With polling showing over 80 percent of Americans in favor of voter ID laws, it is hard to come up with reasons why you need an ID to board a plane but not vote in a federal election. That was particularly glaring this week when Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.) required people to show an ID to attend his campaign events after opposing an ID requirement to vote. So if you want to hear Ossoff speak against voter ID, you will have to show your ID. Now Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) has a rather bizarre argument: the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, if passed, would likely violate the 19th Amendment to the Constitution.
CNN Host Kasie Hunt told Raskin that “Voter ID is supported by the majority of Americans. But there are Democrats on the Hill and you voted against this? Why not support voter ID?”
Raskin then had this curious response:
“… what’s wrong with the Save act? What’s wrong with it is that it might violate the 19th Amendment, which gives women the right to vote, because you’ve got to show that all of your different IDs match. So if you’re a woman who’s gotten married and you’ve changed your name to your husband’s name, but you’re so now your current name is different from your name at birth. Now you’ve got to go ahead and document that you need an affidavit explaining why. And why would we go to all of these, troubles in order to keep people from voting when none of the states that are actually running the elections are telling us that there’s any problem.”
In fact, under various voter ID laws, states can create systems to address issues such as different maiden names or name changes following a divorce, including requiring a standard attestation provided by the state. Nothing in the SAVE Act requires birth certificates be brought to polling places. It allows for the use of a signed attestation supplied by the state.
As for identification, various forms are allowed:
The legislation would require documentation that shows an individual was born in the U.S., including either:
- An ID that complies with the REAL ID Act and indicates the holder is a citizen;
- A passport;
- A military ID card and military record of service that shows a person was born in the U.S.;
- A government-issued photo ID that shows the person’s place of birth was in the U.S.;
- Other forms of government-issued photo ID, if they’re accompanied by a birth certificate, comparable document or naturalization certificate.
Now, on the 19th Amendment, Raskin’s argument is simply ridiculous. Indeed, if this were credible, why has it not been used successfully against prior state voting ID laws? Rather than making this claim on CNN, it would be interesting for Raskin to try it in court once the SAVE Act passes.
It is unlikely to succeed because the 19th Amendment guarantees the right to vote, but, like all citizens, women can be asked to prove their eligibility to vote. The suggestion that requiring a signature on an attestation form is a barrier to voting is simply incredible.
The Nineteenth Amendment provides:
The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.
Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
Requiring proof of your identity neither denies nor abridges the right to vote. Indeed, for supporters of voter ID laws, it protects the right to vote by ensuring that only eligible voters are counted in elections.
Would requiring the REAL ID also violate constitutional rights like the right to travel or association for those with name changes? Of course not. The government may require basic identification for such transactions while creating reasonable methods of addressing name or address changes.
The claim of a 19th Amendment violation is spurious but par for the course in our current political environment. As with claims that democracy is about to die, these inflammatory claims are designed to distract voters who overwhelmingly support Voter ID. Democratic members are unified in opposing such laws. That is a debate that should be resolved on the merits, not meritless constitutional claims.
Jonathan Turley is a law professor and the best-selling author of “Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution.”
So we have this Leftist objection:
To register to vote, a person will have to take a birth certificate or passport to a physical location (and might have to ride a bus!). And (gasp) they might have to bring a marriage certificate.
How do those who can’t handle all that complexity and burden figure out how to vote?
John Say has taken a break from watching Youtube videos featuring online cranks to post yet another screed of of his psychotic verbal diarrhea in his usual stream of consciousness, and pressure of speech style, further confirming his gravely serious mental illnesses of bipolar disorder and schizophrenia.
His compulsive expression of every disconnected, irrelevant and nonsensical thought that flitters through his impaired mind is becoming increasingly bizarre in ever more lengthy and discursive diatribes of irrational gibberish and gobbledegook .
Does anyone here actually bother to read this complete nonsense that he spews here on a daily basis ????
He clearly has absolutely no life outside of this pitifully miserable excuse for a legal blog, except for watching Youtube videos from cranks with whackadoodle conspiracy theories, which he posts here on a regular basis as “evidence” that he is correct in his delusional pyschotic thinking.