Chicken Little Syndrome: Voter ID
The chicks are all aflutter. It seems Voter ID in Mississippi and beyond is going to seriously hamper the ability of otherwise qualified individuals to vote. It seems that, despite the 62% of the people who voted for the initiative obviously don’t mind showing their ID to do so, this law is going to wreak havoc on our entire election system. There is only one problem: there is no real evidence to support that claim.
However, there is plenty of subjective treatment, leaps of intellect and illusions of complication to go around. There are plenty of “what if’s”, and plenty of references to little old ladies who have neither a birth certificate nor a photo ID. I’ll acknowledge, like Bigfoot, just because I haven’t seen them doesn’t mean they don’t exist. But, like Bigfoot, I’m curious as to how they manage in today’s world to remain so hidden.
At best and assuming a few do exist, then as an overall percentage these “examples” are a fraction of the overall voting population that can be easily dealt with in implementing the law. At worst, they don’t exist, figments of “Chicken Little’s” creative imagination.
Keith Plunkett
7/9/12
Magnolia Tribune
