County Clerk Donna Zimmerman is trying to get the word out.
Starting next year you will need to go through as much effort to exercise your rights as an American citizen as you do to buy a pair of sneakers in a Wichita department store.
If you have been asked for a photo ID to write a check, you have lived through the change that will come in voting, because starting in 2012, Kansans will need to show a valid photo ID when they vote.
For many, it’s a matter of “about time.”
There have been questions for some time about why voters don’t have to do anything to prove identity,
Of course there are those who are opposed to the change.
According to the Associated Press on this subject: “The laws and other voting restrictions have riled civil rights leaders and voter protection groups. Some groups say the new state laws are the equivalent of poll taxes and literacy tests that effectively kept minorities out of voting booths.
“They argue that blacks, Hispanics, senior citizens, people with disabilities and the poor are more likely to lack the required photo ID. But they also contend others could be disenfranchised: voters who fail to bring ID with them; students whose school IDs are deemed unacceptable; people whose drivers’ licenses have expired; women whose driver’s licenses do not reflect their married names or new addresses.”
It is to over come those objections that Zimmerman is getting the word out now.
So let everyone you know in on this: They will need a photo ID to vote next year.
They will need to meet that gruelling requirement in order to participate in the citizenship of the greatest nation on Earth.
And all of you who don’t feel that way, just check into what it will take for you to vote in an election in Iran.
Oh, that’s right. They don’t have elections in Iran — at least not any that matter.
— Chuck Smith