Homeless Man Gets the Runaround?From Chas Sisk:
Al Star, a Nashville homeless man, says he got the runaround from the Department of Safety when he attempted a few days before Thanksgiving to apply for a free state identification to vote, eventually having to call an aide to U.S. Rep. Jim Cooper before receiving the ID.
Star, 59, says a clerk at the Department of Safety’s office in the Snodgrass building near the Capitol initially refused to issue him a free ID to replace his lost driver’s license, saying instead that he would have to pay $12 for a replacement. Star says he told the clerk that he no longer needed a driver’s license because he doesn’t own a car and had stated clearly on his application that he only wanted an ID to vote.
Hamilton Commissioners Seek Repeal
Two Hamilton County commissioners pleaded with other members of their body Thursday to ask the state Legislature to repeal the voter ID law it passed earlier this year, reports the Chattanooga TFP.
Though commissioners will not vote on the resolution until Wednesday, they discussed the matter in an agenda session Thursday. Commissioners Greg Beck and Warren Mackey asked the others to help repeal the law.
The federal government is spending billions of dollars fighting wars in places such as Iraq to give citizens of those countries the right to vote, Beck said. Yet soldiers from Tennessee returning home might see their own grandparents turned away at the polls because they don’t have the proper ID, he said.
“Do you know that it’s easier for old people to vote over [in Iraq] than it is here?” he asked. “It used to be that easy for us to vote.”
More Fame for Dorothy Cooper
Dorothy Cooper, the 96-year-old Chattanooga resident denied her photo ID for voting in October, is becoming the national emblem in the Democratic fight against state voter identification laws, according to the Chattanooga TFP.
The Democratic National Committee rolled out www.protectingthevote.org Thursday and released a report on laws affecting voting rights across the states. The site attacks new voter ID laws across the country and features Cooper, who was turned away in October from a local Tennessee Department of Safety Driver Services Center.
Republicans say the bill has tremendous support across the state and is needed to ensure confidence in elections.
“I never knew it’d cause this much fuss,” Cooper said when reached by phone Thursday. “When I started I thought I was going to get my card and that would be it.”
…Will Crossley, the Democratic National Committee counsel and director of voter protection, said the Democratic National Committee chose to highlight Cooper to show how the laws are “unnecessary and essentially arbitrary,” and that “someone who has been voting for 70-something years would suddenly have her identity questioned.”