Why Photo Voter ID is a Republican Dream, and a Citizen's Nightmare

Republicans are agitating to make Missouri one of the most restrictive states in the nation when it comes to voting. Their current plan is to require photo ID for voters.

At first blush, this requirement seems common-sensible enough. I have to show my driver's license when I want to write a check at the grocery store, unless the clerk recognizes me, and it won't cause me any undue stress to show it on Election Day (unless they look at the weight listed, and give me grief for getting fatter . . .).

But I'm not the target of this proposal. The target is the 170,000 elderly and handicapped people that the republicans have been attacking through health care cuts and decreased services. Those little old ladies and gentlemen, mostly poor, tend to vote with the party that represents the common man, and that is most definitely not the party of Governnor Blunt. So the republicans want to silence them at the ballot box.

When asked about the thousands of voters who would lose their right to vote under his proposal, Republican Michael Gibbons says he "envisions teams of state workers sent out to help photograph voters who are home-bound or in nursing homes." Hey, Mikey, are you envisioning funding provided for that? Are you envisioning poor black people happily opening their homes to camera-wielding government agents?

Or are you really just envisioning Missouri with 170,000 fewer poor and elderly voters?