Not allowed to vote

If passed this week, the amendment clears the way for a pending bill that would require some kind of identification in order to prove citizenship and to register to vote. But many questions about the bill — like whether current registered voters will have to obtain a new form of identification — have not been resolved.

  Lillie Lewis, a voter who lives in St. Louis and spoke at a news conference last week organized to oppose the amendment, said she already had a difficult time trying to get a photo ID from the state, which asked her for a birth certificate. Ms. Lewis, who was born in Mississippi and said she was 78 years old, said officials of that state sent her a letter stating that they had no record of her birth.

“That’s downright wrong,” Ms. Lewis said. “I have voted in almost all of the presidential races going back I can’t remember how long, but if they tell me I need a passport or birth certificate that’ll be the end of that.”  ... New York Times ...

The Missouri amendment will sweep away the voting rights of many Americans.  They will simply be unable to produce required documents that were never provided to them, often for racist reasons.  Can we allow that to happen? Look at the face of Lillie Lewis and you may see, as we think we did, someone deeply and obviously American-born.  Perhaps we can also see traces of ancestry in that face which suggest a, American heritage which goes back before the "Founders," back before Columbus, and probably well beyond the ancestry of any member of the current Supreme Court.