Voter ID laws are politically motivated

Recently I have read two letters that question the new voter ID laws instituted in more than 16 states. What the writers fail to tell or inform the readers is that these new requirements have come about in the last two years. Supposedly they were written to avert voter fraud, but in the last 10 years there have been approximately 348 actual cases of voter fraud charges brought, which constitutes about .00015 percent of all votes cast.

Several state legislators have been caught on video admitting their main goal was to actually suppress voting to ensure a Romney win. Purging voters from voter rolls has been another tactic used, even of persons who have voted for decades, making it difficult for people to access the proper documents to prove their citizenship and cutting early voting accessibility and hours.

We do have federal laws that ensure voting rights that have been violated along with newly slyly crafted state laws. Now a group called The Voter Integrity Project, connected to the Tea Party, has in at least two states — Ohio and North Carolina — brought forth petitions to deny or purge thousands of people. In Ohio, college students’ registrations were challenged because they put their dorm building numbers on their voter registration applications but not their “dorm room number.” This group, which has the audacity to use the word “integrity” in its name, is far from discreet in its motives.

This effort is politically motivated. So, who is really committing voter fraud and limiting a right we are all, by law, entitled to?

Vicki Hilden

Arlington Heights