Oregon voters
overwhelmingly rejected a ballot measure that would have given driver ID cards to people who can't prove their legal residency – killing a law signed by Gov. John Kitzhaber in May 2013, the latest midterm election figures show.
According to the latest results from Tuesday's vote posted by the Oregonian Thursday, Measure 88 sank with 868,883 "no" votes, or 67.4 percent, compared with 419,934 "yes" ballots, or 32.6 percent.
The measure pitted unions, some business groups and immigrant-rights organizations against a meagerly funded campaign that referred the issue to the ballot after it passed the state Legislature and was signed into law,
the Oregonian reports.
The cards wouldn't have been usable to vote, get on a plane, buy guns or get benefits.
According to
KOIN 6 News, it was the first time voters in any state weighed in on the controversial driver's license issue.
Cynthia Kendoll, president of Oregonians for Immigration Reform, said she was "thrilled, needless to say," telling the Oregonian the outcome proved to be a victory for voters "sick and tired of big business, special interest groups and unions controlling our government."
"Oregonians could see right through it," she said.
Proponents, who included some Republican legislators, cast the issue as one of public safety and equity, the Oregonian noted. Opponents said issuing driver cards to those who can't prove legal residency only undermines the rule of law.
In a national poll conducted last year by Rasmussen Reports, 68 percent of likely U.S. voters said illegal immigrants shouldn't be allowed to obtain state driver's licenses, with 22 percent favoring the idea.
"It is a kind of amnesty. It doesn't given them any legal status, but by giving them a government-issued ID, it helps them imbed in society," Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies in Washington, D.C.,
said in an interview earlier this year with Newsmax.
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