Newly empowered GOP pushes voter ID, By John Gramlich, April 14, 2011, Stateline.org: “Fresh off commanding electoral victories in November, Republican majorities in many state legislatures want to require voters to show photo identification at the polls, a move Democrats say is cynically designed to help the GOP during the next election cycle. Voter identification laws have been a demarcation line between Democrats and Republicans for years. Democrats claim the measures disenfranchise poor, elderly and minority voters who tend to vote Democratic but may not have appropriate photo ID. Republicans say the laws are necessary to prevent fraud, particularly when important statewide contests – such as the 2008 election for the U.S. Senate in Minnesota – can be decided by just hundreds of votes…”
Poverty-related issues in the news, from the Institute for Research on Poverty