By WAYNE GREENE Senior Writer on Oct 23, 2008, at 9:25 AM Updated on 10/23 at 9:25 AM
WAYNE'S WORLD
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I ran into John Ford, the state senator from Bartlesville, at the Tulsa Press Club legislative reception earlier this week.
Ford is a very nice guy (and a Republican): soft-spoken, in love with his grandkids, etc. He seems like the kind of guy who you'd love to have as your next-door neighbor, and it would be hard to vote against.
That said, I have a hard time with an idea Ford has pushed and will certainly bring back again when the next Legislature convenes.
He wants the law changed to require a voter to show some form of ID when he votes.
It seems like common sense – if I have to show an ID to get on an airplane, why not when I vote – but it's fatally flawed.
Any identification system that is restrictive enough to genuinely prevent false voting would discriminate against the poor, the elderly and minorities. If you say you have to have a driver's license to vote, non-drivers are disenfranchised.
On the other hand, any identification system that is loose enough to include all legitimate voters wouldn't stop a modestly determined fraudulent voter. The version of the law Ford pushed last year would have included bank statements and utility bills among the forms of IDs that could be used as identification. If you were criminally bent toward voting illegally, do you think you would be deterred from creating a realistic looking phoney utility bill too?
Last year when I talked about the bill with Ford he couldn't come up with any Oklahoma examples of people getting caught trying to vote illegally where his proposal would have stopped the problem. That sounds like putting a burden on voters without legitimate cause.
Sen. Ford's last words to me at the reception were that he looked forward to talking to me about his voting bill again next year. I look forward to the conversation, Sen. Ford, and give my best wishes to your grandkids.
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