PROTECT ARIZONA NOW

             It was a neat experience for me to witness a mock supreme court.  The issue at hand was somewhat disturbing, because it seems unconstitutional for both citizens and the undocumented residents.  PAN's  (Protect Arizona Now initiative) agenda is to pass laws requiring voters to submit two forms of identification, one of which is a birth certificate.  In addition to changing voting procedures, their other main objective is to deny social services to those who cannot provide legal documents proving citizenship or legal residency.  It was overwhelming for me because I am not so familiar with specific laws.  I feel strongly against PAN, but I can’t back it up with any references or laws.  The judges did a good job at probing different aspects of the two opposing arguments but at the same time they frustrated me to no end.  I can kind of understand though that they can’t base decisions on  feelings, but on the law and scientific evidence. 

 The two opposing teams of "attorneys" did a good job for the most part, how can one prepare, or possibly know what the judges were going to address?  I personally think that PAN is unconstitutional, using this as a pretext to regulate or control immigration and at the same time infringing upon the rights of the US citizens.  But personal opinion means nothing in court.  In the arguments in support of PAN, attorneys used statistics to show a certain percentage of fraudulent votes, where dead people’s names were used to vote.  Again anyone who has taken statistics or uses stats knows that they can easily be manipulated to work for or against your argument.  You don’t even need to report it all, just the ones that comply.  So yes, courts look at scientific evidence but even then one can argue that there are discrepancies.  It seems as if PAN is taking it from a whole different angle and trying to apply that to a whole different issue.  If the problem is using dead people’s names then shouldn't they be focusing on updating death records and improving systems to detect and avoid that? 

            I thought about immigrants, especially illegal ones and thought about what I would do if I were them?  Well I surely wouldn’t vote, first of all because of ignorance, don’t even know how and secondly because I’d be too scared of getting caught and deported.  Maybe I’m giving immigrants too much of a benefit of the doubt, but I feel that their focus isn’t to rig the voting system or even to harm the US intentionally in any way.  They are just looking for an opportunity.  If we really think about it, who are we to keep them out?  Everyone has a migrant background, this land has parts that belonged to Mexico, and of course the original inhabitants were those of native American descent.  How fast we forget the true meaning of the constitution and the purposes set forth by our forefathers.  This event evoked a lot of emotion in me, because PAN feels wrong, but feelings are not enough to change laws yet what counts as scientific evidence itself is imperfect and always changing.