LIBERADIO(!)

A bill that would require a birth certificate to vote is back and this time it’s packing a requirement for a photo ID to vote as well.

Today the House Elections Subcommittee will hear HB0270 (by Rep. Eric Watson, R-Cleveland, the vice-chair of the committee), the bill that would require one of the following to register to vote if you have recently moved to Tennessee or if you move from one county to another:

(1) Driver license, driver certificate, or other ID issued by the department of safety or equivalent governmental agency of another state if proof of United States citizenship is evident;
(2) A legible photocopy your birth certificate;
(3) A legible photocopy of a United States passport;
(4) Naturalization documents
(5) Other documents or methods of proof that are established pursuant to the federal Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986; or
(6) The applicant’s federal Bureau of Indian Affairs card number, tribal treaty card number, or tribal enrollment number.

Nothing new, we saw the same bill last year and discussed the barriers to participation in the democratic process this would put in place on the elderly and working poor.

What is new, interestingly, is the last line of the summary of this bill:

“This bill requires voters to present one form of identification that bears the name, address and photograph of the voter to the registrar in order to vote.”

I wonder if legislators know that they will actually be voting on two voter suppression bills in one? Both of which would, as Senator Thelma Harper stated last year, put “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.”

The Elections Subcommittee will hear HB270 today immediately following the State and Local Government Committee which meets at noon.

More on HB270 from WPLN’s Capitol Hill correspondent Joe White.