One Man, No Vote.

In my great state of Texas it's estimated that our new voter ID laws might have stopped four cases of voter fraud since 2004. Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of Texas voters, including women, students, and racial minorities, are going to face unvarnished discrimination at the voting booth as a result of these same laws.

Women, in particular, get a big old "Fuck You" from the state as it's now going to be REAL picky about the difference between your married name and your name on the voting rolls. The law has already snared a Texas judge and congresswoman Wendy Davis in its tacky little web.

What's worse is that there are about 800,000 Texas citizens without the kind of proper ID that would allow them to vote, mostly minorities. Here's how Ari Berman describes the process of getting one:

Voters must first pay for underlying documents to confirm their identity, the cheapest option being a birth certificate for $22 (otherwise known as a “poll tax”); there are no DMV offices in eighty-one of 254 counties in the state, with some voters needing to travel up to 250 miles to the closest location. Counties with a significant Hispanic population are less likely to have a DMV office, while Hispanic residents in such counties are twice as likely as whites to not have the new voter ID (Hispanics in Texas are also twice as likely as whites to not have a car).

Texas has set up mobile voter ID units in twenty counties to help people obtain an ID, but has issued new IDs to only twenty voters at the sites so far.

Republicans don't want you to vote, especially if you're not voting for them. This, in and of itself, is a really good reason not to ever vote for them.

=Lefty=