Well, over 1700 words, actually, courtesy of Art Levine:

As voters go to the polls today to choose between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama in the Indiana and North Carolina primaries, there’s an overlooked peril facing all voters this year: a failing election system and GOP-led vote suppression. All these obstacles undermine fair and accurate voting, leading to potential meltdowns and the disenfranchisement of voters, especially African-Americans, the elderly and students.

Indeed, the Election Protection coalition is already reporting some disturbing accounts from the Indiana and North Carolina primaries from early callers to their 1-866-Our-Vote hotline. As Election Protection reported earlier today:

This morning, in South Bend, Indiana, a freshman student at St. Mary’s College, excited to vote for the first time, left the polling place in tears because she only possessed a private college ID and was unable to vote. The poll workers, nuns at a local convent, were trying to help the young student through her problem. While they were helping her, they realized that some of their fellow nuns, who had just arrived at the polling place, also could not vote because of the photo ID law. Not only was this group of nuns disenfranchised, but so would be four floors of retired nuns in their convent. “The situation this morning in South Bend is a glaring example of why Indiana’s onerous photo ID law erects an unnecessary barrier to the ballot box and disenfranchises legitimate voters,” said John Borkowski, Esquire, a partner at law firm Hogan & Hartson and Lawyers’ Committee board member who witnessed this incident firsthand.

Is it really that hard to get a picture ID?  Perhaps my opinion is skewed due to my parents hooking me up with a state-issued identification card when I was seven, but it doesn’t seem to be all that hard to walk into a DMV, fill out a little paperwork, and get an ID card.  Heck, how does a college student operate with only a campus ID?  I mean, in order to get my campus ID, I had to show them my driver’s license, so… how does this work?

The best quote, of course, was at the end:

As Robert Fitrakis, an Ohio voting rights attorney and editor of the Free Press alternative paper, told me for the Altnernet article, “The system is still broken and instead of voting being a universally guaranteed federal right, it lingers under the shadow of Jim Crow and states’ rights.”

Sadly, I get the fuzzy logic at play here.  The crux of the “problem”, as defined by “progressives” like this guy, is that, since minorities, the elderly, and students are less likely to have photo ID, they will bear the brunt of regulations that require a photo ID in order to vote.  Consequently, photo ID requirements disenfranchise minorities, the elderly, and students more than other groups, and, since those are groups that predominately vote “progressive”, this must be construed as a “GOP dirty trick” or something similar, in the vein of Jim Crow laws.  To be fair, this might all be true - it might be a clever little conspiracy to keep poor old black students from voting, which might disenfranchise them.  Alternatively, it might be a way to make sure that only people that are supposed to vote (i.e. non-felonious citizens of the United States) are the ones that actually vote.

Here’s what I could use some help with:  In order to open a bank account, you need to provide ID.  It’s not enough to just show up with some money - the bank will want to know who you are, using government-issued documents.  In order to drive a car, you need to provide ID.  In order to engage in any meaningful non-cash financial transaction, in fact, you need to provide ID, or at least have provided ID at some point to someone so you can use their ID.  In fact, almost anything worth doing in this country requires a government issued ID of some sort - buying alcohol, tobacco, joining the military, and so on.  How is it that all of this is okay but requiring an ID for the most important responsibility of an American citizen is “disturbing”?  Maybe it’s because I’m white, maybe it’s because I have an ID, or maybe it’s because I’m a rationally thinking human being, but something doesn’t seem right here.

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