HB 340- Voter ID

The near complete lack of attention to election issues in this year's legislative session has been frustrating, to say the least.

One bad bill worth watching is HB 340, which would require voters to show state issued ID cards in order to cast their ballots. HB 340 passed both Government and Judiciary Committees last week and is scheduled for a floor vote today.

If it passes, it will head over to the Senate, where it faces an uncertain fate.

HB 340 does carry a provision to ensure that potential voters can be provided "provisional" IDs at no charge- if they can go down to their county clerk's office- not always an easy task for a person without a driver's license living in a rural area.

Then, in a further twist of malevolence, the bill stipulates that the counties will be reimbursed from the state's public campaign financing fund!

But the oddest thing about HB 340 is the proposal to include photos of all voters on the voting rosters supplied to each precinct.

Can you imagine being told you cannot vote because you don't look like the picture on your driver's license?

It is nearly as bizarre as Rep Patne's suggestion (HM 11) that you need to submit to a retinal scan or give a fingerprint in order to vote.

Watch this last week closely, it will be like a shell game trying to keep track of what is going on in Santa Fe. Nothing up their sleeves?