In yet another apparent violation of the 10th Amendment, which guarantees that "powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution ... are reserved to the states," President Barack Obama's Justice Department has sued the state of South Carolina for imposing photo ID requirements on potential voters.
Is that an unreasonable requirement? I don't think so, but this ill-considered lawsuit against a sovereign state is just the latest example of how Obama and his very "progressive" attorney general, Eric Holder, are attempting to punish states that oppose their ultra-liberal political agenda. Earlier, they sued Arizona and Alabama for trying to enforce our nation's immigration laws. What next?
The Justice Department sued South Carolina last month for requiring photo ID at the polls, claiming that this measure discriminates against minority voters. According to the DOJ, minority voters are nearly 20 percent more likely than whites to lack photo ID. Sorry, but I think that photo ID is a reasonable, common-sense voting requirement.
South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley called the Justice Department's action "outrageous" and vowed to fight it in the courts.
"We plan to seek every possible option to get this terrible, clearly political decision overturned so that we can protect the integrity of our electoral process and our 10th Amendment rights," she said. The state law, passed last May and signed by Gov. Haley, requires voters to show one of five forms of photo identification, like a driver's license or similar ID. The law also limits early voting and makes it more difficult for ex-felons to vote. So what's the problem?
I've been an elections worker for the past 15 years and have yet to see a problem with the way our state registers voters. In Nevada, a potential voter must sign a form and show photo ID when registering to vote with the county clerk. Then, when he or she shows up to vote, an elections worker compares the voter's signature with the signature on the electoral rolls. Simple.
But that's too onerous for those who want to play fast and loose with election laws, people like the ACORN officials who were paid to "register" dubious voters in the Silver State in 2008. And then there are those who think it would be a good idea to permit illegal aliens to vote. Fortunately, each state controls its own election laws, and most responsible Americans reject such shenanigans.
Some so-called "progressives" compare photo-ID voter requirements with the old Jim Crow laws and poll taxes in the South, which prevented blacks from voting. Those days are long gone, however, and it's ridiculous to compare voter rights in the 21st century with those of the 19th century.
One conservative columnist ridiculed the "let everyone vote" crowd when he wrote that "maybe we can text in unlimited votes like on 'American Idol.'" So let's hold the line on voting rights and require potential voters to produce photo IDs. Anything less would poison our much-admired voting process, which is the envy of the world.
• Guy W. Farmer has been a Carson City elections worker since 1996.
