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U.S. District Court Judge Paul D. Borman on Friday in a preliminary ruling about requiring citizenship checkboxes on the November voter ballot applications. A written ruling is expected Tuesday.

Here’s what voters had to say before the ruling:

“It makes no sense. In order for me to vote and receive a registered voter’s card, I have to be a U.S. citizen and have already passed other checks. So for them to do an additional check, I don’t think is necessary at all,” said Tremiko Thweatt, a financier from Detroit.

“If you are voting it should be assumed that you are a citizen. I haven’t heard of people who weren’t citizens trying to go out and vote,” said Christian Black, a non-partisan 20-year-old Wayne State University student. Black says it is a problem that it has come to the level of asking people their legal status on an election voting application.

“If you already have to show ID, there is no reason you should have to check off a box saying whether you are a U.S. citizen or not. I think that voting should be open to everyone who is allowed to vote; there should be no detriments or anything that stands in their way or intimidates them from voting,” said Dr. Danielle McGuire, assistant professor of history at Wayne State University.

“So all of these measures that are being proposed around the country to have strict voter ID laws or to ask people about their citizenship, I think are efforts  reminiscent of post-reconstruction era that work to disenfranchise legitimate voters in order to maintain power for certain parties. I don’t think it’s ethical, I think it’s wrong,” continued McGuire.

“I think we should always lean towards accepting more voters and working on the back end to root out any fraud if it really does exist, which evidence shows it does not,” said McGuire.

(via 2012swingstates)

(Source: freep.com, via 2012swingstates)