The city of Los Angeles recently released strict proof-of-vaccination rules requiring photo ID — and they appear to be tougher than Georgia’s voter ID laws. Approved earlier this month and slated to go into effect next month, the rules for being allowed to enter “an Indoor Portion of a Covered Location” in Los Angeles will be as follows:
A Covered Location is required to cross-check Proof of Vaccination for each Patron who appears to be 18 years of age or older against Photo Identification…
Photo Identification means an original or copy of an identification card, including:
Driver’s license;
Government issued identification card;
School or work identification card; or
Passport.
So, one must show a picture ID in addition to providing proof of vaccination against the Wuhan virus, even if one has natural immunity. President Joe Biden has both imposed and praised vaccine mandates similar to this one, even though they have cost many hardworking people their jobs. Biden maintains that this “is not about freedom or personal choice” but about compelling Americans to “do the right thing.”
Given Biden and other Democrats’ strong support for vaccine mandates, it’s illuminating to compare the vaccination ID requirements in Los Angeles to the voting ID requirements in places like Georgia that Biden and other leftists have strongly condemned.
When the Georgia legislature passed its revised election law this spring, President Joe Biden called it “un-American,” “a blatant attack on the Constitution,” and “an atrocity.” Not wanting to err of the side of subtlety, Biden also opined, “This is Jim Crow in the 21st century.”
One of the major objections that Biden and his allies have had to the Georgia law is its enhanced ID requirements for proving one’s eligibility to vote. Contrast this with how supportive the left is of ID requirements for proving that one is vaccinated against COVID-19 and thus is worthy to participate in normal American life.
After all, compared to the four photo ID options that Los Angeles lists for people to use, a person can vote in person in Georgia by providing any of the following:
Any valid state or federal government issued photo ID, including a free ID Card issued by your county registrar’s office or the Georgia Department of Driver Services (DDS)
A Georgia Driver’s License, even if expired
Valid employee photo ID from any branch, department, agency, or entity of the U.S. Government, Georgia, or any county, municipality, board, authority or other entity of this state
Valid U.S. passport ID
Valid U.S. military photo ID
Valid tribal photo ID
To request an absentee ballot, voters can provide any of those forms of photo ID or any of the following items “that show your name and address” (though not your picture):
Current utility bill
Bank statement
Paycheck
Government check
Other government document
L.A. doesn’t say anything about accepting a utility bill, bank statement, paycheck, or government check. In other words, ID requirements appear to be less stringent to vote absentee in Georgia than to enter an indoor establishment in Los Angeles.
If you want to walk into a restaurant, bar, coffee shop, gym, movie theater, sports arena, museum, concert venue, mall, bowling alley, arcade, pool hall, hair salon, nail salon, or barbershop (all of these places, and others, are specifically listed) in the nation’s second-largest city, you will have to show proof of vaccination — plus an ID. But if you want to vote in Georgia, having to show an ID — and nothing else — is allegedly the second coming of Jim Crow.
This would be ludicrous even apart from the fact that, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, white people are 20 percent more likely, per capita, to be vaccinated than black people. In other words, Los Angeles has imposed a vaccine mandate that has a disproportionate racial impact, on top of an ID requirement that is stricter than the ostensibly “un-American” voter ID requirement in Georgia.
IDs are apparently fine for enforcing authoritarian decrees, but not for ensuring the integrity of the vote. It’s hard to decide which part of this is most amazing — the left’s hypocrisy, the fact that anyone objects to making every voter show an ID to prove his or her citizenship and eligibility to vote, or the fact that L.A. is about to become a Soviet-style police state where one must show one’s papers to go about everyday life.
