Voting rights | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's Note: Jim Bispo's weekly column appears in the Beaufort Observer.

    Eric Holder says it; Colin Powell says it: every NAACP "preacher" in the country says it: every Dem in the countryside says it. "Requiring someone to produce an ID in order to vote is clearly a Rep effort to disenfranchise voters." Apparently the "race baiters" seem to believe that if you repeat something enough times people will begin to believe it. Not the first one of 'em has told us how the requirement to show an ID actually disenfranchises voters. Let us hope that the populace is smarter than the race baiters give us credit for and don't "fall for" this latest effort at misdirectiion..

    First they started to pick on Texas, and now they are claiming that North Carolina is even more determined than Texas to disenfranchise voters (presumably black voters and especially poor black voters).

    Indeed, North Carolina must be even worse than Texas. They have shortened the period allowed for early voting. Listening to the howls that have accompanied this change, you would think that the period was shortened only for those of the black persuasion. Not so!! It was shortened for everyone. As an aside: There are a lot of folks who believe that anyone desiring to exercise their voting privilege (yes, it is a privilege) should be willing to vote on election day instead of scattering the vote out over several weeks.

    The State Legislature has also disenfranchised a lot of students from voting in NC elections. The Legislature apparently has the quaint notion that only residents should determine who is going to govern them. Surely, it takes more than attendance at a NC College or University to make one a resident.

    Doing away with same day "registration" will surely impose an inconvenience on the "Get Out the Vote" folks who take their buses to the old folks home - or where ever - and round up everyone they can find on election day and generously "help" them to register and then cast their ballots. Now they will have to make two trips: once to register and another to vote - clearly an inconvenience. Too bad....

    The one thing that is missing in all the protestations we have been hearing from both the politicians and the skin merchants is a reasonable and logical explanation how requiring the showing of an approved ID disenfranchises anyone. Tell me about the poor, the old and the infirm who don't have transportation or are otherwise unable to get to the DMV office to get their FREE state issued ID - and then explain how it is they are able to find their way to the polls but not to the DMV office.

    And... How many of these folks do you suppose receive food stamps of other forms of Government assistance?? How do you suppose they are able to find their way to the offices where they must go to apply for those "goodies". And once they get there, how do you suppose they are clever enough to be able to prove that they qualify for and then sign up for any of that stuff?? No ID required?? Just go into the Government Office responsible for whichever handout is being sought with a smile on your face (or maybe you put on your long sad face) and that's all that's required?? Voila!! You're signed up. Let the good times roll... (If that's true, we are in much worse shape than anyone could ever imagine.)

    Have you gone to a drug store lately and picked up a prescription without showing your ID?? Have you tried to get in to see your Doctor (even your "regular" doctor) without showing your ID?? Have you tried to cash a check without showing your bank issued ATM Card or your driver's license?? We can only wonder if those "requirements" are nothing more that efforts to discriminate against the folks that Holder, Powell, the Revs. and the skin merchants are so exercised about. And, if so, where do you suppose the "requirements" came from?? Could it possibly have been the U.S. Congress?? Or do you suppose the old white establishment folks (especially in the South) are trying to harm the minorities by denying them medicine or medical care or forcing them to check cashing outlets who will charge them $10 or more to cash their benefit checks?? (Another "big business" being catered to by the Reps??)

    Speaking of the South, let me tell you of my house selling experience when my wife and I were moving from New York (Nassau County Long Island, to be specific). After we listed the house with a Realtor, I was told without equivocation (by a friend with whom I worked) that if we contracted to sell our house to a minority (including Puerto Ricans) the house would most likely go up in smoke before we ever got to settlement. (It was not in the nature of a threat, only an effort to make me aware of how things are done up there.) If it's like that in the North, just imagine how much worse it must be in the South. But wait. We just sold our house in NC with a Sword of Damocles nowhere in the equation. Hmmm...

    Yeah, it's in the South where find the discrimination. Of course it is...

    D'ya think??