Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar
Voter ID = Poll Tax
RECEIVED Sun., Feb. 6, 2011
Dear Editor,
Poll taxes were a payment due at the polling booth that were required in order to cast a ballot and were thereby used to control who had the ability to vote and thereby influence who would be elected. They were banned in federal elections by the 24th Amendment in 1964, and were banned on the state and local level by the Supreme Court in 1966 in Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections. The decision specifically found that “a state violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution whenever it makes the affluence of the voter or payment of any fee an electoral standard. Voter qualifications have no relation to wealth.”
As it does not appear that any free form of ID will be accepted at the polls under the currently proposed voter ID bill (Senate Bill 14), it seems to me that unless there is a provision in the voter ID bill to either accept free forms of identification (such as mail sent to the voter at his or her listed address) or provide a valid ID at no cost to the voter, then the voter ID bill is tantamount to a poll tax [“The World According to Voter ID,” News, Feb. 4]. If this bill is to go forward, then I would either encourage the acceptance of free forms of identification or the issuing of free photo IDs to be included in the bill, or for the constitutionality of the law to be challenged on that basis.
Poll taxes were a payment due at the polling booth that were required in order to cast a ballot and were thereby used to control who had the ability to vote and thereby influence who would be elected. They were banned in federal elections by the 24th Amendment in 1964, and were banned on the state and local level by the Supreme Court in 1966 in Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections. The decision specifically found that “a state violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution whenever it makes the affluence of the voter or payment of any fee an electoral standard. Voter qualifications have no relation to wealth.”
As it does not appear that any free form of ID will be accepted at the polls under the currently proposed voter ID bill (Senate Bill 14), it seems to me that unless there is a provision in the voter ID bill to either accept free forms of identification (such as mail sent to the voter at his or her listed address) or provide a valid ID at no cost to the voter, then the voter ID bill is tantamount to a poll tax [“The World According to Voter ID,” News, Feb. 4]. If this bill is to go forward, then I would either encourage the acceptance of free forms of identification or the issuing of free photo IDs to be included in the bill, or for the constitutionality of the law to be challenged on that basis.
Gwendolyn Norton
