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Massachusetts Voter ID Ballot Question Falls Waaaaaaay Short [1]
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Date: 2023-12-08
A ballot initiative in Massachusetts to put a referendum question on the ballot that would have required voters to show a photo ID such as a driver’s license or other official ID in order to be allowed to vote fell far short of the number of signatures required to place that measure on next year’s election ballot as an initiative petition.
The Office of MA Secretary of the Commonwealth William Galvin reported that, by Wednesday’s filing deadline, they had received only about 40,000 signatures out of the over 74,000 required for the measure to have moved forward, according to reporting by Democracy Docket’s Devon Hesano.
I live — and of course I vote — in Massachusetts, and to be honest, I was not even aware that such an effort was underway.
However, I remember an effort in a recent election which would have put a similar measure on the ballot, and witnessed an interesting exchange at a shopping center between the referendum’s proponents and a would-be petition signer….
When asked if he would sign their petition, he asked whether they needed to see his ID in order for them to be sure he was who he said he was. The people at the petition table assured him, “Oh, of course not! You’re signature is on file with the Town Clerk, and they can verify your signature.”
“So”, he replied, “if I can sign your petition without an ID, why should I need one in order to vote?” When the people manning the table tried to stammer some incoherent non-sequitur, the man just looked them in the eyes and said, “This is why your idea is bad.”
The fact that I hadn’t been aware of a similar effort this year makes its failure to get anywhere near the number of signatures it would have needed not much of a surprise.
Don’t be fooled — despite Massachusetts having had a popular centrist Republican governor from 2015 through this past January (Charlie Baker, who now runs the NCAA), the rank-and-file GOP members here are as batsheet crazy as the biggest Trumpsters from other states. And every bit as self-destructive, to boot. Living in Massachusetts, you can picture the GOP nearing its sell-by date, because the party members who hold the rings of power here apparently have a talent for self-immolation. They cycle through leaders like the GOP cabal in Congress cycles through Speakers of the House.
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