Biased "Study" Shrieks that "Voting Laws May Disenfranchise Ten Million Hispanics"
09/25/2012
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Reuters has a biased article screaming that "Voting laws may Disenfranchise 10 Million Hispanic U.S. Citizens". Sounds horrific, doesn't it?

But in order to be "disenfranchised", one must first be "enfranchised", right?

Besides, what sort of "study" was this and who put it out?

Let's take a look at the Reuters piece:

New voting laws in 23 of the 50 states could keep more than 10 million Hispanic U.S. citizens from registering and voting, a new study said on Sunday, a number so large it could affect the outcome of the November 6 election.

The article is referring simply to states that have improved their voter ID system, requiring some sort of ID to register and/or vote. How is this going to "disenfranchise" anybody who was enfranchised to be begin with?

The Latino community accounts for more than 10 percent of eligible voters nationally. But the share in some states is high enough that keeping Hispanic voters away from the polls could shift some hard-fought states from support for Democratic President Barack Obama and help his Republican rival, Mitt Romney.

"Keeping Hispanic voters away from the polls?" Are we talking about U.S. citizens or non-citizens?

The new laws include purges of people suspected of not being citizens in 16 states that unfairly target Latinos, the civil rights group Advancement Project said in the study to be formally released on Monday.

"Unfairly target Latinos". Notice the bias. And notice who did the "study". The "Advancement Project". Hmm, they wouldn't have any vested interests would they?

Laws in effect in one state and pending in two others require proof of citizenship for voter registration. That imposes onerous and sometimes expensive documentation requirements on voters, especially targeting naturalized American citizens, many of whom are Latino, the liberal group said.

"Proof of citizenship...imposes onerous and sometimes expensive documentation requirements"? It's not hard to prove citizenship. In fact, for naturalized citizens, it should be very easy to prove citizenship, they have a recent paper trail to prove it.

Nine states have passed restrictive photo identification laws that impose costs in time and money for millions of Latinos who are citizens but do not yet have the required identification, it said.

If they are citizens then they have to have identification.

Republican-led state legislatures have passed most of the new laws since the party won sweeping victories in state and local elections in 2010. They say the laws are meant to prevent voter fraud; critics say they are designed to reduce turnout among groups that typically back Democrats.

The laws were passed to make our registration and voter system more secure. And that is bad, why?

Decades of study have found virtually no use of false identification in U.S. elections or voting by non-citizens. Activists say the bigger problem in the United States, where most elections see turnout of well under 60 percent, is that eligible Americans do not bother to vote.

But if they don't check identification, how can they know there's not much false identification? After all, identity fraud and identity theft are major industries in our country.

Nationwide, polls show Obama leading Romney among Hispanic voters by 70 percent to 30 percent or more, and winning that voting bloc by a large margin is seen as an important key to Obama winning re-election.

Here we go again....

The Hispanic vote could be crucial in some of the battleground states where the election is especially close, such as Nevada, Colorado and Florida.

Romney should go for the white working class vote...

For example, in Florida, 27 percent of eligible voters are Hispanic. With polls showing Obama's re-election race against Romney very tight in the state, a smaller turnout by Hispanic groups that favor Obama could tilt the vote toward the Republican.

Voting laws may disenfranchise 10 million Hispanic U.S. citizens: study Reuters, Patricia Zengerle, Sept. 23rd, 2012

Frankly, if the "ten million voters" this article is talking about are not eligible to vote, then they shouldn't be voting.

As I've pointed out before, Mexico has a voter registration system in which the government provides all eligible voters official ID cards. Read my article Photo ID For Voters—How Come It’s OK For Mexico?

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