Sarah Silverman Takes Voter ID Laws To Task

One musty couch, one snappy comedian and plenty of foul-mouthed sarcasm later, the latest push for voter education hit the Internet this week, encouraging citizens in states with new strict voter ID laws to get the photo ID they will need to in order to cast a ballot in November.

In classic Sarah Silverman style, the comedian and actress takes Voter ID laws to task in a video ad sponsored by the Jewish Council for Education and Research.

“This year [voting] is not going to be that easy because there are these brand new, super f***ed up laws, which are presented as a way to prevent voter fraud, but are in fact designed to make it hard for specific people to vote: black people, elderly people, poor people and students,” Silverman says in the ad.

“Hmm, wonder what those demographics have in common,” she says, scratching her chin.

“Oh yeah, they are probably going to vote for this guy,” she says as the screen shows images of President Obama.

In Pennsylvania, Indiana, Georgia, Tennessee and Kansas, voters have to present photo ID for their votes to count in the 2012 election. As many as 11 percent of eligible voters do not have the type of ID accepted, according to a study by the New York University Law School’s Brennan Center for Justice.