The GOP Voter Suppression Plan Continues

Add Arkansas to the list of red states taking the right to vote away from people for the crime of being Democrats, to battle "voter fraud" that doesn't exist.

Arkansas legislators passed a law Monday requiring voters to show photo identification at the polls, overriding Democratic Gov. Mike Beebe's veto of the bill, which he called an expensive solution to a non-existent problem.

The Republican-led state House voted 52-45, largely along party lines, to complete an override that started in the GOP-controlled Senate on a 21-12 vote last week. Only a simple majority was needed in each chamber.

"We are trying to protect the integrity of one of the most fundamental rights we have here in America," said state Rep. Stephen Meeks, a Republican from Greenbrier and the bill's House sponsor. House Speaker Davy Carter, a Cabot Republican who did not vote for the bill when it passed the House last month, supported the override.

Sure they are.  The fact that it will "stop in-person voter fraud" which never happens, but it will also prevent thousands of mostly minority, poor, elderly, and college-age students from actually voting, all groups that vote Democratic, is just an unintended consequence that just happens to be enacted every single time by Republican legislatures across the country.  It's just a staggering coincidence, I'm sure.

Republicans insist on spending millions to "protect the integrity of the vote" and to spare no taxpayer expense to stop a non-existent "epidemic" of in-person voting fraud, but then argue that early voting, expanded in-person absentee ballot voting, and weekend voting especially the Sunday before the election is an expense that no state can afford because it's wasteful government spending.  

Creating additional hoops to jump through to vote, vital government function.  People actually voting, wasteful government spending.  There's your modern GOP at the state level, folks.