96-year-old Chattanooga resident denied voting ID

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Dorothy Cooper is 96 but she can remember only one election when she's been eligible to vote but hasn't.

The retired domestic worker was born in a small North Georgia town before women had the right to vote. She began casting ballots in her 20s after moving to Chattanooga for work. She missed voting for John F. Kennedy in 1960 because a move to Nashville prevented her from registering in time.

So when she learned last month at a community meeting that under a new state law she'd need a photo ID to vote next year, she talked with a volunteer about how to get to a state Driver Service Center to get her free ID. But when she got there Monday with an envelope full of documents, a clerk denied her request.

That morning, Cooper slipped a rent receipt, a copy of her lease, her voter registration card and her birth certificate into a Manila envelope. Typewritten on the birth certificate was her maiden name, Dorothy Alexander.

"But I didn't have my marriage certificate," Cooper said Tuesday afternoon, and that was the reason the clerk said she was denied a free voter ID at the Cherokee Boulevard Driver Service Center.

"I don't know what difference it makes," Cooper said.

Cooper visited the state driver service center with Charline Kilpatrick, who has been working with residents to get free photo IDs. After the clerk denied Cooper's request, Kilpatrick called a state worker, explained what happened and asked if Cooper needed to return with a copy of the marriage certificate.

"The lady laughed," Kilpatrick said. "She said she's never heard of all that."

Tennessee Department of Safety spokeswoman Dalya Qualls said in a Tuesday email that Cooper's situation, though unique, could have been handled differently.

"It is department policy that in order to get a photo ID, a citizen must provide documentation that links their name to the documentation that links their name to the document they are using as primary proof of identity," Qualls said. "In this case, since Ms. Cooper's birth certificate (her primary proof of identity) and voter registration card were two different names, the examiner was unable to provide the free ID."

Despite that, Qualls said, "the examiner should have taken extra steps to determine alternative forms of documentation for Ms. Cooper."

Kilpatrick has had to call the state at least twice after taking someone to get a photo ID or have a photo added to the driver's license. State law allows anyone 60 or older to have their picture removed from their license.

The state has been working diligently to make the process easy for residents, Qualls said.

POLL-ITICS?

State Rep. Tommie Brown, D-Chattanooga, said Tuesday that Cooper's case is an example of how the law "erects barriers" for the elderly and poor people -- a disproportionate number of whom are minorities.

"What you do, you suppress the vote," Brown said. "You don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure that out."

The General Assembly passed the photo ID law earlier this year, with lawmakers saying it was needed to prevent voter fraud. The legislature allocated $438,000 to provide free photo IDs for registered voters who don't have a qualified ID.

"It makes no sense in these economic times that we are shifting our time and resources to this," Brown said.

In Nashville on Tuesday afternoon, a coalition of organizations announced an effort to repeal the law. Groups such as the ACLU of Tennessee, various chapters of the NAACP, the AFL-CIO and Tennessee Citizen Action announced a petition drive and get-out-the-vote effort.

"This is a nonpartisan issue. It's a fair voting issue," said Mary Mancini, executive director of Citizen Action, in a phone interview. "It's all about the legislators seeing that the people of Tennessee don't want this law."

VOTING ALL THESE YEARS

Cooper isn't worried about the politics of the law.

"I hadn't thought about it," she said when asked about why legislators passed the bill.

She just wants to be able to vote.

In her decades of going to the polls, "I never had any problems," she said, not even before the Voting Rights Act passed in the 1960s.

In her 50-plus years working for the same family, she never learned to drive so she never needed a license. She retired in 1993 and returned to Chattanooga from Nashville.

Now, on occasion, one of her bank's tellers or a grocery store clerk will ask for photo ID when she writes or cashes a check, Cooper said.

"I've been banking at SunTrust for a long time," she said. "Sometimes they'll say, well, do you have a Social Security card?"

And she shows it to them. She also has a photo ID issued by the Chattanooga Police Department to all seniors who live in the Boynton Terrace public housing complex, but that won't qualify for voting.

Cooper's younger sister, now 91, lives in a nursing home across town. Nursing home residents and assisted living residents are exempt from the new photo ID requirement.

But Cooper, who barely needs a walker, is not.

Though she's still able to walk around her apartment without assistance and "takes daily exercise" at a community center next door, Cooper never had any children -- although she has outlived two husbands -- and relies on others for transportation.

The law "is a problem if you don't have a way of getting around," she said. "I've been voting all these years."

After Cooper was denied a photo ID Monday, Kilpatrick contacted Hamilton County's Administrator of Elections Charlotte Mullis-Morgan, who recommended that Cooper vote with an absentee ballot rather than having to stand in line with her walker again at the state center.

Absentee ballots don't require photo ID, and the new state law was crafted to allow that exception. A U.S. Supreme Court decision upholding a similar Indiana statute cited the absentee ballot exception as one of the reasons the Indiana law didn't infringe on constitutional voting rights.

Still, Cooper said she will miss the practice of going to the voting precinct located in the building next door to hers.

"We always come here to vote," she said, nodding toward a door where voting machines are set up on election day. "The people who run the polls know everybody here."

http://timesfreepress.com/news/2011/oct/05/marriage-certificate-required-bureaucrat-tells/

[Deputy Purple 1,294]

Making a mountain out of a mole hill.

From the list of documents she had on hand it sound like she simply didn't have what was needed to meet the requirements.

I would blame the knowledgeable person, Charline Kilpatrick (who has been working with residents to get free photo IDs), who assisted her with failing to ensure she had what was needed.

Mrs Cooper didn't fail, the System didn't fail... Ms Kilpatrick failed (in epic per-portion) and is now trying the use her ineptitude as an example of the new State Law being a political attempt to prevent some people from voting?

Seriously, how much more transparent could one be?

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

Making a mountain out of a mole hill.

From the list of documents she had on hand it sound like she simply didn't have what was needed to meet the requirements.

I would blame the knowledgeable person, Charline Kilpatrick (who has been working with residents to get free photo IDs), who assisted her with failing to ensure she had what was needed.

Mrs Cooper didn't fail, the System didn't fail... Ms Kilpatrick failed (in epic per-portion) and is now trying the use her ineptitude as an example of the new State Law being a political attempt to prevent some people from voting?

Seriously, how much more transparent could one be?

Blame the volunteer rather than question why a volunteer is needed to begin with for a citizen to be able to vote. Excellent. Seriously, excellent.

[Gary and Alla 3,694]

Blame the volunteer rather than question why a volunteer is needed to begin with for a citizen to be able to vote. Excellent. Seriously, excellent.

The reason a volunteers is needed falls into two basic categories

1. The woman is 96 and needs a volunteer to help her do ANYTHING. No ones fault, just the way it is when you are 96

2. Poor government education.

In either case it is not a problem with the law requiring ID to vote. Why would anyone be against requiring ID to vote?

[Obama 2012 1,714]

The reason a volunteers is needed falls into two basic categories

1. The woman is 96 and needs a volunteer to help her do ANYTHING. No ones fault, just the way it is when you are 96

2. Poor government education.

In either case it is not a problem with the law requiring ID to vote. Why would anyone be against requiring ID to vote?

because Libs feel that illegals should be able to vote like everyone else and ID laws prevent them from letting them vote.

[Gary and Alla 3,694]

because Libs feel that illegals should be able to vote like everyone else and ID laws prevent them from letting them vote.

Exactly. Which is why they do not turn off the flow of illegals tomorrow just as they could. Politicians want them.

Dems for votes and Repubs for cheap labor to avoid the costly add-ons that Dems demand for white employees but could not care less about if brown people get them or not.

The tangental issues that are used to avoid the facts of illegal imigration just constantly amaze me. And NEITHER side will address the elephant in the room. If it wasn't so serious it would be funny!

[Deputy Purple 1,294]

Blame the volunteer rather than question why a volunteer is needed to begin with for a citizen to be able to vote. Excellent. Seriously, excellent.

Not quite as excellent as blaming the system for all failures regardless of the source.

The article made it very clear that the volunteer was needed to assist the 96 year old woman with transportation at a minimum. Normally I wouldn't have mentioned the volunteer but from the article she (the volunteer) was sure to point out that she is in the business (volunteer business that is) of specifically assisting people with this very issue (getting the free ID required to vote in person) there for I would expect that she knows a little more than just the address for the office that hands-out the ID cards.

Then there is also the fact that the 96 year old woman still has the option of absentee voting which requires neither the ID nor the transportation hassle but still allows her to vote.

I'l never understand how someone failing to provide minimal documentary evidence is the fault of the agency which requires the same evidence of everyone and not the person who couldn't follow simple instructions. Are we really a nation of morons who can't connect a few dots?

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

1. The woman is 96 and needs a volunteer to help her do ANYTHING.

Seems that she was doing just fine going to the polls to cast her vote until they put this ridiculous roadblock between her and the polling place.

[Fandango 1,439]

She didn't have a paper trail for her name link, so she's absentee voting. She's voting, so I guess the issue is that she'll miss standing in the line. Aww bless.

Making a mountain out of a mole hill.

From the list of documents she had on hand it sound like she simply didn't have what was needed to meet the requirements.

I would blame the knowledgeable person, Charline Kilpatrick (who has been working with residents to get free photo IDs), who assisted her with failing to ensure she had what was needed.

Mrs Cooper didn't fail, the System didn't fail... Ms Kilpatrick failed (in epic per-portion) and is now trying the use her ineptitude as an example of the new State Law being a political attempt to prevent some people from voting?

Seriously, how much more transparent could one be?

Agree. Except it's 'proportion'.

[Deputy Purple 1,294]

Agree. Except it's 'proportion'.

Ha ha, I will now have to punish my browser's spell-check!

Edited October 6, 2011 by Bob 4 Anna

[MyLittlePony 340]

Old lady has a few years leftin her so whats the big deal.

[scandal 951]

In her 50-plus years working for the same family, she never learned to drive so she never needed a license. She retired in 1993 and returned to Chattanooga from Nashville.

See, that's the problem. Never learned to drive??? How un-American is THAT? EVERYBODY in America drives. She's clearly not worthy of citizenship and shouldn't be given the right to vote. Next.

[Brother Hesekiel 2,236]

See, that's the problem. Never learned to drive??? How un-American is THAT? EVERYBODY in America drives. She's clearly not worthy of citizenship and shouldn't be given the right to vote. Next.

Plus she's a woman . . . I mean, didn't they just a few years back get the right to vote, and she seems to be black on top of it. Clearly, she would not vote for the Corporate Reptilians who want to destroy this country in order to maximize corporate profits, so she shouldn't be allowed to cast a vote at all, just like the other low income folks, who don't even have enough money to own a car.

Right?

[one...two...tree 2,762]

I'l never understand how someone failing to provide minimal documentary evidence is the fault of the agency which requires the same evidence of everyone and not the person who couldn't follow simple instructions. Are we really a nation of morons who can't connect a few dots?

Voter suppression laws are not rocket science. They are designed on purpose to discourage people from voting even if the law on the surface sounds reasonable. For one, voter fraud is NOT a widespread problem that exits in this country - that is a fallacy that those who wish to suppress votes will throw out there to try and validate creating voter ID laws knowing that the real consequence will be that many will simply not vote.

[Deputy Purple 1,294]

For one, voter fraud is NOT a widespread problem that exits in this country - that is a fallacy

Come to Chicago with that line...

The Cook County Seal has the county's official motto "Vote Early, Vote Often"...

Cook and the surrounding counties have the highest voter turn-out in the country, almost everyone in the cemeteries vote year after year! Now that's what I call dedication...