moving backward

Colorado's secretary of state, Scott Gessler, is our chief elections officer, so you might think he would be encouraging more voters to cast ballots on election day.
Isn't that the American way? Isn't that what democracy does?
Not necessarily. Scott Gessler favors passage of a law that could, at least marginally, keep some voters away -- voters who lack what he considers proper credentials.
Being properly registered in the precinct poll book wouldn't be enough. Gessler would require that every voter, in order to get a ballot, would also have to show some sort of formal photo identity to election judges. Like a government-issued photo ID.
No picture? No ballot.
Well, you say, that's not such a big deal. The voter could simply whip out his driver's license.
That could work. But, surprising as it may seem to the average person. there are quite a few people in Colorado -- people who are qualified and registered to vote -- who don't have a current driver's license. Or any other official or semi-official photo credential.
Maybe they just don't drive. Or maybe their licenses have been revoked. But even if they've been barred from driving, they can still vote. Picture-IDs aren't required or needed for that.
Yet.
Actually, this initiative of Scott Gessler"s isn't just a local thing. Under the phony banner of "preventing vote fraud," it has spread to more than dozen states (which, like us, really have had no problem with fraud)..
What is this really about? It is simply a devious campaign to keep certain classes of Democratically-inclined voters away from the polls -- like the young, the elderly, blacks, Latinos.
Why do Republicans want it so much? Because Republicans, as a group, consider themselves more righteous and capable than Democrats, better fitted in every way to take charge on election day. And so they have rammed the photo-ID and other needless protections through legislatures in more than a dozen Republican-dominated states.
In commenting on the issue, Gessler told the Denver Post that the Colorado voter-photo initiative is his own idea, not a GOP project, that he is "too full of piss and vinegar to be taking marching orders from other people."
He's full of something..