You’d better have your hankie handy, because VICE has got a real sob story for you:
I had my:
• valid driver's license
• student ID
• voter registration card
• a copy of my birth certificate
• my leaseand that still wasn't enough. I couldn't vote. https://t.co/GOUQlFWlRe
— VICE (@VICE) November 1, 2018
Disenfranchised! Voter suppression! Oh, the humanity!
In his contribution to VICE’s “collection of essays exploring personal stories of voter disenfranchisement,” disenfranchised and suppressed voter Davis Winkie writes:
When I was preparing to vote in 2016, my wife and I were living in north Nashville while I was playing football at Vanderbilt University. We registered to vote—that went off without a hitch, because Tennessee has online voter registration. We found that very convenient and we didn’t really think too much more of it. We had valid Georgia IDs, and assumed we could use those at the polls to satisfy Tennessee’s voter ID law. My wife was born in 1995 and I was born in 1996, so we were both really excited to participate in something bigger than a local primary for the first time.
Then I read an article in the Nashville Tennessean on the state’s voter ID law, which had been changed in 2013. Unlike the previous version of this law, you had to have either a Tennessee state-issued ID or a federally-issued photo ID in order to vote. Under a previous version of this law, out-of-state IDs had been permissible, and even Memphis library cards after a lawsuit from some senior citizens. But that article made me realize: Oh man, I don’t think I can comply with the law.
I got kind of mad after that. I had fallen victim to a law that was specifically designed to make people like me not be able to vote. And I was frustrated because I felt like I’d satisfied the spirit of the voter ID law by showing my identity and my residency and my citizenship—the overly restrictive way in which the law was designed shows the bad faith that created it. The Tennessee GOP pushed for this restrictive voter ID law and it succeeded in keeping to at least two people from voting.
How dare Tennessee demand prospective voters have valid ID proving their residence! Voter suppression! Voter suppression!
Meanwhile, it’s getting harder to suppress this ratio:
With good reason.
FFS. Not being able to use a Georgia driver’s license to vote in Tennessee is not voter suppression. https://t.co/TOqheB0MvM
— Greg Pollowitz (@GPollowitz) November 2, 2018
No, it really isn’t. Sorry that your Vanderbilt student ID wasn’t sufficient, Davis, but if you failed to meet the minimum requirements to vote in Tennessee, that’s on you, pal. You weren’t disenfranchised; you were just lazy.
It was a Georgia driver's license and he tried to vote in Tennessee https://t.co/FXg18VHamU
— Alex Griswold (@HashtagGriswold) November 2, 2018
What was so difficult about getting a Tennessee ID card? And thereby complying with their requirement. I did not see an explanation of it being an insurmountable problem so your article comes off as a whinge of self-disenfranchisement
— Critical Thinking (@philosophicweb) November 1, 2018
"I TRIED TO VOTE WITH MY WALGREEN'S REWARDS CARD WTF" he continued.
PS: Georgia resident tried to vote in Tennessee. https://t.co/eGTsSI5oGd
— Cuffy (@CuffyMeh) November 2, 2018
idk how it works in Tennessee, but most states stipulate that you cannot legally be a resident of the state if you simultaneously claim residency of another state. That's how it was in Indiana when I went to school there, at least.
— Alex Griswold (@HashtagGriswold) November 2, 2018
Not disenfranchisement but ignorance on your part. Why should a state allow someone to vote otherwise? You did not get a Tennessee drivers license? (when I believe your required to do so if a resident). Weak.
— J. Carter (@ComradeBukharin) November 1, 2018
Common sense is less common than you might imagine. pic.twitter.com/vt1vBMGcT2
— The Based Peoples Robot (@Red_Eye_Robot) November 2, 2018
It takes one afternoon to change your license to the state you live in. He admits he deliberately didn’t do it to avoid an insurance fee (even though that avoidance is itself illegal).
Also, he’s eligible to vote absentee. In GA.
I’m very sorry that adulting is so hard. https://t.co/6btOao8TSt
— Emily Zanotti (@emzanotti) November 2, 2018
You:
• had multiple opportunities to become a resident of Tennessee
• decided it was more financially advantageous for you to remain a resident of Georgia
• now want to have a say in Tennessee issues and elected officials
• willfully lack insight— adam m noles (@AdamMNoles) November 2, 2018
Tough break, Winkie.
This is from another piece by the same author in 2016. Not good for his case. pic.twitter.com/Esh4hJp4SE
— Alex Griswold (@HashtagGriswold) November 2, 2018
Nope. But at least there’s a moral to this story. Not the one Vice or Winkie thinks, but a moral nonetheless:
Can’t fix stupid buddy https://t.co/cpZfN5Fg3q
— Christmas Red ? (@jswifty250) November 2, 2018
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