Photo ID to Vote Is Perfectly Normal Worldwide

Senate Democrat leader Chuck Schumer of New York relentlessly smears the GOP-sponsored SAVE Act as “Jim Crow 2.0” This bill requires that citizens show photo ID to vote in federal elections. Schumer mendaciously decries this as the Republicans’ freshest flavor of hate, aimed chiefly at blacks.

The GOP, Schumer insinuates, stole this idea from Bull Connor, George Wallace, and the other Southern Democrats who brutally enforced Jim Crow 1.0.

“Well, we find it racist,” Rep. Yvette Clarke, D-N.Y., told Lindell TV. She recalled Jim Crow 1.0 poll tests that suppressed black votes “because we didn’t know how many bubbles were in a soap bar.”

Senator Alex Padilla, D-Calif., called the SAVE Act a “show-me-your-papers law,” thus heating the rhetoric to full boil atop a “Republicans are Nazis” burner.

But if photo ID is a GOP plot to disenfranchise blacks, why is it so common worldwide

I used Chat GPT, a vastly underappreciated research tool, to investigate this matter. My queries demonstrated that photo ID ignites passions in America and yields yawns abroad. Internationally, showing photo ID to vote is the done thing.

Within the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, 27 of 38 countries–71%–require photo ID to vote in national elections, including France, Israel, and South Korea. Conversely, Australia, New Zealand, and Switzerland have no photo-ID mandate.

Twenty-six of NATO’s 32 members–81.25%–require photo ID. On that list: Italy, the Netherlands, and other long-standing allies, plus newer members, such as Albania, Estonia, and Slovenia. Only in Denmark is photo ID outside the picture.

“In the United Kingdom, no one has seriously questioned the need to produce photographic ID to vote,” Tony Sewell CBE, a member of the House of Lords, tells me. “Even in the backdrop of intense division around immigration, we have not even heard of activist groups campaigning against voter ID.” The son of Jamaican immigrants and author of “Black Success: The Surprising Truth” adds, “What is familiar is the way that the Left and progressives have a patronizing attitude toward black people and minorities.”

Lord Sewell notwithstanding, the UK and NATO are overwhelmingly white. What about places of color?

“Across Latin America and much of the Caribbean, photo ID is universal and expected,” Chat GPT observes. In the Organization of American States, 23 of 35 members–66%–require photo ID to vote. This is true, from Honduras to Jamaica to Argentina. Only Dominica spurns photo ID.

According to Mexico’s National Electoral Institute, “only citizens who have been registered in these [voters] lists and who have a photo-voting card may exercise their right to vote.” To cast a ballot, each Mexican’s photo-voting card must match his picture on the tamper-resistant voter roll. Mexico practices strict electoral hygiene. What’s America’s excuse?

Nine of 11 Association of Southeast Asian Nations members–82%–require photo ID to vote. Among them: Cambodia, Laos, and Thailand. 

In East Timor, for instance, the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance reports: “There is a permanent computerized register of voters, and those on it are issued with a photographic voter registration card to be presented at polling centres.”

Although Vietnam is an exception, Chat GPT states: “ASEAN is overwhelmingly a photo ID region for voting.”

If photo ID for voters epitomizes white supremacy, Democrats should explain this: 

“Africa is overwhelmingly a photo-ID continent for voting,” Chat GPT says. Invoking the African Union, it adds: “In most AU member states, national ID cards or voter cards with photographs are universal, free, and issued specifically to facilitate electoral participation, often alongside biometric verification.”

From Algeria to Kenya to Zambia, 45 of the AU’s 55 members–82%–require photo ID to vote. Only Eritrea, Guinea-Bissau, and the breakaway republic of Somaliland fully reject photo ID. Chat GPT observes: “This category is small in Africa and shrinking, as biometric registration and photo voter cards spread.”

“Across every major regional organization examined, requiring voters to establish identity at the polling place is the overwhelming norm. In most cases, this means presenting a government-issued photo ID.” Chat GPT concludes. “Systems allowing voting with no identification are rare and typically confined to a small number of countries or exceptional political circumstances. When viewed globally, photo voter identification is the mainstream practice of democratic elections.”

The American people should rebuff Chuck Schumer and other Democrat racial bottom-feeders. Photo ID at the polls is not “Jim Crow 2.0” It’s the way the world votes.

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