Groups under the umbrella of Tennessee Citizen Action have filed petitions they say contain six thousand names of persons who want the Photo Voter ID law overturned.
Speakers for an ad hoc group called “No Barriers to the Ballot Box” say the state law, passed last year, to require a photo ID in order to vote is part of a national campaign to discourage voters from vulnerable communities – including disabled folks and senior citizens.
Olivia Cloud is a reverend and president of the Nashville alumnae Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta. She says her sorority began in 1913 by marching for women’s suffrage – although as black women they had to march in the back of the parade.
Today, she says the sorority is tracking a trend of laws making voting harder, nationwide.
“Today we’re concerned that this law is doing the same thing. The people who are least able to remedy their situation in order to be able to vote are the ones who are bearing it. You’re seeing people with limited financial means, seeing people who are physically handicapped, and all those kinds of things, are being asked to bear burdens we think are too strong.”
The legislature is more focused on making sure more people have a photo id. A bill moving through the general assembly would get rid of the current option for people 60 and older to not have a photo on their drivers license.
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Mary Mancini, executive director of Tennessee Citizen Action, says the petitions were collected in 88 counties. The petition language:
“We reject Public Chapter No. 323 which requires eligible Tennessee voters to present a government-issued photo in order to vote.”
The public chapter (that’s the name for a new law that has been passed) lists the types of identification cards which may be used to prove the prospective voter’s identity.
In Tennessee, drivers over the age of 60 need not have a photo on their driver’s license, and that accounts for most of those that Tennessee Citizen Action thinks will be affected.
But people with limited mobility – who don’t have drivers licenses in the first place – are also at risk, according the ACLU’s Hedy Weinberg.
“Now recognize that’s what happened in Tennessee is happening all over the country, and if you look at the Southern states, you see that many of thosee states that surround Tennessee also passed voter suppression laws.”
The current bill is HB 2287 Sexton /SB 2267 Tracy. It would un-do the Tennessee law that exempts seniors from having their photo on their drivers’ license.
The bill was amended in a House subcommittee this week to add back some Tennesseans who will still be able to dispense with a photo on their drivers license:
-Members of the military, who routinely vote absentee from their duty station;
-Persons who are disabled, and
-People with religious objections to having a photo made.
Senate sponsor Jim Tracy of Bedford County says he hasn’t studied the new amendment yet. Action on the Senate version of the bill has been put off to the Feb. 29 meeting of the Senate Transportation Committee.
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