The only thing that is more disgusting than despicable Republicans trying to win elections by voter suppression, is dishonorable Democrats trying to win elections by stuffing the ballot with ineligible votes. I mean truly, what is worse, trying to instigate the same ID-proof requirements on voters that must be shown to attend an Obama speaking event , or allowing anyone at all whether they be a non-US citizen, someone trying to vote twice, or even someone dead lo’ these many years to have a ballot cast in their name?
Mr. Martin – you must “show your papers” (passport) when you fly international, right? Last time I flew to Asia on business I had to keep my “papers” with me at all times in each foreign country I visited. Oh the horror, the shame and disgrace, it was truly a horrendous experience! Every time I make a deposit at my local bank, I have to “show my papers” (photo ID) to the clerk to get a receipt with a balance on it. Last year I bought a car, and those damn Nazi-Ford credit guys MADE me “show my papers” to get the car registered! Can you believe it?! And what about that neo-fascist Obama? Did you know that a person MUST “show their papers” to a bunch of thugs with automatic weapons at the gate to even get into see the One speak these days? No ID, no-get-to-see-Obama-speak. It’s truly unbelievable! I mean, it would really be nice is some Democrats would get rid of all these photo-ID requirements at all of these bigoted, racist sponsored speaking events!
Now Mr. Martin, if voting in our elections is our “most basic and important” right, and I agree 100%, voting is much MUCH more important than getting on an airplane, buying a car, taking out a loan or attending a political rally – then why should we be LESS vigilant at insuring the eligibility of voters than we are of all of these other actions? The only obvious explanation for why Democrats don’t want such miniscule, common sense, free, proof of ID requirements put in place for voting is that they intend to stuff the ballot with invalid votes.
By the way, I am very glad to hear of your admiration of Barry Goldwater, no doubt you would vote for him were he still running for office. (color me skeptical)
Thank God you’re “way too busy for political rants” these days is all I can say.

Mr. Martin. I'm in my mid 40s, a HUGE fan, and I appreciate the response. Apologies for the sharp reply earlier, but I think it's a fair reaction given the "racist" and "bigot" slurs you were tossing around, impugning the motives of anyone who happens to disagree with you on this topic. I'm old enough to remember when anyone could go into a gas station and buy a pack of cigarettes with no ID (I did it all of the time for my mother). It seems ludicrous to me that photo ID is required for that but NOT for voting.

So you're in favor of removing all these ID requirements, which you would have to be to be consistent in your argument, I mean it truly makes zero sense that one MUST, by law, prove their 18 years or older to buy a pack of Marlboro's, yet does NOT have to prove they're 18 years old (federal requirement) in a voting station to practice what is our most important exercise of democracy. (Just a tad bit more important than keeping kids from smoking you know.) No one likes the fact that security of personal information and personal safety is more critical and scrutinized now than 40 years ago, the world is obviously not the same as the one you grew up in. I travel alot, mostly overseas, for my work, and I know firsthand the hassle, delays, and frustrations that come with tighter security (and if' you've flown thru Tel Aviv you know that in comparison, our security here in the US is a cakewalk). To me the hassle is a small price to pay if the result is safer skies, but sure lots of people disagree with that. Good luck convincing anyone to remove 100% of security at airports and political rallys though, the freedom your imagining aint ever gonna happen - like it or not, that's just the fact of life nowadays.

I just seems to me that - if we truly believe in the importance of our elections - that there is simply no good argument to be made for why our laws should require proof of ID for opening a bank account or buying a pack of cigarettes, but NOT require citizens to prove that they are who they say the are when it comes time to vote. If voting truly is THAT important, then even if it providing proof of ID is a hassle (which it's not), isn't it just a little absurd to complain about having to make some level of effort to engage in such a critically important task? Given the very large number of illegal immigrants that now inhabit our country (a huge HUGE difference since your younger years you cite obviously) - that fact alone should make every US citizen want to insure that only US citizens are voting and affecting our elections and not people who are not US citizens and have no legal right to be in the polling booth to start with. This is unassailable logic. Why so obtuse?

How it's "wrong" to require citizens involved in the most important transaction of our democratic process to meet the same standard as anyone that drives our Interstate system is beyond me. One can gripe about how horrid it is to have to apply and obtain some form of identification, but it seems a very small price to pay to insure, as much as possible, the integrity of the election process, especially in light of the fact of the very large illegal immigrant population whom most polls show vote Democratic. There is just as much political incentive for Democrats to have as-loose-as-possible voting laws as there is for Republicans to want to limit it. I will not impugn the motives of those who disagree with me on this, rather I will continue to point out the illogical stance of many of them on this issue when compared to other, common sense ID-proof laws and requirements, as well as note that we have had very very close elections in recent years. The idea that someone (from either side) might try to manipulate the process should be something all of us should be concerned with, to avoid - as much as possible - having a constitutional crisis around a challenged election result.

As a comparison effort from Democrats, I seem to recall most Democrats supporting "Card check" laws for unionization efforts, a coercive law that shredded voting privacy rights for employees. I think it's quite impossible to say Democrats hands are clean when it comes to trying to instantiate laws that would manipulate elections to their favor.

(And by the way, glad to see you pining for a return to the olden' days, wanting to turn back the clock on "progress", Here I thought only stodgy, better-than-you conservatives wanted that. Maybe this case shows how asinine such claims are from both sides.)

I'll let my second favorite living author (sorry - Joe Abercrombie is way up there for me right now) have the last word here. No disrespect and lots of love for your writing, truly. Just happen to disagree with your politics. Thanks for the responses!

Sorry cant help myself, one last response.

Rights vs privileges here is a distinction without a difference. You're exactly correct to point out the various Constitutional foundations for the right to vote, no disagreement. Let's shed some some more light on this though; first off, the Constitution grants CITIZENS the right to vote, specifically for those "born or naturalized". Non-citizens, of which persons inside the United States illegally would be obviously included, have no such right via the U.S. Constitution. In a day and age when upwards of 1-in-10 people within our shores are here illegally you would think that making sure that none of those 30million+ people are illegally voting and effecting our elections would be of a concern to many voters. (Apparently not if you think that such votes will help you politically.) The right to vote is a priviledge for citizens only (of which far far to many dont seem to care, and certainly do not inform themselves enough on the issues, on that I assume we can find some agreement. :) )

And just as the privilege to drive on our roads can be revoked, so can voting rights. It is currently against the law in almost every state (like 45+ states) for convicted felons in prison to vote. Several states even restrict the voting rights of former prisoners for a period of time, the "right" must be earned back. Rights, priviledges, the point remains, there is nothing wrong with holding citizens accountable for the most minimum of ID requirements to insure the utmost integrity in what is the most important act of responsible citizenship we can engage in, voting. It's simple common sense.
There. I'm done. :)

But isn't this kind of a "things were better back in the day" sort of attitude? Yeah, flying sucks now, but that's because of extreme Islamist lunatics, not an American political agenda. 200 hundred years ago I could also go beat my neighbor over the head with a shovel, chuck him in the river and walk away with clean hands. Today we have forensic science which pretty much makes it damn near impossible to get away with anything! My bank teller also greets me by name, but only because I live in a relatively small town meaning she doesn't have 10,000 names and faces to remember. There's over 300,000,000 people in the USA now, the same amount that populated the entire world a few hundred years ago. A good percentage of those people are here illegally. I've had my identity stolen, and I'm only 22! I agree with you that things are lame and look to be only getting lamer; But I do think that we have to attempt to give everyone a fair chance. If people who are alive and well are being unregistered to vote for no apparent reason, then that's bad and needs attention. I don't think requiring an ID is anything close to evil because there are just too many people these days and we can't expect the people running the voting booths to be able to identify every single person. I think the bigger, underlying issue here is unsustainable population growth.

Absolutely. People speaking out and acting against unmitigated lameness is what created this country! I have a question though: Are you against technological progression as a whole? If you have to present your ID card to vote, it seems like a pretty innocuous action to safeguard the true spirit of the system; one person, one vote. Say we didn't use ID cards and the polling staff just whole- heartedly accepted whatever the voter said as truth. What if one person managed to vote twice, and the end tally came to candidate A beating candidate B by 1 vote. It's such a drastic and possibly world-changing outcome that such a simple measure aims to prevent. Yes it's a little affronting to present yourself as data to be ticked off, but it just doesn't seem reasonable to rely on the goodness of the human heart and the facial/name recognition skills of polling staff anymore. So is technology revealing the inner baddie within all of us?