To the Editor:
Your last week’s editorial, "Veto Voter ID Bill," perpetuates the canard that requiring voters to have proper ID to vote somehow disenfranchises voters and effects a disproportionate number of low income and minority voters. Just as we do here in Fairfax County, requiring that a voter present proper ID to match them in the voter rolls at the precinct is not a burden to anyone. Proper identification is also a reasonable protection to the integrity of the voting process for all voters. Fairfax County will send you your Voter ID card for free—mind you, it doesn’t even have a photo—so you can identify yourself at your precinct and the precinct worker can match you to your address. One vote, one voter, one address.
There are also two very tangible ways you can know that requiring voter IDs is truly a reasonable and common sense safeguard to the electoral process. Have you ever seen a potential voter interviewed by the media who was denied their right to vote because they didn’t have an ID card? Like Diogenes wandering the streets of ancient Athens looking for the honest man, I’ve looked for that interview or voter and I’ve yet to see it. Secondly, if the requirement to have voter ID cards were such a burden for less fortunate or minority voters, and with nearly six months yet to go before elections, why aren’t we seeing Democrats organizing and conducting massive campaigns to get voters their ID cards so everyone who wants to be can be in compliance? I’ve yet to see an initiative to actually get those supposedly disenfranchised voters their ID cards. Maybe some of the donations from those big money political fund raising dinners could be used to pay for such a campaign to get everyone their voter IDs. Then there would be no issue—right?
Governor McDonnell should fully back reasonable and common sense legislation on Voter IDs for the integrity of the voting process in Virginia for all voters.
Chris J. Krisinger
Colonel, USAF (Ret)
Burke