REGIONAL – "Voter ID" is a term we're seeing a lot in the national news. Posed by supporters as an attempt to stop electoral fraud, and seen by opponents as a desperate effort to stop poor, young, non-white and Spanish speaking people from voting at all, the spread of Voter ID laws is part of a renewed war over the franchise itself.

It comes after a fairly long period in which the universal franchise to vote in the United States was almost universally accepted. No longer, it seems.

In actuality, voting rights have been a contentious issue for most of American history. There is no specific federal law or article in the Constitution that regulates this so each state has its own way of doing things. The original US Constitution simply didn't fill in the box concerning who could vote and who could not. In the early decades of the nation, following independence from Britain, only white men who owned property, such as at least fifty acres of land or who had a certain level of income and paid taxes on it, were given the right to vote. When George Washington was elected president in 1787, only six percent of the population could cast ballots.

In New Jersey, the original constitution of 1776 gave the vote to all adults who owned a sufficient amount of property. However, in 1807 a law was passed to deny women the vote.

The subsequent campaign to gain the right to vote for all women was a long one, beginning in the 1840s; it attempted to gain the franchise at first through legal actions until, in 1875, the Supreme Court decided against any female right to vote. That set off the Suffrage Movement and 45 years later, in 1920, American women finally won the vote via the 19th Amendment.

Many devices — especially poll taxes, complicated literacy tests and specific laws for each state — were used to keep non-whites, Native Americans and immigrants from voting. However, in 1856 the vote was extended to all white men. The Civil War's aftermath briefly extended the vote to freed male slaves in the south via the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, but with the reestablishment of white supremacy, state laws soon whittled down the vote by non-whites to almost nothing. It remained this way in those states until the era of Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights marches and the Voting Rights Act passed in 1965.

In 1971 the voting age was lowered to 18.

Today, twelve states require voters to show photo ID at the time of voting. Thirteen other states are considering similar laws. The claim is that these laws are necessary to prevent voter fraud. However, as current Attorney General Eric Holder has noted, hardly any electoral fraud has been discovered.

In New York State, the concern is more often one of "Get Out The Vote" than worry about voter fraud. There are ironies there, of course, if you know New York history. Once, the chieftains of Tammany Hall in New York City kept an iron grip on the voter rolls and ensured that their favored candidates won every election. In the modern age, though, the state has a very different record.

Here, you can register to vote if you are a US citizen, and are 18 years old by December 31 of the year you file and are voting. You are also required to have lived at your present address at least 30 days before the election. You may not vote if you claim the right to vote in another state, or if you are in prison, or on parole for a felony conviction. You may vote by absentee ballot if you cannot be present in your county polling stations on Election Day, or are unable to reach the polling place due to disability or illness. You may also vote this way if you are in jail on a non-felony offense or are awaiting action by a grand jury.

Regarding proof of residency, a 1984 case — Pitts v. Black, 608 F.Supp. 696 (S.D.N.Y. 1984) — saw plaintiffs challenge a New York State Election Law provision forbidding people living on the streets from registering to vote. The district court held that the New York City Board of Election's application of the residency requirement disenfranchised an entire group of people, which is forbidden by the Equal Protection Clause. The court found that a person's "residence" is the place at the center of the individual's life and the place where he/she presently intends to remain. The court reasoned that people need only have a specific location that they consider their "home base" — the place where one returns regularly, manifests an intent to remain, and can receive messages and be contacted.

In Ulster County, you may be relieved to hear, there are no records of electoral fraud. It is seen as vanishingly rare. People with second homes in the county are expected to vote in the place where they spend most of their time and there is a mechanism that can determine where that is, too. When you move, if you notify the Board of Elections, you will often find the yellow card explaining where you ought to vote in the mail almost immediately. If you fail to notify the Board of Elections, the post office will notify them on your behalf — as long as you tell the Post Office your new address to re-route your mail.

Absentee ballots to vote in Ulster County can be obtained from the Board of Elections at 284 Wall Street, Kingston. The absentee ballot application can also be downloaded from their website at www.ulstercountyny.gov/elections/absentee.

The board of elections is extending its hours of operation this week and next to allow absentee ballot forms to be picked up. Call 334-5470 for more information, or contact your corresponding Board of Elections if not in Ulster..