Marine Fights For Voting Rights

Tomorrow - Thursday - activists will rally for voting rights in the Kentucky State Capitol.

May they be inspired by the passion for justice displayed by this Marine veteran in Tennessee Tuesday:

55-year old former U.S. Marine Tim Thompson was turned away from the polls today, Super Tuesday 2012, in the state of Tennessee, after refusing to present a photo ID before voting, as required by a new law recently passed by Republicans.

Thompson was documented by videographers attempting to cast his vote under the new polling place Photo ID restrictions instituted by TN's Republican-majority legislature and signed into law last year by the state's Republican Gov. Bill Haslam.

The former Lance Corporal, who left the service in 1978, has lived in Nashville since 2004 when he first cast his vote at the same precinct where he was turned away today. In an act of protest, planned in advance and video-taped by a number of media outlets, Thompson refused to show any more than the voter registration card he has previously used for voting in the state.

Video of the confrontation that ensued is posted below.

"This is my voter registration card," Thompson said as he challenged the poll supervisor. "I've used this for 37 years. This was good enough for my father. This was good enough for my grandfather, and I refuse to show you a picture ID"...

After refusing to vote on a provisional ballot, which may or may not be counted after an election, Thompson tells the supervisor, "I'm objecting to the law that they implemented on my right to vote."

"I served my country. I served my country so you can vote. I've earned my right to vote. This is my ID," he is seen explaining angrily in the video, as he points to the U.S. Marine insignia on his jacket.

"I'll be damned if I'll stand here and allow you to not let me vote because some governor of this state decided he wanted to eliminate my right to vote --- and put conditions on it --- that I fought for."

"I took an oath in 1974 that stated I want to defend and protect American citizens on their rights to vote --- their basic right to vote in an open and free election. But I guess he [Gov. Haslam] forgot about his, his oath. He did forget about his oath, because he's not protecting our rights. And it's a slap in our face," Thompson says during the confrontation.

The former Marine turned chef in Nashville is just the latest of those to confront and/or be confronted by new draconian restrictions on voting rights this year, as passed by Republicans in more than a dozen states in the wake of their 2010 electoral victories. In TN today, for the first time, those without state-issued Photo ID (a U.S. passport, a federal photo ID, a U.S. military ID or a gun permit card with photo) must receive a state-issued Photo ID prior to casting a vote at the polling place, from a Department of Safety and Homeland Security facility at one of 48 Driver Service Centers across the state, according to the Department's website.

SNIP

Objecting to the necessity of paying for a copy of a birth certificate in order to receive a "free" Photo ID from the state, Thompson says during his confrontation with the poll worker: "So what you're telling me is this payment, of my life in the Marine Corps, is not good enough anymore. What I gotta do is pay cash money to vote, to get a right to vote."

As the TN Dept. of Homeland Security and Safety website notes [emphasis theirs]: "The new law requiring a government-issued photo ID to vote applies only to those voting at polling places."

That, despite the fact that independent study after study, even those by proponents of these new disenfranchising laws, have shown that in-person polling place voter impersonation. --- the only type of voter fraud that might be deterred by such restrictions --- is extraordinarily rare, even as nearly half a million legally registered voters in TN could serve to be disenfranchised by the new law. Such restrictions have no effect on either the much more common practice of absentee ballot voter fraud or the far greater concern of insider election fraud, such as manipulation of voter rolls, ballots, voting machines or computerized tabulators.

SNIP

"I gave them four years of my life, why shouldn’t I be able to use my vet’s card?," 69-year old Gil Paar reportedly asked in comments echoed by fellow veteran Thompson today. "This is not right. You’ve got a guy who serves, does his time in the Air Force, or Army or the Navy, and then he comes home and can’t vote? What the f—- did I go in for?,” Paar was quoted as saying.

Thompson accuses the polling place supervisor who was following the law in TN today of "spitting on the graves" of those who gave their lives in service to this country.

"Where do you get off?," he says to worker who was forced to explain the new law. "I get off following the law and obeying the oath I swore," the poll worker says in reply to the former Marine who chooses to leave without casting a vote.

As noted in the description included in the YouTube posting of the Thompson video this morning: "He left without voting even though he has proper identification, saying he was protesting on behalf of the potentially millions of people who may lose their right to vote because they are unable to obtain the legally required government-issued IDs."

Read the whole thing.