An Ex-Expatriate Reader Wonders Why European Countries Can Have Voter ID, But Florida Can't
06/07/2012
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Re: Obama's Voter Fraud Facilitation Policy: Does The GOP Have The Courage To Resist?

From: An Ex-Expatriate Reader [Email him]

I read Patrick Cleburne's recent VDARE.com article on DOJ efforts to stymie Florida initiatives to curb voter fraud with interest. As someone who has spent many years living abroad, I find the failure of commentators on right and left alike to draw comparisons with the practices of comparably advanced/civilized/democratic/post-industrial societies particularly frustrating.

It is not just Mexico that requires voters to produce a photo ID when voting. Many countries in the European Union require citizens to hold a national identity card or, failing that, a passport or certificate of nationality [See Wikipedia on   National Identity Card Policies By Country and Voter Registration]. All, to my knowledge, require the voter to produce some form of government issued photo identification at the polling place.

Among progressives, failure to take note of this fact in discussions of anti-voter fraud initiatives is particularly disingenuous, as many of the countries that require photo identification for voting purposes are, in other circumstances—e.g., discussions of health care, education and social policy—held up as models to emulate.

If such advanced countries as France, Germany and Sweden require voters to produce photo id, why exactly are moves on the part of individual states to require the same thing condemned as a barbarous innovation?

It is at least worth noting that this is a point on which much of the world disagrees.

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