El-Amin came out blazing this week against proposed state legislation mandating that every voter in Missouri present a state-issued form of photo ID at the polls (which was trashed by the EYE and on this paper’s editorial page last week).
“Supporters of SB 1014 have tried to convince skeptics that the bill won’t disenfranchise voters. Nothing could be further from the truth,” Yaphett writes. “Tens of thousands of Missourians will lose their right to cast a ballot on election day because they won’t have photo identification. These voters aren’t just African-American, Hispanic-American or Asian-American. Many are low-income, elderly and disabled. They traditionally vote for Democrats. Others are rural victims of Governor Matt Blunt’s disastrous Medicaid cuts and are considering breaking their allegiance to the Republican Party. By eliminating those voters from the roles, Republicans greatly increase their chances of scoring big victories in 2006, including retaining Jim Talent’s U.S. Senate seat.”