Last week, 96-year-old Dorothy Cooper, who has only missed voting in one election, collected her rent receipt, a copy of her lease, voter registration card, and birth certificate, and went down to the Tennessee Driver Service Center in Chattanooga to pick up a photo ID. Under recently passed state laws created by Republican lawmakers, a government-issued photo ID is now a requirement to cast a ballot in Tennessee. But despite all her documentation, she was denied an ID.
Donna Brazile, DNC vice chair for voter registration and participation, tells Cooper's story on CNN.com:
"Under the new Republican law, this still wasn't good enough. Tennessee refused to issue Mrs. Cooper a photo ID because the last name on her birth certificate is different from her married name, the name she uses now. But she has no marriage certificate, so she cannot clear up the discrepancy to Tennessee's satisfaction. And so she cannot enter a voting booth and have her vote counted."
This is just the latest outrageous example of Republican-passed photo ID laws—which serve to make it harder for eligible Democratic voters (the elderly, the poor, youth and minorities) to make it to the polls on Election Day. Brazile writes:
"Cooper has always displayed a remarkable commitment to our democracy. It is time that we do same. This weekend, we dedicate a national memorial to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. We may have thought that restrictions on the right to vote were behind us. But in 2011, Republican leaders are more interested in protecting themselves from defeat than protecting a citizen's right to vote.
"As Mrs. Cooper's experience shows us, photo ID mandates simply don't work -- unless, of course, your goal is to prevent eligible Americans from voting."
Read the full commentary at CNN.com.