Tennessee doesn't like illegals

I had previously heard about Tennessee's new voter ID law, requiring anyone voting to present a photo ID before voting. While these laws are meant to suppress voting among those who typically vote Democrat, I'm not shocked by it. Kentucky has a similar law, and it doesn't seem overly egregious, and probably won't have much of a chilling effect on turnout long term, although it could cause troubles in the short term (it's not going to matter in the presidential elections there, but could affect congressional races). Chances are it mostly will be used to harass funny-colored people, which is the Official Pastime of Tennessee, although I'm betting many of the poor, white Republican voters will have troubles with it, as well.

I hadn't heard about Tennessee's effort to purge non-citizen voters from the rolls, however. When I first read the synopsis, I thought it was going to be up to poll workers to racially profile potential illegal aliens voting. But upon further reading, I see that they are going to compare the list of those with a "temporary license" (given to those with green cards) or a "certificate to drive*" to the list of registered voters and attempt to kick out anyone who isn't a citizen. There are more than 20,000 people holding one of those licenses (only 1,043 with the certificate to drive).

* created under Democratic governor Phil Bredesen in an attempt to get some of the illegal aliens to at least have better driving skills, and since discontinued by the now Republican-dominated government

I'm sure there are some non-citizens registered to vote, and I'm sure they'll find some among those 20,000. But to make it seem like this is some big accomplishment is disingenuous at best; Colorado did a similar thing and found that 106 non-citizens had registered to vote since 2006. Does that shock anyone?

Fair elections are important, and folks who aren't entitled to vote shouldn't be allowed to vote. But it's an imperfect system, and the main thrust of this law is just more warfare on the right's favorite boogeyman, illegal immigrants.