Brittani's Interview and Reflection
Name of person being interviewed: Dad, Project Manager at MWRA
Yes. In particular, I think you everyone should need an ID in order to vote even thought this has been deemed unconstitutional.I believe that it is important for people to show an ID in order to vote because it guarantees that you are who you say you are. Without an ID, I could technically vote on behalf of everyone on this street because I can say I was any one of them.
2. Do you think others in our community think this is a problem? Why or Why not?
I think there are many people who are immigrants who believe it is important that we do not need an ID in order to vote because majority of these people do not have a license or social security number. In our neighboring community of Lawrence, 74% of the people are Hispanic and many of these people are immigrants who do not have an ID to present to someone if they were trying to vote. I believe that all communities would see voting rights as important but they all might have different ideas of what the problem is within the voting rights depending on whose living there.
3. What policy, if any, does government now have to deal with this problem?
Just as I said before, asking for an ID to vote has been deemed unconstitutional. Either the supreme court or a court in Texas, I'm not sure which one, said that people cannot be denied the right to vote because of a picture ID.
4. What are advantages of this policy?
The advantage of showing a picture ID is that we guarantee that everyone is who they say they are and that people who are voting are citizens.
5. What are disadvantages of this policy?
This policy could prevent senior citizens or unlicensed people from voting because they might not have an ID to present anymore. Also, this could affect people like Nana Mary who never drove and was a stay at home mom so she didn't have a work id.
6. What disagreements, if any, about the policy exists in this community?
We live close to many different towns and cities where immigrants are the majority of the population and therefore they would disagree with my belief that people should have an ID in order to vote.
7. How might this policy be improved?
I don't think there's much to discuss in regards to improvement. Either you need an ID or you don't.
8. Where can I get more information about this problem and the different positions people take on this problem?
League of Women Voters
Democratic National Community
National Republican Community
Reflection:
I really enjoyed sitting down with my Dad and talking about his thoughts and opinions on Voting Rights. Truthfully, I probably could have gotten a more detailed and insightful answers but Dad was watching the Red Sox game and I was only given about 5 minutes for this interview. I do feel that the 5 minutes I spent talking to my dad was more helpful than many of the articles I have read because it wasn't from the point of view of a politician or angry person in the community. Also, it was nice to be able to ask questions about why he felt the way he did and make meaningful connections like when he talked about Lawrence or Nana Mary.
First thing I noticed in our interview was how he only talked about whether a person should or should not need an ID in order to vote. Whether a person does or does not need an ID is only a small piece of the voting rights changes that have been happening in 2013 so it was interesting how he continually harped on that one issue. I still felt that he brought up a lot of interesting ideas about using an ID.I thought the most interesting part of our interview was that he believed that people should use a picture ID because he felt it was important that people are who they say they are. He said that without a picture ID, he could vote for everyone on the street by pretending to be them. I realize that this would be very difficult but he is right when he said that it is possible. As I said in my initial blog post, majority of people did not have the right to vote in the 1800's and now that there is a much larger population of people who are allowed to vote, we do not want to take advantage of these rights by giving people the opportunity to vote more than once or vote on behalf of another. He also talked about senior citizens and how needing a picture ID could prevent many of the senior citizens who do not drive the right to vote. I think from talking to my dad, I was able to see how my previous thoughts about voting rights were pretty much spot on in that there is no real right or wrong answer to this problem. I can see many different reasons why using an ID could be beneficial but I also do not want to take away the rights of people who were born with the right to vote in this country.
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