Disenfranchisement of the elderly, students, and minorities generally means disenfranchisement of Democratic voters. Every presidential election season, this becomes an issue, one that is a potential threat, one that doesn’t get enough attention, IMHO. You’d think stealing democracy would be a bigger deal, wouldn’t you?

Requiring a photo I.D. at the polls is tantamount to said disenfranchisement, because these are often unaffordable or otherwise not accessible for many.

Conclusion: Arkansas and North Carolina sure seem to be trying to suppress the Democratic vote.

Arkansas:

The Arkansas House has approved legislation that would require voters to present photo identification to election staff before being allowed to cast a regular ballot.

North Carolina:

[I]t’s the ID requirement that has provoked controversy.

“The bill might as well be called the voter intimidation and disenfranchisement act,” [Democratic Sen. Malcolm Graham of Charlotte] said. [...]

According to the state elections board, there are more than 460,000 active voters, or 8 percent, with no photo ID issued by the Department of Motor Vehicles.

An analysis of those numbers by Democracy North Carolina showed that a third are over 65 and almost two-thirds are Democrats.

This is from a previous post:

Think Progress has an extensive post up about Disenfranchisement 2011 that just made me reach for my Pepto. Read their intro and weep (much, much more at the link):

In statehouses across the country, Republican lawmakers are raising the specter of “voter fraud” to push through legislation that would dramatically restrict the voting rights of college students, rural voters, senior citizens, the disabled and the homeless. As part of their larger effort to silence Main Street, conservatives are pushing through new photo identification laws that would exclude millions from voting, depress Hispanic voter turnout by as much as 10 percent, and cost taxpayers millions of dollars. In the next few months, a new set of election laws could make going to the polls and registering to vote significantly more difficult — in some cases even barring groups of citizens from voting in the communities where they live.

Conservative legislators across the country have said these laws are necessary to combat alleged mass voter fraud. But these fears are completely overblown and states already have tough voting laws on the books.

I rest my case.

H/t: Leftpalm