96-Year Old Black Woman Denied Voter ID

Crazy voter ID laws claiming first victims

If you've lived to be 96-years old, people should believe you when you say who you are right? Well, not in Tennessee. 96-year old Dorothy Cooper planned on getting a photo ID so she could vote. She thought that she had all of the appropriate documents to prove her identity. However, since her maiden name appears on her birth certificate, the ID clerk said she needed to show proof that her named was changed to Cooper when she got married. Cooper wasn't aware that she needed this, so she didn't bring it. So she was denied an ID. This is just one example of the silliness that is voter ID laws passed by politicians looking to prevent that phantom voter fraud problem Republicans claim is running rampant in this country. But what's sillier about this episode is that people actually enforcing the laws don't know exactly what they are enforcing either. According to the Free Press, when a local activist called the ID office to tell them about Cooper's story, they laughed it off saying they "never heard of all of that." As of now, state officials are trying to contact Cooper to get her paperwork straight so she can get to vote. In the event that they don't get the problem solved, she will be allowed to use an absentee ballot.