Why so persistent?

I wrote last year about how one of my town’s selectmen was spearheading a ballot initiative to require voters in Massachusetts to show identification at the polls.

His proposed ballot question was ruled unconstitutional by the Attorney General on the grounds that a government ID costs at least $25, and that would violate the right to free elections.

This evening he showed up at my door looking for signatures to get the ballot question going again. Although I declined to sign, we ended up having a nice conversation about his son, who was on Aidan’s baseball team this Spring.

Wondering how he could be proceeding with this after the AG’s ruling, a little searching found this rather good article by the Eagle-Tribune (I never thought I would write that sentence). Apparently he’s trying to get a non-binding policy question just for this state senatorial district. This would theoretically give the legislators a sense of where the public stands on the issue and move to do something about it.

I don’t understand why this issue is of such importance to him. He stated himself that he knew of no issues of voter fraud in the state, which would be the only legitimate reason for driving such an initiative.

Cynics would say that another, less legitimate reason to push for it is voter suppression of certain demographics.

I try not to be cynical, but it’s difficult.

9 Notes/ Hide

  1. brevetcaptain said: The E-T is the worst.
  2. cwj posted this