Poll text: In a move that Democrats are decrying as a return to the days of Jim Crow laws, Republican House members yesterday voted overwhelmingly to roll back voter identification laws nearly 100 years. If the bill passes the Senate, voters would be required to show photo identification, proof of Anglo-Saxon descent and proof of land ownership before being allowed to exercise the privilege of voting.

Democrats were quick to condemn the vote as election-year politics. “It’s just not fair,” said Thelma Green of Norfolk, Va. “Everybody knows that blacks, women and renters all vote Democratic.”

But Republicans were quick to counter that the new requirements are not without precedent. “Look at our Founding Fathers,” said Biff O’Toole of Norwalk, Conn. “You don’t think George Washington shared the ballot box with his wife or slaves, do you?”

Election officials across the country greeted the bill’s passage with relief: “This should really cut down on our workload,” said Charles D. Classey, supervisor of elections for Trousdale Wilson County in Tennessee. “For one thing, there will be fewer people voting, and in my experience white landowners are more polite and less messy at the polls than other former voters, if you catch my drift.”

The Senate, which consists of almost totally rich white landowners, is expected to take up a similar bill which, with the swift application of cloture, could sail through the Senate with no discussion or amendments, and be on the desk of our rich, white landowning president by late next week.

“Border fencing and voter identification legislation are just the first two bills in what we believe is the dawning of a new era in the United States,” said Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist.