The party of Abraham Lincoln has become the party of the new Jim Crow. Making it harder for the 47 percent to vote has become part of the Republican agenda.
How did this happen?
Demographics are clearly not favoring the GOP, so its response has been both clever and contrived. The Republicans have opted to revive a more modern Jim Crow-like ballot restriction process that will cause the more casual voter to give up before they get to the ballot box. The theory is that the laziest of the 47 percent so dependent on government will just not care enough to go the extra mile to cast that ballot. They won't stand on line for hours to get a voter ID card.
If we make it easier for people to vote — if we allow voting on the Sunday before Election Day to avoid long lines on Election Day itself, and early voting in other major urban and minority-dominated areas — the results will skew Democratic.
So what's the answer?
Restrict ballot access, make voters jump through more hoops, and the oligarchic agenda of tax breaks for the rich, crumbs for the poor, and indifference for those in the middle will prevail.
We've heard it all before. If you can't pay a meager poll tax, or pass a minimal voter literacy test, then you shouldn't be voting in the first place. Maybe it boils down to this: Only true Americans should be allowed to cast a ballot, and any measure that tends to filter out the lazy louts who are government-dependent should be applauded, not condemned.
But how do you measure a true American? It's obvious — only those with government-issued photo IDs can be considered truly American. After all, who in this day and age doesn't have a photo ID? Well, the answer is, about 800,000 otherwise qualified voters in states like Pennsylvania. People who don't drive, but take a bus to work (yes, work), and some of whom are too busy working two jobs to make ends meet to take time off from work to stand on line for several hours to see if they can qualify for a free state-issued photo ID card.
And then there are the elderly who may no longer drive, and a few hundred thousand others who just don't have the requisite ID, but who are otherwise qualified to vote, and have voted regularly for years.
These defenders of the oligarchy class look at voting as a privilege, not a right. They are wrong. People have fought, marched and died for the right to vote.
It is not a privilege to be extended only to the 53 percent of us who pay federal income taxes, but to the entire citizenry — black, white, Latino, gay, straight, young or old, rich or poor, who are 18 years of age and U.S. citizens. Nothing more, and nothing less.
If you want a fail-safe method to avoid fraud, why not issue picture ID with Social Security cards, one color for U.S. citizens, and another color for noncitizen residents, and let that stand as your voter registration process. Then asking for that card, as they do in many other democracies, would suffice. Will the Republican congressman willing to sponsor that universal registration legislation please stand up?
Hmm. No takers? I rest my case.
John T. Sullivan Jr. teaches at Missouri Southern State University in Joplin, Mo., and Pittsburg State University in Pittsburg, Kan. He lives the rest of the year in Saratoga Springs. He is the former co-chairman of the New York Democratic Party. His email is jtsullivanjr@gmail.com.
