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This really should be classified under “more of the same” from President Obama. Anyone who is surprised that he is going on the attack against GOP efforts to require identification before a person can cast a vote can not have paid attention for the past five years. The man is falling back on one of his favorite tactics. When in doubt, accuse your opponents of something and let the media help you make it stick. Never mind if it is the truth or not.
I have been recently told that I was spending too much time making fun of President Obama. That comment was based on some of the pictures I choose for my posts. I suppose some of them are a little demeaning, but that is not my intention. Some of the claims being made by President Obama are just so outrageous that they have to be pointed out. Many of the pictures I use are chosen with that in mind and for that specific purpose. Thus, we move to his latest claim. According to the President, the Republican Party is leading an effort to restrict voting rights in America. As if requiring voter ID is designed to prevent legitimate voters from casting their ballots.
Newsday – President Barack Obama warned Friday of what he called a Republican-led effort to “make it harder, not easier, for people to vote,” and vowed to fight any efforts to erode the Voting Rights Act of 1965 in a speech before a civil-rights group in Manhattan.
“The right to vote is threatened today in a way that it has not been since the Voting Rights Act became law nearly five decades ago,”
With midterm elections this fall, Obama blasted efforts in some states to curb early voting, saying “it is wrong to make anyone wait six to seven hours to vote.”
He also criticized voter identification requirements being proposed in some states that he said could disenfranchise some voters — noting not all voters have access to government-issued IDs or their birth certificates.
Obama said he wasn’t opposed to preventing voter fraud and ensuring identification security, but said in 12 years there have been only 10 documented cases nationwide of voter impersonation.
“Let’s be clear: The voter fraud is the people who try to deny our right to vote,” Obama told the crowd, which applauded throughout his speech.
The president said U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, who addressed the group on Wednesday, had already opened some 100 voters’ rights investigations, adding “as president, I’m not going to let attacks on these rights go unchecked.”
Obama said of Republicans pushing tougher requirements: “If your strategy depends on having fewer people vote, that’s not a sign of strength, it’s a sign of weakness.”
Before we move on, note that President Obama was speaking to the National Action Network, which is led by Al Sharpton. That speaks volumes as far as I am concerned. Maybe even more than Obama’s actual words. Having said that, let us examine a particular voter ID law, the one passed in Oklahoma by 74% in 2010. This information is taken straight from OK.GOV.
The proof of identity law requires every voter who votes in person at the precinct polling place or during early voting at the County Election Board to show proof of identity before receiving a ballot.
A document used for proof of identity for voting must have been issued by the United States government, the State of Oklahoma, or a federally recognized tribal government.
PHOTO IDENTIFICATION
A document used for proof of identity for voting must have been issued by the United States government, the State of Oklahoma, or a federally recognized tribal government.
The law requires a document used for proof of identity for voting to contain the following information:
- The name of the person to whom it was issued
- A photograph of the person to whom it was issued
- An expiration date that is after the date of the election, unless the identification is valid indefinitely
The law requires the voter’s name on the proof of identity document to “substantially conform” to the voter’s name in the Precinct Registry. In other words, your name on your proof of identity must match your name in the Precinct Registry.
COUNTY ELECTION BOARD VOTER IDENTIFICATION CARD
In addition, voters may use the free voter identification card they received by mail from the County Election Board when they registered to vote. The law allows use of the voter identification card even though it does not include a photograph.
AFFIDAVIT WITH PROVISIONAL BALLOT
If you do not have or if you refuse to show proof of identity, you may vote by provisional ballot and prove your identity by signing a sworn affidavit.
Provisional ballots are sealed inside special envelopes and are not put through the voting device. After election day, County Election Board officials will investigate the information provided by the voter on the affidavit and either will approve the provisional ballot for counting or will reject it based on the outcome of that investigation.
A provisional ballot cast by a voter who declines or is unable to produce proof of identity shall only be considered verified and approved for counting if:
- The voter’s name on the affidavit substantially conforms to the voter’s name in the voter registration database.
- The voter’s residence address on the affidavit substantially conforms to the voter’s residence address in the voter registration database.
- The voter’s date of birth matches the information in the voter registration database.
- The voter’s Oklahoma driver license number or the last four digits of the voter’s Social Security number on the affidavit matches the information in the voter registration database. (This provision does not apply if the voter was not required to provide a driver license number or the last four digits of the voter’s Social Security number at the time of registration.)
- The provisional ballot meets the eligibility requirements set forth in Section 7-116.1 of Title 26 of the Oklahoma Statues.
I have included the entire provision so you can see how the voter ID law in Oklahoma makes provisions for everyone to be able to have the identification they need to cast their vote. Regardless of what President Obama says, it is not difficult to obtain an identification card that meets the requirements of the law. Because there are so many Native Americans living in our state, specific provisions were made to allow tribal ID cards to be used as voter ID. I know, for a fact, that the Native American tribes in Oklahoma have made sure it was easy for their members to receive an ID card. Clinics were provided all over the state to make that happen.
If it sounds like I am repeating myself, so be it. My point is that it is not difficult to obtain an ID that qualifies you to vote in our elections. President Obama would like you to believe the Republican Party is after only one thing with the renewed push for voter ID. He tries to tell America the GOP wants to restrict their right to vote. He declares your voting rights are under attack, but nothing could be further from the truth. What we want is simply this. Votes should only be cast by American citizens and those citizens should be allowed to vote only one time in each election. Why is that so hard for the Democrats to grasp?
President Obama is on a roll about civil rights. Earlier this week, he visited Texas to laud the accomplishments of LBJ on that front. He tied his own accomplishments to those of LBJ. It is true that President Johnson helped push the Civil Rights Act through Congress, but there is another part of the civil rights saga that so many Democrats refuse to acknowledge. The KKK was created by southern Democrats. It was also the Democrats who enacted strict voting registration laws that were specifically designed to prevent blacks from voting. It was the Republican Party that led the push to fight those laws and to pass the both the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act.
President Obama is doing his best to establish a narrative he believes will further his agenda and help the Democrats in the mid-term elections. He was successful in doing that in 2012, convincing a great number of Americans that Mitt Romney and the Republican Party was engaged in a war on women. That narrative, as is the narrative that the Republican Party wants to restrict voting rights, was a lie. That fact will not prevent Obama from spreading the word, I am sure. That is one reason why we must continue telling the truth about Obama’s false narratives and the lies he is telling. If that requires me to mock his presidency for the failure it has been, then so be it. Let the mockery begin.