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Health & Fitness

Voter Suppression

Voter suppression, the new photo ID law, and why they are unfair.

By Jason Troll

WCSU Student

Recently, there has been a lot of discussion of the issue of voter suppression with the presidential election less than two weeks away. Just the other day on the news, it was reported that big businesses are saying that they will have to lay off a number of workers if the party they don’t like gets elected into office. This is unfair to say the least. Obviously the majority of those workers are going to take their job into huge consideration before voting, seeing how difficult it is to find careers in today’s economy.

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There is also a new photo ID law that has been recently enforced in several US states.  This law requires voters to present a government-approved photo ID before they can vote.  Supporters of this law say that showing photographic IDs is a minor inconvenience because they are nearly universal. People who oppose this law say the photo ID requirements effect minority, handicapped and elderly voters who don’t normally have driver’s licenses.

Some other strategies to suppress votes are felon disenfranchisement, which is not allowing previous felons the right to vote.  Disinformation about voting procedures is another way, but it is more rare to see people receive false information about where and when to vote.

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Your vote does matter! Make sure to register; your deadline is October 30th by person, and October 23rd postmarked by mail. Be there November 6th at you local voting station to cast your vote! To help promote the 2012 election, WCSU students in the Writing, Linguistics and Creative Process Department's Advertising, Copywriting and Promotions class created a Twitter page. Also check out their blogs at www.danbury.patch.com. Get educated on whom to vote for by visiting our Facebook page.

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