Action | Proposed Regulation on Voter Photo Identification Document |
Stage | Proposed |
Comment Period | Ended on 5/12/2014 |
My elderly mother's driver's license expired 18 years ago. She has not owned a car or driven one since her license expired. However, she has kept her expired license as her only picture ID. And it is a government issued ID. She uses it every time she has to go to the emergency room, the out patient hospital labs and clinics and for inpatient admissions. She uses it at the doctor's office and as her ID when using her credit card.. She receives a monthly stipend from the Veterans Administration. When they come for an annual audit, she has to show her driver's license to document she is who she and we say she is. Her insurance company accepts it. The pharmacy accepts it. The airlines accept it. I vacillate from anger that the Virginia state legislature thinks they are so high and mighty that they can't accept it and at the other extreme, finding it comical and ridiculous that our legislative representatives have the audacity to think they live in a separate universe from the rest of the world. I have been an election officer for eleven years. In my memory, we have had one voting incident that we thought might have been voter fraud. In less than a few hours after the voter cast his ballot, we knew it was not voter fraud. It was a mistake made by a voter registration office. And this investigation involved other jurisdictions in two other states. I was very impressed at how quickly our Registrar's office was able to clear up any doubt about the voter and his vote.