One of the more popular arguments marshaled by supporters of the hot new ideas in voter-suppression is to point to turnout numbers and say, "How can we be suppressing votes if so many people are voting?"

This allows supporters of our modern-day James Crow, Esq. style of disenfranchisement to take credit for the sheer democratic cussedness of Americans who want to cast a ballot. For example, let Ari Berman of The Nation introduce you to Eddie Holloway of Milwaukee. Eddie Holloway wanted very much to vote in the recent Wisconsin primary. In order to do so, he had to jump through more hoops than a circus tiger. And he still came up empty.

He brought his expired Illinois photo ID, birth certificate, and Social Security card to get a photo ID for voting, but the DMV in Milwaukee rejected his application because the name on his birth certificate read "Eddie Junior Holloway," the result of a clerical error when it was issued. Holloway, who worked as a cook in Illinois but is now unemployed and disabled, living with his family in Milwaukee, got a ride downtown to the Vital Records System to try to fix his birth certificate. Vital Records said it would cost between $400 and $600, which Holloway could not afford.

Three forms of government ID were not good enough; rather, an unemployed cook on disability had to come up with at least 400 clams to fix his own damn birth certificate.

The saga continues.

He then called the Illinois Vital Records Division, who said he had to personally come to Springfield, the state capitol, to amend his birth certificate. So Holloway bought a $180 round-trip bus ticket and traveled four hours back to his home state. Once in Springfield, the division said it needed a copy of his high-school and vaccination records. Holloway went to his hometown of Decatur to get his school records, paying $20 to his friend for gas money, but after returning to Springfield, Vital Records said it needed his full Social Security statement, which he didn't have.

He also visited the Illinois DMV, but had no luck there either. He left Illinois without getting the documents he needed to vote in Wisconsin. Back in Milwaukee, Holloway got two copies of his Social Security statement and asked Illinois Vital Records if he could e-mail or fax them over. They said he'd have to appear in person again. But Holloway didn't have the money to make another trip to Illinois and gave up trying to get a voter ID. He'd spent $200, visited two states, and made seven trips to different public institutions, but still couldn't vote in Wisconsin.

The Wisconsin law is functioning exactly the way it was designed to function. The purpose of these laws is not to ban certain people from voting; that would be illegal, even now that John Roberts has declared the Day Of Jubilee. The purpose is to make voting so difficult that people go broke, give up trying, or both. Another example of this can be found in Kansas, where Secretary of State Kris Kobach, the proud pappy of both voter-suppression laws and ant-immigrant statutes, is dealing in complete bullshit.

The Spanish-language guides said that voters could register up to 15 days before the election, while the English version included the correct deadline, 21 days before the election, as the Daily Kos flagged last week. And while the English guides told voters they could use their passport as a photo ID, the guides in Spanish did not include a passport in the list.

Accidents certainly do keep cropping up.

Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io