Why I shouldn't write about voter ID during premiere week

Today the Wisconsin state senate Republicans again failed to override Gov. J-Dizzle's veto of their cold-hearted attempt to stop those brown and black folk from voting. Coincidentally, some guy named Jimmy Carter and Bush consigliere James Baker and their commission released a report that Republicans are already using to prop up their doomed efforts.

A couple of things you need to know about the Carter-Baker Commission: One, holding a hot seat at the table is the American Center for Voting Rights. You remember the ACVR, right? Front-group for GOP hacks who needed jobs in the burgeoning vote suppression field. (BradBlog is the man on ACVR.) Two, not everyone from the Carter-Baker Commission is in agreement with the voter ID provisions.

While both the GOP and the CBC (Carter-Baker Commission is just too darn long to type) offer free IDs, the CBC recommends--wait for it--mobile voter ID units, operating evenings and weekends, that eliminate the primary problem of ID-getting. I do also like the provision that would automatically register to vote anyone who gets an ID, whether mobile or stationary. Personally, I think it would make a great hour of TV every week: A renegade registrar driving all over the country registering voters and solving crimes while being chased by some two-bit sheriff. If there were a monkey on the show, too, it would absolutely rock.

In addition, the CBC would allow voters without photo ID to cast provisional ballots until 2010, giving everyone who wants to vote a chance to; if they need to verify their identity later, they can. If the GOP won't let them, our renegade registrar will drive over them with his mobile registration unit. And don't forget that voter ID is just one of 87 provisions designed both to make the franchise more accessible and the vote more secure.

In other words, while I am not whole-heartedly endorsing the voter ID provisions, the Carter-Baker Commission has actually done a decent job of ensuring that everyone can vote. The Wisconsin GOP keep beating their long-rotten horse in the hopes that they can disenfranchise enough brown and black people to build their theocratic Barbie Dream House. They can dream on. Me? I'll be in the truck with the monkey.