Whether or not La Raza is a crazy organization is not the issue. I thought Campus Crusade for Christ was "intimidating and inflammatory" for stalking me aournd campus and condemning me to hell if I did not convert from Judaism.
La Raza's election guide is a perfectly reasonable example of an advocacy group's material to educate its constituents.
As to photo IDs, if they were free and readily accessible, they might be acceptable. Otherwise, it might be considered a de facto "poll tax" imposed primarily on poor minorities and the elderly (those most likely to not have a photo ID).
Missouri is one state where the state supreme court invalidated photo IDs for voting:
Quote:
The Voter ID law requires each of the individual plaintiffs in this case to present a Missouri driver’s license, a Missouri non-driver’s license, or a United States passport on election day in order to vote. The record reveals that between 3 and 4 percent of Missouri citizens (estimates vary from 169,215 to 240,000 individuals) lack the requisite photo ID. Appellants concede that many of these citizens, including all of the individual plaintiffs in this case, are eligible to vote and, in many cases, are already registered to vote. […]
It is to these citizens that the Court directs its attention, as it determines whether this statute places into jeopardy their ability to exercise their fundamental right to vote under article I, section 25 of the Missouri Constitution. To do so, the Court must examine the required processes for them to obtain a photo ID to determine the extent of the burden it imposes on their right to vote.
Those citizens who do not possess the requisite photo ID, with few exceptions, must expend money to gather the necessary documentation to obtain it in order to exercise their right to vote. […] Many voters who presently lack one of the required photo IDs would have to, at the very least, expend money to obtain a birth certificate. In Missouri, obtaining a birth certificate requires at least a $15 payment, which, Appellants conceded at oral argument, is not a de minimis cost. If the citizen requires documentation beyond a birth certificate, the costs are greater.
Although this Court has not previously had occasion to evaluate the validity of putting a direct or indirect price or fee on the franchise under the Missouri Constitution, the United States Supreme Court held, in the context of addressing a $1.50 poll tax: “Wealth or fee-paying has . . . no relation to voting qualifications; the right to vote is too precious, too fundamental to be so burdened.” Harper, 383 U.S. at 670.
While requiring payment to obtain a birth certificate is not a poll tax, as was the $1.50 in Harper, it is a fee that qualified, eligible, registered voters who lack an approved photo ID are required to pay in order to exercise their right to free suffrage under the Missouri Constitution.
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When we get to the point where the government has the fingerprints of all citizens on file, maybe we can go to touch screen fingerprint ID voting
