Meet 84-year-old Ruthelle Frank. She doesn’t like Wisconsin’s voter ID law. Neither do the MSM and the ACLU. So out of her fringey case, we get a story through which all three can bludgeon that voter ID law, which can’t speak for itself, and for which the MSM apparently could find no advocates. Three quarters of Americans support voter ID. Apparently either none live in Wisconsin, or the JSOnline didn’t bother to look for any.
The biggest opponent of the state’s new voter ID law just may be an 84-year-old woman who stands less than 5 feet tall, has lived in the same house nearly her entire life and has served on her Village Board since 1996.
Ruthelle Frank doesn’t have a driver’s license, doesn’t have a birth certificate and hasn’t been able to get a state identification card, which means that she could be out of luck the next time she tries to vote.
“The whole thing upsets me,” Frank said Wednesday. “You could live in the U.S. of A., live in the same house all these years and you don’t have the right to vote.”
You could also live in the U. S. of A, live in the same house all these years, and suddenly face the IRS jackboots to collect a steep fine because you haven’t bought the Obama-approved brand of health insurance. You’d be facing a fine or jail time for the crime of breathing. We’re unlikely to see a media hit piece about that.
In Ruthelle Frank’s case, $20 would probably fix the problem.
Frank said she tried to get a state identification card last month at a Division of Motor Vehicles office but was rebuffed when she couldn’t produce a birth certificate. She did have a notarized baptism certificate, as well as a Social Security card, Medicare statement and a checkbook.
“I was about in tears,” she said.
But she didn’t cry. She grew angry. And she called her local newspaper, the Wausau Daily Herald, which told her story.
According to the newspaper, a record of Frank’s birth does exist with the state register of deeds in Madison. She could get a birth certificate for a fee, $20. But Frank said that fee amounted to a poll tax.
There’s another problem. Frank’s maiden name of Wedepohl was misspelled by the physician who attended her home birth. To get the birth certificate amended, she could petition the court, a process that could take several weeks and cost at least $200, the newspaper said.
Shortly after the story hit the paper, Frank said, she was contacted by the ACLU.
Of course she was. The ACLU stands among those folks on the left who oppose election integrity. Frank’s case makes for a nice way to scream about the injustice of requiring people to prove that they’re who they say they are before they cast a vote. The inhumanity!
Frank’s case probably represents an infinitesimal number of voter ID difficulties — every one of which will get their day in the MSM sun before long. We can handle such cases without blowing up the entire and reasonable requirement to show valid ID before voting, so that we can cut down on and prevent election fraud.
And here’s where I segue into criticism of Newt Gingrich’s immigration policy. He tends to magnify the fringe cases at the expense of dealing with the more common ones, as a way of demagoging the notion that we should just secure the border and then deal with the vast majority of illegal aliens who haven’t been here for a full quarter century. The tactic, as also seen in the story above, is to play up the most difficult or heart-rending cases as a prelude to throwing up your hands, and then doing nothing. His local draft board idea will be susceptible to the same forces that want to grant illegal aliens the right to vote in some of America’s more lefty, daffy communities. Some towns have already done this, by the way. Entrust them to decide which illegal aliens get to stay or not, and they’ll hand out citizenship like trophies at those everybody-wins kiddie soccer leagues.
Gingrich’s policy mostly sounds good because he sounds smart saying it. But it’s not actually a very good policy.
“Ruthelle Frank doesn’t have a driver’s license, doesn’t have a birth certificate and hasn’t been able to get a state identification card, which means that she could be out of luck the next time she tries to vote.”
So let me see if I get this right: even under her peculiar circumstances, there are methods to obtain proper, legal identification. However, in 84 years, neither she, nor any of her relatives acting on her behalf, nor many years ago her parents, ever exercised that option.
And therefore, the entire voter ID law must be quashed?
Something here about a massive failure in logic…
Reason one million why Lefty’s are poor polemicists and professional liars to boot. The liberal Left is an excuse factory which considers any exception the rule and ipso facto the world is at balance.
That woman hasn’t always been 84 and could’ve solved this long ago. This proves she has however always been stupid.
Welcome to the real America, Ruth.
How do you think I felt last time I tried to get my driver’s license renewed? Born in the USA, lived here my entire life, went to public schools the whole time, lived at the same address for the last 25 years, paid taxes at that address, registere dto vote at that address – yet I still had to produce a birth certificate proving my identity to the DMV’s satisfaction. You think I enjoyed that lack of trust, being treated like a suspicious alien in my own country? Not really. And it cost me time and money to get copies of my birth certificate from the State of California.
Why did I have to do all this? Because illegal aliens and their enablers have been making counterfeit driver’s licenses, which allow illegal aliens to drive cars, cash checks, and get government benefits without exposing their immigration status. In other words, because people were breaking the law.
People today are breaking the law when they vote. They are registering to vote multiple times under different identities. They are registering to vote under the identities of dead people. They are registering to vote even though they are not American citizens. The concept of “one man, one vote” is being flouted by dishonest people for partisan purposes. The only solution to the problem is voter ID.
Unfortunately the left and the ACLU would rather make political hay out of the issue than do something useful – like helping people such as Ruth get their IDs.
Apparently she has managed to obtain a Social Security card—and, one assumes, payments under Social Security. So her case is shaping up to be the modern version of the “old enough to fight, old enough to vote” agitation which changed the national voting age during the Vietnam draft; “able to get government payments, entitled to not have to prove who you are when you vote!”
BINGO! Per the Social Security website, both a photo ID and a birth certificate or US passport are required to get a Social Security card, which is required to get government benefits including SSI, disability, Medicare, Medicaid, Food Stamps, and TANF.
The other side of that story?
Voter ID confirms your right to vote and improves the integrity of voting results.
In 2010, a conscientious poll worker stopped the woman in front of me. Why? There were only two registered voters with her last name, and when he checked the voter register it appeared both had already signed in and voted.
He asked for ID which she readily produced. This prompted him to re-examine the sign-in roster. He was looking at the wrong name.
The photo ID helped her easily prove she was who she claimed to be and prompted the poll worker to discover his mistake. This was accomplished quickly without argument or conflict. No one in line became impatient, and I, for one, was pleased to see both poll workers and voters treating the process with the respect and seriousness it deserves.
“…integrity…”
Upon hearing that dreaded word, a Democrat would scold you like a Conehead – “Mepps! Mepps! Unacceptable!”
I’m much more curious how she obtained a Social Security number without a birth certificate. Or applied for and obtained Medicaid benefits and opened a checking account, where her SS benefits were deposited? In fact, how does she write a check from that checkbook without a valid photo id?
WTF? Paying for a copy of your BC is a “poll tax”? What crap.
You don’t want to pony up $20? Don’t try to vote.
You want to, but can’t afford it? Hey, I’ll give you the $20. Hell, I bet the ACLU and the Dems are spending more to pimp her case into a jihad for fraud than they’d have spent helping others in her situation get their IDs.
I would not be surprised if this turns out like the “dream plaintiff” they had in their attack on the Indiana voter ID law. Turned out their “dream” had been illegally voting in multiple states…
I agree. The flaw in her “case” is that she can’t claim that she’s being denied her rights while at the same time refusing to take a step that would provide her with proper ID. She can’t just falsely claim that the $20 for the ID is a “poll tax.” It’s not her right to interpret the law anyway she sees fit. I can’t justify running a red light by claiming that traffic lights represent a violation of my human rights, for instance.
Why doesn’t one of those well-compensated ACLU lawyers just cough up the money to help this woman out? And that’s one case out of 5.5 million people in Wisconsin. If they could find hundreds of cases like this it might be an issue. If the ACLU can’t help her (they have lots of lawyers, they can cough up $20!), I’m sure that the political operatives of her preferred party (note they didn’t state which party) would gladly assist her jumping through the hoops to get the proper ID to vote. Better to spend $20 to help this woman vote than $20,000 for yet another “the opposition party is EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEVIL!!!!!” TV commercial, or paying some doofus a few hundred dollars to register bogus names.
when when my Wife or i make a purchase with our CC and they ask for ID we always thank them for checking…how do you get to the age of 84 without having ID …sounds liks BS to me. and even if its not tough lady go get an ID.
Dear Ruthelle,
Please go to the nearest Mexican consulate. You can obtain needed documentaion from them to obtain state photo id. If it works for millions of uninvited “guests” it should work for you.
PJ Media: objectively pro poll tax, anti right to vote.
Pro election integrity. You’re against that?