Wednesday, February 13, 2013

HB 1337 Update: Loud Dispute in Place of ID?

Virginia House Bill 1337 has been through some interesting ups and downs since its proposal by Delegates Rob Bell and Mark Cole, such that its current version is now claimed by Delegate Surovell:

http://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?131+ful+HB1337H2

I liked it better in its original form. I still see nothing in there about protecting the privacy of voters' identity information, which is what I see as the serious concern. Instead there's a long set of instructions for making the polls noisier places by having people shout out "challenges" and counter-claims...and more noise, of course, makes it harder for people to focus on what they're supposed to be doing at the polls, and easier for urban fraudsters to get away with what they should not be doing.

If there's a legitimate concern about opening the voting process to blind people (who should vote) or illiterate people (who probably shouldn't vote), there could have been something about having someone prepared to lead those people quietly aside...

No comments:

Post a Comment