Your World ;
; 34 states weigh photo ID laws.
; Changes will impact older and minority citizens.
; Are states curtailing the right to vote?
The midwife at the 1949 home birth in rural
South Carolina delivered a healthy baby girl
but didn’t file a birth certificate. Donna Jean
Suggs grew up, got a Social Security card and
found work as a home health aide. Try as she
might, though, she couldn’t get a birth certificate. That meant she couldn’t get a driver’s license or register to vote. ; “I fought with them
and fought with them,” she said of the local
and state officials. “I prayed and prayed.” In
time, said Suggs, 62, who lives in Sumter, S.C.,
“I gave up on things”—like voting. ; Having a
driver’s license or photo identification card is
commonplace for most Americans, but about
Ballot
Box
Battle at the
By Marsha Mercer
Photos by David Walter Banks
Without a valid photo
ID, Donna Jean Suggs
faced the prospect
of not being allowed
to vote this year.
