One woman's Story
man's Story
Ruby relies on her son Jim Denton for transportation because her driver’s license expired in 2010, and she is ineligible for a new one due to a medical condition.We read about [the new law] in the newspaper. She has macular degeneration so she lost her driver’s license in 2010. But she’s got her current voter registration card and everything. I thought since she had the driver’s license and because she had a current registration it would work.
She goes down to get a voter ID card … they would not accept her driver’s license as a picture ID card so that she could get a voter ID card because … it was too old.
They said, “Well, you gotta have a birth certificate.”
I said, “She does not have a birth certificate, she was born in rural Tennessee in 1921 … there were many cases where people born like that had a midwife and that was it — they didn’t have birth certificates, it was just in the family Bible.”
Texan Ruby Barber is 93 years old and has lived in the state for 77 years. She voted for the first time when she turned 21 and has been a regular voter ever since. This year, Barber was initially denied an Election Identification Certificate (EIC), Texas’s voter ID card. The rejection meant that she couldn’t vote.
"A 93-year-old woman among those facing voting hurdles in 2014