Another Encounter with Politics

Since Tuesday was the primary elections for city council and mayor (hope everyone voted!) the topic of ROC-MI’s membership meeting was VOTING. We talked about why voting in local elections is important, what we want for Detroit’s future, and what we want from our next city council. We also registered people to vote (many had not even know that there was an election the next day). Yesterday I walked the the voter registration forms down to the Wayne County Clerks Office (on Woodward by the waterfront) where the women at the front desk of the voter registration office told me that if it is their first time registering we need a copy of their photo ID as per Michigan law.

This is not true! I have registered to vote three times in Michigan ( I even helped register people last year) and never gave anyone a copy of my ID and ON THE VOTER REGISTRATION FORM (right in front of her) IT SAYS THAT IF THEY CORRECTLY WRITE THEIR INFORMATION IN THE FORM THEY DON’T NEED A COPY OF THEIR ID. I just asked her to send in the information anyway because I was pretty sure that they didn’t need an ID. She agreed and said that they will need to their local court office with an ID if there were any issues. I asked if they would let them the people registering know if there were issues and she said that it was up the them to look up their status online (many of ROC’s members don’t have a computer in their home)

Overall the experience was frustrating. If I hadn’t known better I would have not been so assertive in making the woman mail the registration to the correct district and would have asked all the people who registered to come back to the office and bring a picture of their ID (very unlikely with our membership base). It is frustrating that it is so difficult to register people for something that is a guaranteed right for all citizens in this country.

http://www.michigan.gov/documents/MIVoterRegistration_97046_7.pdf <– look it tells you that you actually don’t need a copy of your Photo ID to register for the first time! 

end rant