Spinning ID: Don't listen to the posturing. Voter ID is not anti-voting.

Now that the voting is over and the new, enhanced voter identification laws have been passed, the protest crews are working overtime.

"It is a poll tax," they shout.

"It will keep minorities and young people from heading to the polls," they proclaim.

"It is a plan by the Republicans to keep their seats by suppressing the vote," they postulate.

There is only one word appropriate for those theories: Baloney.

There are very, very few North Carolinians who will not be able to vote because of a lack of a state-sponsored ID.

The numbers put forth by opponents of the legislation have been disproved multiple times -- which means they were an inflated bunch of hooey designed to prompt protests and calls of discrimination and Republican dirty tricks.

And there is a provision by which anyone can get free state identification -- if they want one.

So let's look at a couple of the arguments logically.

Asking someone to get an identification card to vote should be no problem. It is no more taxing than getting an immunization record to put your child in school, to renew your driver's license or to file for a Social Security card or to receive benefits.

It is an obligation that is perfectly reasonable and easy to accomplish.

And if you are only voting once, it should be no problem. It does not cost anything to follow the rules. Asking someone to get an ID and to bring it with them is no onerous demand, and it puts no undue burden on any one race or ethnic group.

So the poll tax argument is simply ridiculous.

Now, if you still don't believe us, think of it this way -- how many places right this minute require identification to do business of any kind -- especially when there might be a question of identity?

That's right. Quite a few.

College students cannot get into a bar without an ID. How many of them really are going to be put out by being asked to have one when they vote?

There is a new theory that we have to make everything easy for citizens, that if we do not pave the way, waive requirements and practically pick them up and bring them to the voting booth we are somehow restricting their rights.

To that, again, we say, "baloney."

Citizenship is a responsibility and a right. Asking people who will make decisions that will affect millions to bring identification, to find the time to vote during certain hours and to, perhaps, know something about whom they are voting for rather than simply clicking one box, is the least we should ask.

And that, not all that other teeth-gnashing and hand-wringing, is the bottom line.

Published in Editorials on July 27, 2013 11:16 PM