About 50 residents at Westview Manor, an adult care facility, not only face the challenges of sickness and old age, but they could be sideswiped by strict voter identification requirements. Only nine of the residents at the Peabody center have current identification cards and two have birth certificates that can be used to obtain a state ID cards, said Bonita Robertson-Boydston, executive director at Westview Manor. The chances that the more than 35 registered voters will get sufficient identification soon seem slim, she said. Without proper identification, the residents will not be permitted to vote in the south central Kansas community where they’ve voted for years, she said. The law applies to the Aug. 7 primary and Nov. 6 general elections.
Showing identification at the polls is a new requirement this year, approved in 2011 by the Kansas Legislature to curb potential voter fraud. Other nursing home residents statewide face similar challenges, especially if they were born outside Kansas. “They don’t go shopping on the Internet. They don’t use credit cards. They don’t have drivers’ licenses. They have $62 a month spending money, which makes it very difficult to spend $27 for birth certificate,” Robertson-Boydston said.
Some no longer remember where they were born to find birth records. “The dates and history aren’t always there,” she said. However, Kansas voters with driver’s licenses or other forms of identification do not need a birth certificate to obtain a new photo ID to show at the polls.
Full Article: New Kansas voter ID regs hitting voters in nursing home.