Virginia Tightens Voter ID Laws, Finally Gets Tough On All Those People Using Fake Social Security Cards To Vote

The Virginia House and Senate have passed two new voter ID bills. If signed by Gov. Bob McDonnell, this will be the second time Virginia has tightened its ID requirements in less than a year.

Under the new bills, sponsored by Sen. Dick Black (R-VA) and Rep. Mark Cole (R-VA), respectively, Virginia will no longer be accepting  social security cards, pay stubs, bank statements, utility bills, or government checks (concealed handgun permits still welcome, though). [Update: The revised bills do not allow concealed handgun permits, whereas the February 1 versions initially permitted this form of ID.]

Which makes sense, really. If The Breakfast Club taught us anything, it’s that there are hordes of rabid election groupies procuring fake IDs in order to vote illegally.

 

The new measure is the latest in an impressively long  list of changes to the electoral process proposed by the Virginia GOP since the 2012 election. Whereas the rest of America’s conservatives have just been doing some soul-searching since November’s defeat – maybe passing around a couple memos to each other – Republicans in Virginia have been straight getting shit done recently.

The GOP’s epic legislative bender started in late November, as the party realized Democrats like Obama “can’t win a state where photo ID is required.” In December, Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli (R-VA) lobbied to have the state exempted from the Voting Rights Act’s redistricting requirements, arguing that the state had “outgrown” racism. In January, the GOP successfully passed a gerrymandering plan. Next they tried to pass a bill to apportion the electoral votes by congressional district. When that failed, they passed the latest measures to protect their state from fake-ID voters.

Your move, Anthony Michael Hall.

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