A few years back, I lost my wallet and had to replace my Social Security card and Oregon ID card. Obtaining the documents needed to replace them cost me over $100 and took over six months. If I had been unable to afford them, I still would have been able to vote here in Oregon, because I am registered and have voted in previous elections. But if I lived in one of the states where Republicans are trying to disenfranchise qualified voters, because they are poor, seniors, students, or minorities, and if I could not pay, I would not be allowed to vote.
In 1964, the American people enacted the 24th Amendment, to prevent the exclusion of the poor from the ballot box. In his speech last week at the NAACP convention, U.S. Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr. wasn’t indulging in election-year rhetoric when he condemned Texas’ 2011 voter photo identification law as a poll tax that could do just that. He was speaking the hard legal truth.
The Justice Department would be right to challenge this new law as an unconstitutional poll tax. The department has temporarily blocked the Texas law under special provisions of the Voting Rights Act that prevent states with a history of discrimination from disadvantaging minority groups. But the attorney general should go further and raise a 24th Amendment challenge against Texas and other states that are joining the effort to bar the poor from the polls. This exclusionary campaign should not be allowed to destroy a great constitutional achievement of the civil rights revolution.
The 24th Amendment forbids the imposition of "any poll tax or other tax" in federal elections. Texas’ law flatly violates this provision in dealing with would-be voters who don’t have a state-issued photo ID. To obtain an acceptable substitute, they must travel to a driver’s license office and submit appropriate documents, along with their fingerprints, to establish their qualifications. If they don’t have the required papers, they must pay $22 for a copy of their birth certificate.
If they can’t come up with the money for the qualifying documents, they can’t vote. But the 24th Amendment denies states the power to create such a financial barrier to the ballot box…
Inserted from <LA Times>
I have little to add. The manner in which Republican oppressed states are implementing voter ID laws, such as closing offices in poor areas while extending hours of operations in rich areas, make it clear that these Voter ID laws have nothing to do with voter fraud. To the contrary, they are election fraud by the Republican Party.
Holder certainly should mount a 24th Amendment challenge to all such laws, not just in states that also violate the Voting Rights Act.
14 Responses to “Oppose the Poll Tax!”
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From Wikipedia — "The poll tax was part of a series of laws intended to marginalize black Americans from politics so far as practicable without violating the Fifteenth Amendment, which required that voting not be limited by "race, color, or previous condition of servitude." The poll tax had the additional impact of weakening poor white voters who might sympathize with the Populist Party, …"
When I looked at a map, interestingly enough, the only states that enacted poll taxes were the states south of and including Virginia, Tennessee, and Arkansas and east of and including Texas — the Confederate states. And here, in 2012, these same states appear to be still trying to fight the Civil War! … and in a most uncivil way! Unfortunately however, they are not the only ones trying to suppress the vote.
The 24th amendment:
Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote in any primary or other election for President or Vice President, for electors for President or Vice President, or for Senator or Representative in Congress, shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State by reason of failure to pay any poll tax or other tax.
Section 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
As far as section 2 goes, lots of luck getting the Congress to wade in on this one — they are part of the problem! As to section 1, I agree TC, Holder and the DOJ need to mount an all out 'attack' on the states' attempts to suppress the vote and using the 24th amendment.
If one legitimate voter is denied the freedom to vote, then all have been denied the freedom to vote. I am reminded once again of the words of Martin Niemöller:
First they came for the communists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Jew.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left to speak out for me.
Very well said.
There is nothing at all subtle about this bald faced re-institution of a poll tax– obstacles to the vote– : People died for this right– not so long ago-;- we as a nation fought wars- , for the right to vote– Women have had this hard won right for less than 100 years—Yes Holder does need to challenge this and Now–
Amen!
We are heading in the direction of total control by our government, ala 1984!
Orwell was prophetic in all but timing.
"The Justice Department would be right to challenge this new law as an unconstitutional poll tax."
These FCINO's – (Fiscal Conservatives in Name Only) can't be allowed to steal another election…
Indeed!
It's not the poll tax that is so troubling. I expect this from the kind of people many Republicans have become. It's now the lack of fight on the Democrats part. When are they going to rise up and say ENOUGH???
When is Obama going to start punching. We love a fighter, not a whimp.
Welcome Liane. 🙂
I wish Dems would grow big brass ones.
A good citizen votes. Republicans don't consider most of us as good citizens because our views may b e different from theirs.
Welcome Jack. 🙂
You clearly understand Republicans.
A dead dog may be registered and may receive a ballot, but I'll bet it didn't vote. Somewhere Mickey Mouse registered to vote but no one could show his signature in the BoE Voter Binder at the precinct where he was registered. I find it ironic, after stealing the 2000 presidential election, it's the GOP that screamed about "rampant voter fraud" when they lost Congressional seats in the 2006. Yet the Bush administration's own appointed Federal prosecutors couldn't find enough evidence of voter fraud to prosecute anyone (and then those prosecutors were quickly fired). The GOP's voter ID laws will prevent upwards of 5 million legal voters from having their votes count in the 2012 Presidential/State and local elections in order to block less than a handful of illegally cast votes. The last rampant voter fraud was actually vote tampering that occurred when the Diebold voting machines, with their so called "faulty memory cards" managed to help Bush win Volusia County, Florida in 2000 (at 10 pm the vote for Bush was 62,000; Gore 83,000; 30 minutes later the vote tally showed over 16,000 votes had been subtracted from Gore's total and a third party Socialist candidate had 10,000 votes from a town that only had 600 voters). Diebold did an audit and found nothing wrong with the memory card before or after the election. So, it appears NOT to be voter registration that causes voter fraud — more likely it's caused by party partisans who have access to the electronic voting equipment. You can say, "It's only $10," or "It's only $2" to get the proper identification. To some people, 10 cents might as well be $10 Billion dollars. The point is, we are supposed to have FREE elections and if it costs anything at all to get a valid ID in order to vote, then we no longer have free elections — we have a some type of country club membership elections. I'm interested in what Attorney General Holder will to if the states with the illegal voter ID laws refuse to comply with Federal laws.
Welcome Dee. 🙂
Excellent comment. The only thing I would add is that Bush stole 2004 as well.