Wince of the Week for October 13 -October 19 2012: Our EHRP team winced when we read this on the Justice Blog from the Washington DC Think Tank, Center for American Progress:
DENVER, Colorado — During a panel on voter ID laws, the Heritage Foundation’s Hans von Spakovsky declared at the Colorado Conservative Political Action Conference that voters who are facing disenfranchisement should really be thankful for new, discriminatory voter ID laws being introduced by conservatives across the country:
VON SPAKOVSKY: Getting the very few people who don’t have an ID an ID is very easy. And in fact, we should be happy that people have to get an id like that. Why? Because you cannot function in today’s society without an id. And anyone who doesn’t have one, we’re doing them a favor. We are helping them to get identification they will then need to do all kinds of things. Like if they want to apply for public systems or welfare, you need an ID. You want to do all kinds of other things, you need an ID.
Von Spakovsky’s condescending and offensive remarks about people on welfare aside, his comments on the number of people without government-issued identification are false. The non-partisan Brennan Center for Justice at New York University has published an exhaustive study which shows that 11 percent of all eligible voters nationally don’t have a government-issued photo id. That figure climbs dramatically for college students, seniors, minorities and low-income voters.- excerpted from the thinkprogress.org/ justice blog
