Unfettered Letters

Birth certificates are important

A letter in The Star by Elizabeth McNamara (12/10), suggests that Barack Obama’s birth certificate isn’t important.

Her signature indicates she lives in Missouri, so she is in for a surprise at the Missouri license bureau when or if she renews her driver’s license. You have to present a plethora of paperwork showing you are alive and have been born.

Jim Schmitt
Liberty

ID photos not always accurate

This spring the United States Supreme Court ruled in favor of the state requiring photo IDs for voters in Indiana. The purpose was to prevent voter fraud.

But photo IDs are not always good representatives of individuals. Through time most people change their hairstyles, get new glasses or are changed significantly by the aging process.

Those changes will affect identification by precinct judges who don’t know them from previous elections because the voter moved.

Surely there are better methods to prevent voter fraud it if is really taking place than photo IDs.

Richard Little
Odessa, Mo.

New Employment Verification Act

Our country is in the middle of an ongoing discussion about reform of our immigration policies to make them more realistic, enforceable and workable in our global economy. This includes strengthening and improving current programs, such as employment verification.

Employers are now responsible for ensuring a legal workforce, yet today’s paper document verification system makes it difficult to prevent document fraud and identity theft.

The New Employment Verification Act (NEVA), of which I am a co-sponsor, would replace the voluntary “E-Verify” program used by less than 1 percent of employers with the state’s “new hire” reporting process, which most employers already use to check for child support enforcement purposes.

Doing so will transform our old, paper-based method of employment verification into a 21st- century, state-of-the-art electronic verification system, ease the burden on responsible employers and ensure that we identify illegal workers.

Mandatory verification, in whatever form it takes, needs to be done right. I will continue to work with my colleagues to develop legislation that will ensure strong enforcement of our laws and provide the important reforms necessary to make our immigration system more efficient and effective.

U.S. Rep. Dennis Moore
Lenexa

Photo IDs for voting

How can someone be unable to obtain an ID, yet be able to get to a polling place and vote?

Susan Genova
Mission

How much would you bet that all of these poor people who cannot afford an $11 picture ID to vote will somehow manage to come up with the $40 it will take to upgrade their television sets from analog to digital?

We, as a nation, have labeled people as victims, and people have happily accepted this role. When people really want something, they manage to get it.

Hey folks, are you ever going to get tired of being victims, set your priorities straight and make something happen for yourselves instead of continually blaming others or the government for what you can’t do?

LeAnne Gamm
Raytown

A word about the proposed picture ID: stupid.

I say that because that puts the inconvenience on the voter, and it ain’t the voter that is the problem when it comes to fraud: It is the crooked politicians.

William J. Smith
Windsor, Mo.

IDs prevent illegal voting

I believe that the photo ID laws that are emerging as a topic of debate recently support the right to vote. Illegal aliens have no right to vote in our elections. Proving who you are at the polls is not an inconvenience. As a soldier, I defend the Constitution and the citizens of this country, not those here illegally that destroy our institutions.

The argument that IDs are too expensive for some people to attain is weak and flawed. Identification is required for cashing checks, picking up tickets at a baseball game, gaining entry to government facilities, applying for credit, driving a car, riding on a plane and living our lives.

I sincerely hope that the lack of identification will lessen the numbers of illegal voters at the polls. Illegal aliens do not have the rights that professional citizen soldiers have died to defend.

Jon Beddall
Fort Leavenworth

Photo IDs for voting

After reading Laura Scott’s commentary (5/12, Opinion) about the Voter ID bill and the non-driving nuns who didn’t have driver’s licenses, I couldn’t help but ask: Why are some people so scared to prove who they are before they vote?

Surely Republicans aren’t the only people concerned about voter fraud, are they? Don’t Democrats want an honest and fair election as well? A Missouri non-driver license (ID card) is $11.

Missouri provides millions of dollars in financial aid to underprivileged residents every year. The majority of these underprivileged people already have ID cards so they can receive benefits. Is it too much to ask the others to spend $11 to ensure that the constitutional voting process Ms. Scott mentions is not made a mockery of?

Steven Christensen
Blue Springs

I sympathize with those who are unable to obtain photo IDs. In the ’60s, when my father was ready to apply for Social Security, he obtained affidavits from older people who knew of his birth. Several years ago, when we first heard of photo IDs, I took my mother to the license bureau to get one.

While I realize I am fortunate to have a car to take my mother to the license bureau, isn’t this an opportunity for volunteers to step up and assist?

In the big picture, isn’t one instance of election fraud too many?

Theresa Cotter
Belton

Photo IDs for voters

I don’t believer the photo ID law supporters are trying to pass in Kansas, Missouri and elsewhere (4/29, A-1, “Way clear to require photo ID for voting”) will do any good.

I say this because Americans don’t vote as much as they should currently. If we decide to take away more voters who, unfortunately, cannot either afford or obtain a photo ID, we are just turning away more voters.

I don’t know if requiring a photo ID is going to stop, or even lessen, voting fraud. I do believe that some sort of identification should be shown where the voting takes place, but not necessarily a photo ID.

I only think that this will lessen voter numbers, cause more chaos and make the poor and minorities feel as though the states are personally attacking them with this request.

Katie McSorley
Kansas City

Photo ID requirement

The League of Women Voters of Missouri strongly opposes the constitutional amendment, HJR 48, which would require voters to obtain and show a government-issued photo ID before exercising their constitutional right to vote.

Research shows that photo ID requirements encourage racial and ethnic discrimination at polling places, prevent eligible voters from participating, and limit turnout. Genuine instances of impersonation at the polls are rare, and the costs of this proposed solution to an unproven problem are great.

In 2006 the Missouri Secretary of State estimated that almost 240,000 Missourians of voting age, including about 16 percent of our seniors, don’t have a state-issued photo ID. The burden of obtaining one falls hardest on elderly, low-income, minority or handicapped people, who often lack the required documents (birth certificates or marriage licenses) needed to obtain ID. A photo ID requirement would disenfranchise the very people who must work the hardest to vote at all.

Missouri should be in the business of encouraging full participation, not impeding the right to vote. The Legislature should oppose the voter ID requirement and instead focus on improving poll worker training and ensuring our elections are more efficient, secure, accurate and re-countable.

Jo Sapp
President, League of Women Voters of Missouri
Columbia

Identifying victims of ID theft

In The Star’s article “Know where your ID is now?” (A-1, 4/24), Judy Ancel, director of UMKC’s Institute for Labor Studies, stated how it was wrong to compare immigrant workers who assume someone’s identity to persons who fraudulently take our credit cards. Bull-hockey!

Stealing is stealing, whether it’s an identity or an automobile. Sure the immigrant’s family will suffer, but what about Amanda Bien, the ID theft victim in this article? Does not her suffering count? After all, she has done nothing wrong.

What about the local, county and state governments that suffer financially to deal with this mess? Some of that is my money. When will the federal government do what is right and not what is politically correct?

Their excuse is the same one we are getting for the price of gas or the price of rice: “supply and demand.” We’ve got too may illegals and not enough money, manpower or straight-thinking politicians to do anything about it.

As for Ms. Ancel, I can only hope her identity is never stolen. It may cause a conflict of interest to fight for her rights as an American citizen or cause some anguish in an illegal’s household.

Kris Kozak
Leavenworth

Real ID

I have no intention of getting a Real ID-compliant driver’s license. I’m vastly considering not driving at all if these regulations run their intended course, as if the current prices on gasoline are not bad enough. Fortunately I’m only about five miles or so from work, I know others aren’t quite so lucky.

The Real ID is in direct violation of the people’s right to privacy, no matter how confidential the information provided is to be held.

The guise of "to prevent terrorism" in this case is completely irrelevant. The current regulations are sufficient in this regard.

Furthermore, the word "terrorism" is slung about so much nowadays it has become repetitive, and seems to be garnering a broader definition every day.

Josh Fredrickson
Gladstone