Voter ID Archives » Lynda Waddington

08Jan 2017 by Lynda Waddington

State funding too tight for unnecessary Voter ID

Gazette Column

Secretary of State Paul Pate says a slate of expensive proposals will clinch the future integrity of Iowa elections. Now he needs to prove it. As telegraphed by key GOP lawmakers last month, a key component of Pate’s upgrades is Voter ID. This piece requires voters to produce approved forms of identification before casting ballots. Pate suggests Iowa-issued driver’s licenses, military-issued identification cards and passports. [caption id="attachment_358" align="alignleft" width="300"] The Iowa State Capitol building is seen after short snow storm the day after the caucuses in Des Moines on Tuesday, Feb. 2, 2016. (Andy Abeyta/The Gazette)[/caption] As I wrote in a column three weeks ago, this is a solution in search of a problem. The voter fraud witch hunt conducted by Pate’s Republican predecessor scrutinized 1.6 million Iowa votes and…

Iowa lawmakers’ top priority is moot point

Gazette Column

Instead of tackling a host of thorny issues before the state, lawmakers are poised to offer a solution to a non-existent problem when they convene in January. Senate Majority Leader Bill Dix, R-Shell Rock, and House Majority Leader Chris Hagenow, R-Windsor Heights, told the Des Moines-based Westside Conservative Club this week that when they convene the 2017 session on Jan. 9 lawmakers will push through unnecessary laws that will require Iowans to present state-issued identification in order to cast their ballots. And while I understand that Voter ID has been a GOP goal for some time, I’ve yet to understand why. Voting is a fundamental right, not a privilege. As such, it is protected by more constitutional amendments than any other right Americans enjoy. It is especially a mystery to…

Voter ID still bad for the masses

Gazette Column

Some folks didn’t take kindly to my calling voter ID laws a scam in last Sunday’s column. So, in their honor, this week I’d like to add a few more words. Let’s start with “racket” and “fraud.” The necessity of early deadlines for physically printed content, and the 24-hour news cycle combined with Internet availability, often means that a Sunday column, written Thursday or Friday, will not contain information from the days in between. This was the case for my column last week, when I discussed a GAO report on the stifling impacts of voter ID laws. After the column was completed, a federal decision was made on Wisconsin’s voter ID laws. The U.S. Supreme Court ruling was especially interesting because its earlier dissent was written by 7th Circuit Judge Richard Posner, a Ronald Reagan…