In your initial post of at least 200-250 words, summarize recent developments in several states enacting voter ID laws. Explain the pros and cons on both sides of the debate about these laws. Share your own experience with the relative difficulty or ease of voting in your locale. Draw your own conclusion about the debate over voter ID laws. Finally, share your perspective about whether voting in the U.S. should be made easier or harder. Justify your conclusions with facts and persuasive reasoning.
Fully respond to all parts of the question. Write in your own words. Support your position with APA citations to two or more of the assigned resources required for this discussion. Please be sure that you demonstrate understanding of these resources, integrate them into your argument, and cite them properly.
ASSIGNED RESOURCES:
1. Read this chapter from the text, American Government:
a. Chapter 10 – Elections and Public Opinion.
2. Read the following articles found in the ProQuest (Search All) database in the Ashford University Library:
a. Fraught with Fraud.
Hyde, K. (2008, October 27). Fraught with fraud. The New American, 24(22), 18-20.
(This short article defends voter ID laws as a strategy to discourage election fraud.)
b. Proof at the polls.
Underhill, W. (2011, July). Proof at the polls. State Legislatures, 37(7), 58-60.
(This short article reviews the various arguments for and against voter ID laws being passed by many
state legislatures.)
Read the following article:
a. How voter ID laws are being used to disenfranchise minorities and the poor.
Cohen, A. (2012, March 16). How voter ID laws are being used to disenfranchise minorities and the poor.
The Atlantic. Retrieved from http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/03/how-voter-id-laws-are-being-used-to-disenfranchise-minorities-and-the-poor/254572/
(This short article critiques voter ID laws as a partisan effort to suppress voter turnout.)
