitimate voters. So we can only hope that tomorrow Senators Harper, Haynes, and Finney request actual documentation of voter fraud by non-citizens as Rep. Harry Tindell (D-Knoxville, the fightin’ 13th!) did of Rep. Todd’s companion bill last week:
Poppycock!!! I love Thelma Harper.
What this shows me is that the Republican Party is basically ditching any idea of actually winning elections by coming up with good ideas, finding good candidates, and then securing the most votes in an election. They want to enact their fringe policies that no one likes, like DNA tests before a father’s name can be added to a birth certificate. And then they want to deny people the constitutional right to vote them out of office by throwing up all sorts of roadblocks at the voting booth.
Winning strategy for making sure your party is irrelevant, seems like.
Since the national authority has misspent the money it has robbed from the individual taxpayers…Since it has refused to prevent the invasion occurring on our southern border. It is now (as it should have always been) the responsibility of the local communities and (to a lesser degree) the states to prevent contamination of the voting process by those who are ineligible to vote.
A photo ID issued by the community, or the state should suffice. If you are so incredibly stupid as to “forget” to bring your photo ID to the polling place. Then you may not vote.
It’s simple self protection. Anyone who attempts to prevent our right to self protection by arguing ‘discrimination’ or ‘disenfranchisement’ is simply trying to enable voting by the ineligible and/or illegal for the specific purpose of circumventing the will of the people.
[...] HB 1838/SB 1999 sponsored by Rep. Curry Todd and Senator Mark Norris, which would have required proof of citizenship to register to vote (failed in committee); and a third, HB 0614/SB 0872 also by Rep. Todd and [...]
[...] HB 1838/SB 1999 sponsored by Rep. Curry Todd and Senator Mark Norris, which would have required proof of citizenship to register to vote (failed in committee); and a third, HB 0614/SB 0872 also by Rep. Todd and [...]
[...] implementation of the Tennessee Voter Confidence Act (Paper Ballot Bill) 2) An attempt to require proof of citizenship to register to vote, a well-worn voter suppression tactic. 3) An attempt to require picture IDs to vote, another [...]