The right to exist: a discussion on voter id laws & national identification policies

• Pages: 505-512

Capítulo 35

The right to exist: a discussion on voter id laws

& national identication policies

Andrew G. White IV

St. John’s University

ABSTRACT

This paper will discuss Voter ID Laws and the adoption of a national identification

policy in the United States. Leveraging Spivak’s (1988) theory of the Subaltern, it

will contextualize this topic in a human rights and social justice framework that runs

contrary to the ACLU’s (2023) stance that such policies are discriminatory. Where

more than twenty-one million Amer icans of voting age do not have a form of

government identification (Brennancenter.org, 2006), this paper’s ultimate objective

is to encourage the adoption of a nation-wide policy as a means by which unfettered

access to both the democratic processes and to social benefits may be enhanced.

1. INTRODUCTION

Some of the most heinous humanitarian violations in history, have been allowed

to occur through the deprivation of the rights of those without power, by those with

it. What is fascinating about discussions on human rights, however, are the responses,

at both poles, regarding what constitutes a human rights violation, what does not, and

how, if at all, we should approach such a critically necessary topic of discourse.

In an early historical and colonial American context, acknowledging that this

paper will not discuss the case of the ‘Native American’, a slew of laws, protocols, and

amendments were designed to protect individuals from what they perceived to be

egregious actions perpetuated by England. One such action was the 1765 Stamp Act