Tennessee’s new Republican “photo ID” law has successfully suppressed another voter.
Meet Dorothy Cooper, a 96-year-old retired housekeeper from Chattanooga who has only missed one election since she registered to vote in 1933.
Dorothy learned at a town hall meeting that her voter registration card was no longer good enough to vote. So Dorothy wanted to make sure she had the necessary ID to vote in next year’s elections.
But when she went to apply for the ID, she was denied. From The Times Free Press:
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.
Dorothy was denied an ID under the Republican-backed measure signed into law by Governor Bill Haslam.
There are at least 173,000 registered voters, just like Dorothy, who have played by the rules but are lacking the photo ID now required by Republicans.
On Wednesday, state Rep. Debra Maggart, the Republican who sponsored the new voter ID law, said to “all these people” who don’t have a voter ID — that’s your problem.
“Tell me how people are buying beer and cigarettes? They have to have an ID to do that … I have a hard time believing that all these people don’t have an ID. … You have to have a photo ID to get public housing.”
This is a disgraceful and sickening way to talk about responsible registered voters like Dorothy Cooper! Dorothy and our grandparents deserve better.
The bottom line is that we want every eligible Tennessean to be a voter and have their ballot counted.
This is why we need your support — to stop Republicans from taking away our hard-won rights and to fight against their extreme agenda.
It’s up to Democrats to protect Dorothy’s right to vote on Election Day.
We’ve never solved anything in America with less democracy, and we won’t now.
Help us build a more-inclusive, Democratic Tennessee with a gift of $5, $10 or $25 today.
Thanks again for fighting for people like Dorothy,
Chip Forrester
Chairman, Tennessee Democratic Party
