{"id":372,"date":"2015-08-22T07:16:59","date_gmt":"2015-08-22T11:16:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/manassascitydemocrats.com\/?p=372"},"modified":"2015-08-22T07:16:59","modified_gmt":"2015-08-22T11:16:59","slug":"virginias-new-poll-tax","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/manassascitydemocrats.org\/?p=372","title":{"rendered":"Virginia&#8217;s New Poll Tax"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I thought that it would be good to share Harry Wiggins&#8217; letter to the WAPO that appeared in today&#8217;s paper which succinctly explains why photo ID laws are crafted to restrict access to the polls when there is zero evidence of voter fraud. \u00a0Enjoy.<\/p>\n<div id=\"fhAKJe2pTzawkp\" class=\"moat-trackable pb-f-theme-normal pb-2 pb-feature pb-layout-item pb-f-article-article-body\">\n<div id=\"article-body\" class=\"article-body\">\n<div class=\"pb-sig-line hasnt-headshot has-0-headshots hasnt-bio is-not-column\"><span class=\"pb-timestamp\">August 21 at 5:20 PM<\/span><\/div>\n<article>E.J. Dionne Jr.\u2019s Aug.\u00a020 op-ed column, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/opinions\/no-retreat-on-voting-rights\/2015\/08\/19\/f0339280-46a0-11e5-846d-02792f854297_story.html\">No retreat on voting rights<\/a>,\u201d could not be more applicable than in Virginia. The 1902 Constitution of Virginia instituted a poll tax and literacy tests to limit voting by African Americans. The new poll tax in Virginia is photo identification, restricted to certain types of photo IDs. The delegates championing this requirement argue that it will prevent fraud, but numerous studies have shown there is <a href=\"http:\/\/thinkprogress.org\/justice\/2014\/09\/26\/3572658\/virginia-voter-id-450000\/\">virtually no voter fraud<\/a> in the commonwealth. Empirical studies show that <a href=\"http:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\/2012\/09\/12\/voter-id-laws-minorities_n_1878893.html\">minorities are less likely<\/a> than their white counterparts to have the acceptable photo IDs required in Virginia.<\/p>\n<p>The 1902 state constitution was crafted by white supremacists, perhaps no different from the delegates who crafted the new \u201cpoll tax.\u201d<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<p><strong><b>Harry W. Wiggins<\/b>, Lake Ridge<\/strong><\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>The writer is chair of the Prince William County Democratic Committee.<\/p>\n<\/article>\n<div class=\"clear\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"fMuVc72pTzawkp\" class=\"moat-trackable pb-f-theme-normal pb-1 pb-feature pb-layout-item pb-f-page-newsletter-inStream\"><\/div>\n<div id=\"f0J6AxpqTzawkp\" class=\"moat-trackable pb-f-theme-normal pb-2 pb-feature pb-layout-item pb-f-page-share-bar\"><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I thought that it would be good to share Harry Wiggins&#8217; letter to the WAPO that appeared in today&#8217;s paper which succinctly explains why photo ID laws are crafted to restrict access to the polls when there is zero evidence of voter fraud. \u00a0Enjoy. August 21 at 5:20 PM E.J. Dionne Jr.\u2019s Aug.\u00a020 op-ed column, \u201cNo retreat on voting rights,\u201d could not be more applicable than in Virginia. The 1902&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-372","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mmpcdc"],"a3_pvc":{"activated":false,"total_views":0,"today_views":0},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/manassascitydemocrats.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/manassascitydemocrats.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/manassascitydemocrats.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/manassascitydemocrats.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/manassascitydemocrats.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=372"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/manassascitydemocrats.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":374,"href":"https:\/\/manassascitydemocrats.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372\/revisions\/374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/manassascitydemocrats.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/manassascitydemocrats.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/manassascitydemocrats.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}