Eye On Boise

Voter ID bill passes House

Posted by Betsy

March 1, 2010 10:28 a.m. • 6 comments

Legislation from House Majority Leader Mike Moyle, R-Star, to require voters to show a photo I.D. in order to vote has cleared the House on a 64-6 vote, after a vigorous debate, and now moves to the Senate. Moyle said, “The right to vote in this country is a sacred right. … We want to make sure that when you vote, that you are who you say you are.” Opponents said Idaho has no problem with fraudulent voting now, and Rep. Donna Boe, D-Pocatello, spoke out against the bill. “It seems to me that one of the problems that we have with our elections is not necessarily people voting who are someone other than who they say they are, but not enough qualified people coming to the polls to vote,” she said. “To me this legislation would present one more barrier to voters who choose to vote or who are thinking about going to the polls to vote.” Rep. Dell Raybould, R-Rexburg, told the House, “There is rumors, rampant rumors about fraudulent voting. … I’m in favor of this bill if it does nothing else than put a halt to a lot of these rumors about fraudulent voting.”

Moyle said there’s no way to know if fraudulent voting is going on, because voters aren’t required to show photo ID’s. Under his bill, HB 496, those who don’t have photo I.D. can sign an affidavit instead.

Six comments on this post so far. Add yours!

WildWest on March 01 at 11:44 a.m.
Typically across America, this kind of legislation by conservatives is meant to disenfranchise voters, the requirement to show an ID is nothing more than an attempt to create a roadblock for thousands of voters who can’t get or do not have photo identification.

PLEASE MR. MOYLE WITH DETAIL, IDENTIFY THE PARTICULAR CASES OF PROSECUTED VOTER FRAUD IN OVER 100 YEARS OF IDAHO’S EXISTENCE AS A STATE?

In states requiring voter identification, these restrictive voter ID laws reduced turnouts significantly and especially among minorities as clearly identified in a Rutgers University report analyzing voting in recent elections.

Moyle & Idaho GOP are looking to intimidate the growing Hispanic vote in Idaho!

The GOP will use this to have voters purged from the rolls, forcing voters to seek reinstatement in time for an election.

Beware; Idaho Republicans will be looking at foreclosure lists to challenge voters.
palousian on March 01 at 12:18 p.m.
Someday soon we’re supposed to see the “evidence” of cross-party primary election voting behavior that the ID GOP believes unduly influences election outcomes. I expect that court filing (if it ever happens) will shed some “light” on the issue of alleged voter fraud as well.
MountainGoat on March 01 at 5:22 p.m.
“those who don’t have photo I.D. can sign an affidavit instead.”

How is that in essence any different from signing the voter roster as we now do? It’s apparent that the intent of this bill is what is important here and that is simply to discourage voter participation.

Shame on Mike Moyle and the rest of these Republican legislators for attempting to minimize the number of people they answer to.
MountainGoat on March 01 at 5:36 p.m.
I guess I should amend that last comment. Looks like several Democrats voted for this legislation too… shame on them as well.
Sisyphus on March 01 at 7:34 p.m.
Agreed MG. This a solution in search of a problem. And local dems are just as cowardly as the DC dems.
State_of_Idiots on March 02 at 1:24 a.m.
Where’s the East Idaho Taliban ‘Big Tom’ Loerscher to come in and make those ‘wimmin’ have the consent of their husbands, or brothers (S.O.P. in the Mid-east)??

I’m really surprised this one got past ‘Big Tom’ without some of his ham-handed input.

(Psssst Tom, your wimmin-folk are slowly poisoning you, dude)