NY Times Op-Ed Slams Voter ID Law; Says It Could Make Difference in U.S. Senate Race

The New York Times lead editorial Thursday slams Missouri's new voter ID law, and says it could make the difference in the hotly contested U.S. Senate race.

"Missouri is the latest front in the Republican Party’s campaign to use photo ID requirements to suppress voting. The Republican legislators who pushed through Missouri’s ID law earlier this year said they wanted to deter fraud, but that claim falls apart on close inspection," the Times opines.

The piece goes on to say that Missouri's new ID rules are "intended to deter voting by blacks, poor people and other groups that are less likely to have driver's licenses."

"The new law requires a government-issued photo ID, which as many as 200,000 Missourians do not have. Missourians who have driver’s licenses will have little trouble voting, but many who do not will have to go to considerable trouble to get special ID’s. The supporting documents needed to get these, like birth certificates, often have fees attached, so some Missourians will have to pay to keep voting. It is likely that many people will not jump all of the bureaucratic hurdles to get the special ID, and will become ineligible to vote.Not coincidentally, groups that are more likely to vote against the Republicans who passed the ID law will be most disadvantaged. Advocates for blacks, the elderly and the disabled say that those groups are less likely than the average Missourian to have driver’s licenses, and most likely to lose their right to vote. In close elections, like the bitterly contested U.S. Senate race now under way in the state, this disenfranchisement could easily make the difference in who wins," the Times writes.