Arkansas Tossed Ballot of 79-Year-Old Woman Who Has Been Voting Since Jim Crow
In a small one-story house filled with knickknacks and stuffed animals, Joy Dunn sat at her dining room table going over her absentee ballot. Turning the pages with long fingernails painted fire engine red, she said she wanted to make sure she had everything in order, as the vote she cast in March’s special election was never counted.
“I got a letter saying my vote wasn’t counted because I didn’t have ID. But I’ve been voting in this state since 1954 and I never had to have ID,” she told ThinkProgress. “I didn’t know I was supposed to send in an ID this time. Nobody told me.”
Dunn, who just turned 79, has several forms of valid ID, but says she was never notified that she had to include a copy of it with her absentee ballot. Arkansas is one of a tiny handful of state to require copies of ID from absentee voters, and the only state in the nation to make those over age 65 do. The only exceptions to this rule are for active duty service members and their spouses and residents of long-term care or residential care facilities.
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