Public Service Announcement: Ladies, Update Your Records

The topic of the day is “voter fraud”. The League of Women Voters filed an amicus brief with the United States Supreme Court regarding the Indiana Voter Fraud Law. And here’s another piece on it from NPR.And here’s the money quote that should give you chills:

The devil, Smith contends, is in the details of Indiana’s law. He cites, for example, the case of a woman who made three trips to the motor vehicle bureau in a vain attempt to get a free voter ID card. Her problem, even after she obtained her birth certificate, was that it was not in her married name. While the state does provide free voter ID cards, Smith observes, voters incur considerable costs in time and money to secure the documents the state requires as a condition for getting the cards.

Scary, eh?

• goldberry’s diary :: ::

I mentioned this a couple of months ago in The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pantsuit. At the risk of sounding like Miss Teen SC, I personally believe that the voter fraud case is being brought to the USSC not just because states and their Republican enablers are trying to suppress minority voters. I think they’re after women this time. Because it’s much harder to try voter suppression tricks ala Ohio 2004 on half the population. Those long lines in Ohio worked to kill minority turnout but women are a MUCH larger portion of the population. The media is bound to notice that even if we do have to smack them on the head with an iron skillet.

Now, who here thinks that the US Supreme Court will reject Indiana’s voter fraud law? Speak up! Anybody?

That’s right. Not with Roberts, Scalia, Thomas and Alito on the bench. All you need to do is be an obsequious toady for Kennedy and his sense of greatness at being the tiebreaker will go straight to his head. He leans conservative, so I think it is a given that he will not find the fraud law burdensome.So, how will the Rovians swing this to suppress us? Well, here’s a clue: about 7 years ago, the IRS sent me a letter telling me I had misrepresented myself on my tax return and that my IRS name and my Social Security name did not match and would I please send $2100.00 as quickly as possible. Yes, believe it or not, the IRS and SS administration do not cross reference their databases. Crazy but true. And I, being a paperwork averse person, had never bothered to update my name with my new married name because I never thought the government wouldn’t index their database on SSN. Call me naive.And, although the state law does not specifically discriminate against women, real life will. Because men do not generally change their names in their lifetimes but women do, sometimes several times. And the paperwork to change all of the bills and credit cards and driver’s licenses and mortgages is a pain in the ass so many of us, myself included, put it off.

So, what does that mean for us? Well, say Tweety keeps it up and people see more of Hillary that they like and they vote for her on SuperDuperTuesday and she becomes our nominee. (Hey, anything can happen at this point) Then the Supreme Court rules that the Indiana voter fraud law stands and voter registration databases all across the country are purged of women whose names do not match with their SSN or passport number or driver’s license or birth certificate or <insert favorite official document here>. The Republicans manage to suppress thousands and thousands of women in key battleground states and poof! McCain, or Huckabee or Romney is sworn in.

Don’t let it happen to you. I might be paranoid, but when I start hearing persistent s%^& like this voter fraud thingy, my tinfoil antenna start twitching telling me that something’s up.Get your affairs in order, make sure all of your documents and database entries are consistent, track down all of the marriage licenses and divorce decrees you have and make sure everyone who needs a copy gets one. Don’t wait til the last minute. Then find out when registration closes for your state and call the office to make absolutely sure that you are on the registration rolls.Don’t leave it to chance, don’t put it off, don’t forget to follow up. Because you know that Karl and his friends are working overtime to take us out any way they can.

Pass it around.