Reply #3: one of several continued voter supression tactics.

[Sheepshank]

http://www.therepublic.com/view/story/c6e5e5c522d847948279649815095071/ME--Voter-Registration-Impact/

AUGUSTA, Maine — Now that Maine voters have made clear their support for same-day voter registration, the focus shifts to another hot election-related proposal that will come up during the 2012 legislative session: voter ID.

The bill requiring voters to show photo identification in order to cast ballots comes up after voters rejected by a 3-2 margin Tuesday another move to tighten the state's election laws.

That vote repealed a law requiring voters to register at least two days before an election. In doing so, voters reinstated Maine's long-standing same-day registration policy.
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The voter ID bill should be considered on its own merits, he added. Nutting expects the bill to have a full review.

The voter ID bill had more than 80 co-sponsors — all Republicans — when Rep. Richard Cebra introduced it

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal/2011_12/voterid_schemes_keep_snagging033927.php

Republican policymakers across the country are pushing a variety of schemes as part of the “war on voting,” but none are as pernicious as voter-ID measures. The practical effect of these laws will be to keep more minorities and senior citizens from participating in elections.

And the examples to reinforce the concerns keep piling up. Tanya Somanader yesterday highlighted the story of Wisconsin’s Ruthelle Frank, who’s been voting for 63 years.

Though paralyzed on her left side since birth, the 84-year-old “fiery woman” voted in every election since 1948 and even got elected herself as a member of the Brokaw Village Board. But because of the state’s new voter ID law, 2012 will be the first year Frank can’t vote. Born after a difficult birth at her home in 1927, Frank never received an official birth certificate. Her mother recorded it in her family Bible and Frank has a certification of baptism from a few months later, along with a Social Security card, a Medicare statement, and a checkbook. But without the official document, she can’t secure the state ID card that the new law requires to vote next year.
Just think about it...who are these laws hurting?

Generally these actions and laws are more harmful to the poor, the elderly and students. The relatively small numbers of big donors, and the wealthy are overwhlemed by the actual numbers of people that will vote in their own best interests and NOT the interests of the wealthy. Therefore part of the the strategy surely includes a several pronged approach to reducing those the number of votes cast by liberal, socialist, democrats, as much as possible. There is a reason there is a push from the right to continually attack the voting process and try to create laws that hinder, remove or reduce voter rights.