(Did he ever leave?)
And Republicans act like they care about vote fraud.
By Brad Friedman on 3/12/2005, 10:09pm PT  

From The Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

Twenty-one of 22 Democrats walked out of the Senate chamber for about 30 minutes Friday evening following a vote that lowered the number of pieces of identification acceptable for voting. Senate Bill 84 would require photo identification from the Department of Motor Vehicle Safety to vote.

Democrats said they had serious voting rights concerns about the bill and worried that elderly and the poor wouldn't be able to get photo IDs.

Tim Golden (D-Valdosta), head of the Democratic Caucus, said, “White Democrats joined black ones to show their solidarity.”

He spoke of “the irony of getting rid of Jim Crow laws tomorrow while putting another on the books today.”

Republican sponsors of the bill said it was an effort to cut down on voter fraud. But Democratic critics compared it to the poll taxes, literacy tests and other laws aimed at suppressing black votes during segregation.

The AP version of the same story, by the way, quotes one Republican with the audacity to say: [emphasis added]

"My intention was to make sure in Georgia that next election, or down the road, we don't end up with all the lawsuits or all the voter irregularities we've heard about," said Sen. Cecil Staton, R-Macon, the bill's sponsor.

Is that really your "intention", Senator? If so, we hope you'll endorse Velvet Revolution's "Divestiture for Democracy" campaign immediately, sir. Please feel free to email us with your intention to do so or if you'd like further information on how we can really take steps to avoid "voter irregularities".

By the way, the voters weren't irregular at all. We haven't heard of too many "lawsuits" against voters for committing fraud, have you? And we've heard of not a single instance where a photo ID would have changed a damn thing beyond continuing to supress the minority vote.

The election, on the other hand, sir, was marred beyond a shadow of legitimacy thanks to the way lawmakers like you determined the votes of the people would be "counted". Jerk.

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