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VOTER ID

Restore People’s Faith in the System

Rarely in life are things so clear cut that you can call them black or white. In reality, most issues fall in the “gray” zone, meaning the parameters aren’t clear and so there is a blur between black and white. However, voter ID is one topic that is definitively black or white. You either require voter ID, or you don’t. There’s no middle ground. Similarly, you’re either for it, or against it. I haven’t yet met anyone who is “in the middle” on this topic.

From a legal viewpoint, our US Constitution says that individual states get to decide how to run their elections. So each state has its own election law(s), and since there is no federal law requiring voter ID, we therefore end up with states having the option of whether or not they want to require voters to show identification in order to vote. As of today, there are 14 states plus Washington DC that do not require a voter prove they are who they say they are. All the others require some form of ID (most require photo ID, and some require non-photo ID). If you want to see which states require/don’t require voter ID, you can take a look at this website by BallotPedia, or peruse their voter ID map below.

I noticed something rather interesting in this past election… Of the states that do not require voter ID, almost every single one of them voted for Kamala Harris over Trump. It’s astonishing. Take a look at this map of the presidential election results from last month, and then compare it to the above map of the states that do/do not require voter ID:

Another thing I noticed is that almost every single state that doesn’t require voter ID is run by Democrats. To qualify this statement, when I say a state is “run by” Democrats, I mean the state’s legislature is majority (or supermajority) Democrat. Why is that important? Remember above when I pointed out that our Constitution empowers states to make their own election laws? Well, the legislatures make those laws.

Peeling back another layer, if you look at this map below, it shows you which states Kamala won and whether or not that state has any voter ID laws. According to this map, the vast majority of states that Kamala won do not require voter ID. She only won a handful of states that require some sort of ID. Coincidence?

In my opinion, the only reason a state would not require voter ID is to make it easier for people to cheat. Seeing as that I live in New York (one of the 15 states that do not require voter ID of any sort), I’ve heard rather absurd arguments against requiring ID. Not surprisingly, these arguments are coming from the politicians who run the State – the Democrats. Are you ready to hear their most prevalent argument they pose against voter ID? Just make sure you’re sitting down first. Okay, so the New York politicians say we can’t have voter ID because it is “racist”! Mind you, this is the same argument these inept lawmakers used to get rid of cash bail a few years ago (which has caused a significant spike in crime here in NYS). In case you’re scratching your head wondering how voter ID could possibly be racist, their “logic” goes like this… it’s racist because it is more difficult for minorities to obtain government ID than non-minorities. My reaction every time I hear one of them say this is… seriously guys? I mean, your argument doesn’t even pass the sniff test, not to mention the fact that your reasoning is in and of itself racist! They are (unbelievably) saying minorities are, generally speaking, too ignorant to obtain photo ID. It’s just so insulting!

Now, if we’re talking about minorities who are illegal aliens, then maybe I can see an argument for it being more difficult for them to obtain government issued photo ID particularly if they do not speak English. However, illegal aliens are not supposed to be voting in our elections, so does that argument even hold water? No, it doesn’t. This is all just smoke and mirrors topped with a scoop of immense hypocrisy.

To prove the point further, let’s take a look at just a few things you cannot do in our society unless you have a government issued photo ID:

• board an airplane
• operate a motor vehicle
• purchase cigarettes
• purchase alcohol
• purchase a firearm
• check in to a hotel
• enter a military base
• the list goes on and on….

Do I think requiring voter ID nationwide is a good idea? Yes, I do. Do I think requiring voter ID will solve all of our election integrity problems? No, I do not. However, I do think requiring voter ID will go a long way in restoring the public’s trust in our election system. A significant part of my work is public speaking, and I have criss crossed New York State countless times over these past few years for speaking engagements. What I’ve learned is that, no matter what part of the State I’m in, there is a real degradation of voter confidence in our system. Without confidence that their vote “counts”, most voters will simply elect not to vote at all. We cannot win elections if people aren’t voting! By the way, by “we” I mean patriots who value freedom and the rule of law, and think America-first is the way to go. Please don’t think by “we” I mean Republicans, because I am not Republican.

For those who are still of the mindset that their vote doesn’t count, and that the system is “rigged” (as I hear so often in my travels), I share these statistics with you… Just looking at the microcosm of New York State as an example (arguably the most dystopian state in our nation), we have 19 million people in New York. Approximately 12 million are registered to vote. In our last gubernatorial election in 2022, only 5.6 million people voted. Our radical governor (Kathy Hochul) won by only 300,000 votes! Compounding those statistics is the fact that between 2020 and the 2022 election, approximately 600,000 New Yorkers fled the State. I’m sure you realize that most of those that fled likely did so because they were sick of the oppressive rules and laws in New York and were seeking more “freedom” in a less blue (or a flat out red) state. So had just half of them stayed and voted against Hochul and her radicalism, we wouldn’t be having this discussion with New York as a dystopian haven. I can say this with certainty, as the Republican who ran against Hochul (Lee Zeldin) is a colleague and a friend, so I know he is a fellow defender of the Constitution and is America-first.

Come January 20th, we will have a changing of the guards, so to speak. One of the first things I’d like to see the new Congress and Trump administration do is nationwide voter ID requirements. Restore people’s faith in the system, and then you can go forward from there.

This article is printed with permission of Bobbie Anne Cox, the NYS Attorney who independently sued and initially defeated Gov. Hochul’s unconstitutional DOH regulation to place people in quarantine camps. Follow her at AttorneyCox.Substack.com or on X…. @Attorney_Cox