Students at public universities still won’t be able to use their school-issued ID to vote after the state Senate on Thursday voted to remove a provision allowing their use from a new voter identification bill. By agreeing 23-7 with an identical version of the bill passed in the state House, senators sent the legislation, which now allows faculty and graduate assistants to use their college-issued ID to cast a ballot and bans voters from using state-issued library cards, to Gov. Bill Haslam for approval.
Sen. Bill Ketron, the Murfreesboro Republican who sponsored the Senate version, said he supported allowing students to use their school-issued card, not because of the policy’s merits, but to ensure the current photo ID policy was constitutionally sound and mirrored what was considered legal in other states with similar policies.
The Senate agreed, at least at first, voting for the legislation that included the college ID provision in March.
When he saw the House vote to strip those provisions, though, Ketron knew he didn’t have the support in the Senate to keep his version in place.
Full Article: College IDs cut from voter identification bill | The Tennessean | tennessean.com.