As long as the ID requirements are made without regard to race, ethnicity, religion, gender and so forth I do not see how it could be considered bigotry. It seems obvious to me that there is no inherent bigotry to such a thing. Almost anything could be bigotry in certain circumstances. For instance, if a restaurant only carded 25-year-old-looking non-white people but let white people who look 25 drink uncarded, that would be obvious racism.

In another topic, Nick_A and I pretty much agreed on the whole presidential ID requirements thing so I won't get much into that. What I will say is that I do not see how it could be considered bigotry to require all presidential candidates to provide some sort of certain documentation in a certain way of eligibility, namely of having been born in the USA. Of course, there is no doubt to the fact that a good portion of Obama-opponents are racist and have racist motivations for almost any issue they have with Obama and probably go at the issue in a racist way since they are racists. (For instance, consider that most Mississippi Republicans oppose interracial marriage so much that they want it to be legally banned. I don't to detract from the topic, but I think that shows that a large portion of people are racist regardless of how they feel about ID requirements and thus it would be expected that they would support racist ID-requirement inequalities, particularly if it is a mainly republican proposal or talking-point in question.) Nonetheless, to brush off all people who support a certain ID requirement as racist is a hasty generalization fallacy and to brush off the ID issue itself by the (IMO false) belief that all of its supports are racist is clearly an ad hominem fallacy.

Excuse my ignorance, but I'm unaware of the referenced voter ID issue. Please inform.

Whenever I have voted, I was required to show my driver's license (or state ID) at the voting place on election day and then my name was crossed off the list of eligible voter's. If memory serves but I'm not sure on this, I was also required to show some certain evidence of my address as well since my driver's license had my old address (e.g. a current utility bill or the letter from the registrar sent to my address) at least the first time I voted after having registered in my new district. Of course, the law may be different in other states or I may be misremembering... ?

What is the issue? What kind of ID isn't being required where? What IDs are required? What changes are being proposed to voter identification policies to which "so many [people] express righteous indignation"?

Does SC just not require any ID at all or what ID do they require in place of picture ID? Why do eligible-to-vote minorities tend to have picture IDs so much less than white people in South Carolina?

Well these blogs wouldn't be credible sources of information anyway, but what is the alleged problem that warrants the would-be new, stuck-down law? What changes to that process--non-credibly described by a blog--would the would-be new, stuck-down law have made?

I still don't get the issue. From the responses I already got, it seems that South Carolina already requires people to provide ID so I'm not sure, then, what the new proposed but struck-down-as-racist law would do.

In any case, voter fraud doesn't appear to be a problem in South Carolina, as there doesn't appear to even be a single case of it. Nonetheless, if requiring ID makes people like Nick_A feel more secure and perhaps prevent even one case of voter fraud than that is okay as long as it does not increase racism in a state with a long history of racism and a large racist population. Surely not being racist is more important than whatever it is this law is supposed to do.

Luckily, the voting rights act holds racist states South Carolina on stricter standards, so South Carolina won't be able to put this law into effect unless it makes sure it isn't racist. Of course, I think we can all agree there is nothing inherently racist about requiring identification. However, I think we can agree that if a proposal is mostly supported by Republican in a state like South Carolina or Mississippi, there is a good chance it is racist simply because most republicans in these states are blatantly racist (see statistics from my previous post). Having a poll tax or stricter ID requirements in a racist state like South Carolina might be very racist considering how much less minorities have driver's licenses, can afford drivers licenses, and for instance were born outside of hospitals when SC was still officially segregated only a few decades ago. But to attack a poll tax or voter ID requirements is sort of missing the point especially since such things will almost certainly be blocked thanks to the civil rights act's consideration of these state's particularly racist recent histories. The real issue is these extenuating circumstances that enable voter ID to be racist. The real issue is the racially biased economic inequality that means minorities are much less able to afford a poll tax or a driver's license and the fact that the terrible effects of racism have not yet been rectified such as assuring black people who didn't get paperwork during hospital segregation get that paperwork and so forth. The debate over voter IDs appears to only be a symptom of significant ongoing racism; fix the racism and Jim Crow states can have their ID requirements.

Xris argues another point: that requiring IDs for voting would increase governmental authority. I would suggest the state offer a special voter ID that's only use is to vote that requires only as much violation of privacy to assure that purpose that one can get if one does not want a drivers license or normal non-drivers state ID. (From what other posters in this topic have already claimed, something similar already exists in South Carolina.) Back to issue of racism, though, I would prefer to see a more concentrated effort to address why minorities who wouldn't mind having state IDs do not have state IDs which I assume is mainly the cost and, for older voters, previous segregation. For instance, the state could wave the cost of these IDs temporarily (for all or just previously disenfranchised people) until there is no longer such a racist distinction.

As I explained in my first post, just because something is not inherently racist does not mean a certain instance of it isn't racist. See my example of a bartender who only asks for ID from people of a certain race while giving a pass to others.

Why do a higher percentage of racists than non-racists support this new ID law that was struck down as racist? Is it just a new-age poll tax? Is it because the so-called 'proof of eligibility' is not able to be provided by all who are eligible and that a higher percentage of eligible minorities are not able to provide it? For comparison, see the historical poll tax which isn't inherently racist but don't you agree it was racist? I still don't even understand what stuck-down changes are being proposed since according to your witness the state already required identification; But I can still see what appears to be an obvious easy, agreeable solution: get rid of the racism and then there is no problem with the ID law anyway. If these ID-law-supporters also support a companion policies that eliminate the racist framework that enables this ID law to be racist, then they can have there ID law without debate. For instance, make it so that minorities have IDs as much as white people and make sure that those who didn't get certain paperwork when hospitals and such were segregated get replacement paperwork now.

Frankly, I wish racists did get this probably racist ID law passed and I wouldn't mind seeing them get a huge poll tax passed because all the anti-racists opposing these things are fighting the symptoms of a problem that isn't going away by current methods. Like Thoreau wrote, "There are thousands hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root." Letting these racist laws further disenfranchise minorities would just highlight the root of the problem and give more of a chance of actually solving the racism issue, I think. I'd rather see the racism that puts black people in poverty taken away than merely the poll tax or ID requirement that combined with poverty disenfranchises them particularly since the poll tax or ID requirement isn't racist if the racism and poverty of which it makes use is eliminated. Unfortunately, the voting rights act, et al. doesn't go nearly that far and only requires these band-aid superficial symptom-fixes. In some ways, we were closer to King's dream in 1969 than now because racism is still so prevalent now but what's most different now is the complacency. Maybe the racists sneaking a racism-exacerbating law by would help break that complacency.