Travesty In Wisconsin

As Tuesday's primaries in Wisconsin approach, it's worth exposing the efforts by the increasingly unpopular Rethuglican Gov. Scott "Koch Head" Walker to suppress voting by Democratic constituencies  through onerous voter ID laws. Ostensibly meant to eliminate in-person voter ID fraud, which is actually a rarity, these laws create barriers to low income, elderly and minority voters who generally vote Democratic.  Several hundred thousand people in Wisconsin could be denied the vote in Tuesday's primaries.

One example of the law's victims is ex-Marine Dennis Hatten, who was homeless for a time and lacked the documentation to prove his citizenship in order to obtain the birth certificate necessary to acquire a state ID. Hatten was finally able to secure a state ID, but it was only after months of effort by voting rights advocates that would have been costly had it not been pro bono. Hatten recalled his uncle in Arkansas, who was systematically denied the right to vote under Jim Crow laws aimed at disenfranchising black citizens, and saw the similarities with the now-illegal poll tax.

If you want to get an idea of how utterly flimsy and despicable the Wisconsin laws are, just watch Koch Head's defense of his voter suppression scheme, which he's built on a big lie. All the more reason why these thugs have to be stopped in their attempts to hijack our democracy.