Add gubernatorial candidate Wendy Davis to the growing list of women who are having problems voting because of Texas' new photo ID law.
Davis, a Democratic state senator, was voting early in Fort Worth on Monday when poll workers made her sign an affidavit to verify her identity.
Why?
Her photo ID -- a driver's license -- included her maiden name, Wendy Russell Davis. But voter registration records listed her as Wendy Davis. Davis used the incident as an opportunity to tell the media who had gathered that women who have had name changes may be discouraged about voting. Election Day is Nov. 5.
A new law being enforced for the first time requires a voter show a valid photo ID that includes the voter’s name exactly as it appears on the elections department’s registration list. A 2011 state legislative decision requires Texans to show valid photo IDs at the polls for the first time. KERA reported on the matter last week.
Davis was only asked to initial a box on an official election document at the polling place.
“My voter registration card did not exactly match the driver’s license,” Davis said Monday after casting her ballot. “My driver’s license has my maiden name on it. My voter registration certificate does not. I was required to sign an affidavit demonstrating I am the person who is on the voter registration card.”
But Davis is concerned that women who’ve married or divorced and have changed their last names will have to go home and bring back additional documentation, such as marriage or divorce certificates.
Davis said: "That’s my greatest concern -- that women will show up to vote [and] they’ll be turned away because they don’t have that documentation and that women will be disenfranchised as a consequence of the interpretation of the voter ID law as it’s been applied.”
I think that it is awesome Wendy Davis is speaking out against the voter ID law implemented solely in fear of her campaign for governor.
This had GOT to be helping Davis. I mean after all when was the last time that a political party changed election law simply to stop a challenger that they fear they could not defeat in a fair fight?
I went through this BS when our Governor wanted voter id at the polls in President Obama's second election. The law was overturned, but we rallied to get photo id's for women in droves. How hard can it be for an elderly woman to get copies of her birth certificate, marriage licenses. baptismal records, etc etc etc.???
ReplyDeleteAnd how about women who've built their chosen profession and are recognized by their maiden name and those who feel no need to hyphenate and/or take their husband's last name?
There's no "male equivalent ", so it's aimed clearly at disenfranchising female voters, who'd more likely vote for Wendy. Good for her for getting this message out by her own example.
Smart Move!
There May Be Genetic Differences Between Liberals And Conservatives
ReplyDelete...The results, published in 2006 by the Journal of Research in Personality, were astonishing. In analyzing their data, the Blocks found a clear set of childhood personality traits that accurately predicted conservatism in adulthood. For instance, at the ages of three and four, the "conservative" preschoolers had been described as "uncomfortable with uncertainty," as "rigidifying when experiencing duress," and as "relatively over-controlled." The girls were "quiet, neat, compliant, fearful and tearful, [and hoped] for help from the adults around."
Likewise, the Blocks pinpointed another set of childhood traits that were associated with people who became liberals in their mid-twenties. The "liberal" children were more "autonomous, expressive, energetic, and relatively under-controlled." Liberal girls had higher levels of "self-assertiveness, talkativeness, curiosity, [and] openness in expressing negative feelings."
http://www.businessinsider.com/there-may-be-genetic-differences-between-liberals-and-conservatives-2013-10
Hmmmmm... I wonder - there have to be men out there who use their full middle names on some things and not on others. Let's see if this get applied equally to THEM. If James Smith has James John Smith on his voter registration and drivers license respectively, will he be asked to initial or affidavit? watch carefully.
ReplyDeleteActually, yes. On Austin's KLBJ FM this morning, DJ Dale Dudley was expressing his disgust over this very issue. HE was questioned when he voted; per his recall this morning, he was told he had to fill out an affidavit because on one of his (either voter id or TDL) it read Dale E. Dudley, the other said Dale Eugene Dudley. He was rightfully pissed and annoyed. So there's one example I have heard of so far from the airwaves of KLBJ from a longtime Austin radio personality.
Delete-soapydog
Making it hard for ANYONE to vote is not exactly what any person in their right mind would consider "patriotic."
ReplyDeleteMakes you wonder how the rightwingers justify this.
Actually the direction the country was going in before the teabaggers came along was making it easier for Americans to vote, not harder. The modern GOP has a lot to answer for. African Americans and women were given the vote by constitutional amendment; it is not for the GOP to change that.
DeleteBeaglemom
It's not women or men, It's getting it right. Pick a name, write out correctly, and for those who can't write ask a government employee for the system changes each day depending how it will benefit the Dem/Libs
ReplyDeleteIf you mean to be funny, you're not. If your comment is serious, it doesn't make any sense.
DeleteGet a life people
ReplyDeleteYou might feel differently if you go to vote and are turned away for some arcane reason. These are important matters. For a very long time all that mattered was that the person was a registered voter. Over the years there has been virtually no "voter fraud" by individuals; the "voter fraud" has been in counting and in using rigged computer systems and has been brought to us by the GOP. Republicans have a long history of accusing opponents of doing what they are doing.
DeleteBeaglemom
I just compared my driver's license to my voter ID card. My last name--which is only six letters--is truncated to four. I have no idea why. Neither my first name nor my middle name are long (4 & 5 letters, respectively.)
ReplyDeleteSo I'm going to try to early vote. I'll let you know.
I am so going to love seeing the faces of the repubes when the state of Texas gets their first democratic governor since '95!
ReplyDeleteAnd it's going to be a triple slap. First that they lose to a democrat. And second that they lose to a woman (the very demographic they have been trying to subjugate using every possible method, legal or otherwise.) And third, because this had failed!
The current group is as bad as the American Family Association concerning women and what they feel should be their place!
One major problem, though. Or possibly, anyway. The people who don't have the exact names, like Wendy!, are given provisional ballots. Who is to say they will be counted?
I'm going to vote in the special election today just to see if I get any grief from anyone. The state has my marriage record messed up in their database and refused over and over to change it. I don't know if that might not cause me a problem with voting. I can't believe I will have to probably take legal action to correct my name.
ReplyDeleteThis is an easy fix.
ReplyDeleteAny woman getting married in the state of Texas should NOT change her name. Keep your name, ladies. You're not property so you don't need to be labeled with your owner's name. See how the good ol' boys like it when their women folk aren't branded.
The really funny part about all this is that Wendy's gubernatorial opponent, our unesteemed attorney general, Greg Abbot is running into the same problems. His voter registration card and his driver's license don't match either. Wendy added an amendment to the voter id law that says if the first names are the same on both and the date of birth is the same, they can fill out the affadavit and vote. So Abbot needs to thank Wendy for the amendment because otherwise he would not be able to vote on Tuesday. Wonder how he feels about his precious voter id law now?
ReplyDelete