Voter registration occurs at the local level, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that local requirements need apply. The federal government provides funds to every state (and probably locality), so it has legal skin in the election game, especially for elections to federal offices. First let the federal government set universal standards for federal elections. Then make explicit that voter identification standards proving citizenship also apply to every and all elections requiring proof of citizenship to vote. It may require a SCOTUS ruling to make the implicit explicit, but make it so.
The Social Security Administration could be the vehicle to roll this out.
The infrastructure would be bursting at the seams for a few years-- but federal funding would keep state/local politics from impeding-- as they did with the ACA rollout.
jw1
It’s a foolish idea. Will absolutely not work, and would create a whole 'nother layer of discrimination, plus exponentially increased voter fraud accusations. Sounds like a Republican/libertarian idea. Like Ron Paul thought of it while venerating the Aqua Buddha amid bong hits.
I would bet that most local/state general elections already occur on the first Tuesday of November. Therefore making it an annual federal holiday would probably encourage those fall general elections held at another time to switch dates, much like the standardization of Thanksgiving as a national holiday.
Looks to me like AL state gov’t is working to disenfranchise voters by denying driver’s licenses which results in no picture ID and no ability to drive to the polls.
Governor, when this happens in predominantly black areas and given the sordid past Alabama has I can come to only one conclusion: Racist politics on YOUR part.
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Using the terms “common sense” and “Tea Party” in the same sentence stretches credulity. 
It’s kind of amusing that so many people have replied without bothering to actually look it up (it’s on p. 7 of the 1040 instructions). The cutoff for 2014 is $10,150 for a single person under 65, $11,700 over 65, and double that for married couples filing jointly (there are some other categories with higher cutoffs). Also, that’s counting taxable income only, so if most of your income is Social Security and other tax-exempt sources you might not need to file even if your total income is higher.
Yes, but you are forgetting self-employment income. I did look it up briefly, on e-file. $400+ on a 1099 means you must file. I was talking LOW income, dude.
=)
Also, I think the ACA may have changed some things.
That’s what I remembered from being self-employed, too, but it’s $400 now. I am not sure when it changed, but it must have been fairly recently.
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Agree, Agree- guts, good ethics, good politics. Admirable.
“to encourage black Alabamans to vote Democrat”. Stop! Say “Democratic”. This is an odd construction since normally a verb should be modified by an adverb, not an adjective, but this is an accepted if informal usage. We don’t usually notice, since generally a word following “vote” would be the same whether adjective or noun (Republican, American, etc.). But not so in this case, and not only is it incorrect, it smells of the pejorative use of “Democrat” as an adjective.
I understand the Limbaughesque subtext of using “Democrat”, and you’re quite right. But if Democrat is not the proper noun form, what is? Democratists? Beneath the “rat” suggestions, it just seems like one of those oddnesses of language-Republican has become an accepted noun and rolls off the tongue, Democratic hasn’t and doesn’t.
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You will observe also the standard trick in the Republican play-book, creating budget deficits that are then used to justify any sort of attack on minorities and the poor as an “unrelated budget cutting measure”.
Just a coincidence they didn’t close those offices in white majority districts. Sure.
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