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Voter ID: Tamping Down Turnout
The following piece was produced for the Huffington Post's OffTheBus by NYU School of Law's Brennan Center for Justice.
By Chisun Lee
You'd think that with a presidential election looming next year, people would pay more attention to the restrictive voter ID laws that keep popping up across the country. These laws will play a big role in determining who can and cannot vote in the 2008 election. And anyone who thinks the officials pushing strict new ID laws must have sound reasons might pause for a moment on the example of Justice Department voting rights chief John Tanner.
Last month, he said "statistically," ID requirements that disenfranchise the elderly who do not have, and cannot easily get driver's licenses, would not harm racial minorities, because "minorities don't become elderly the way white people do - they die first." He said "the math is," a measure that "disproportionately impacts the elderly has the opposite impact on minorities."
His reasoning won him a congressional grilling. A member from his boss's party demanded to know if his "statement was supported by empirical data." Tanner could only say, "I . . . apologize."
Yes, Tanner is the nation's top voting rights enforcer. He is also the one giving the green light to certain state voter ID restrictions proposed in the last few years, despite warnings from his veteran staffers that these laws would unfairly and impermissibly restrict the right to vote. Proponents insist the new measures are necessary to combat rampant "voter fraud"--a claim that holds up as well as Tanner's "math."
This reasoning will be tested in a Supreme Court battle this term over Indiana's new voter ID law and some dozen others waiting in the wings. Depending on the outcome, millions of voters could face ID restrictions in the 2008 presidential election.
Indiana's law is among the most severe of the new genre. It forbids citizens from casting a regular ballot if they cannot produce an unexpired, government-issued photo ID that matches registration records. Utility bills and other documents previously allowed for identification would no longer be valid; neither would military IDs or even Congressional IDs.
The widespread adoption of ID restrictions could effectively bar millions of citizens from voting. Over 10 percent of Americans lack a current driver's license, passport, or comparable photo ID, according to a 2006 survey analysis by the Brennan Center for Justice. Certain groups are more likely not to have ID: the elderly, for instance (over 6 million nationally lack ID), the poor (15 percent of adults earning less than $35,000 annually), and racial minorities (over 5.5 million African Americans nationally).
The majority of Americans who have ID may find it difficult to believe so many don't. But in Wisconsin, almost a quarter of seniors, 59 percent of Latinas, and nearly 80 percent of young black men don't have a driver's license. Obtaining ID can cost money and workday time and require supporting documentation - such as a birth certificate - that may be difficult or even impossible to get.
Federal appellate judge Richard Posner, who wrote to uphold the Indiana law , put it squarely: "[M]ost people who don't have photo ID are low on the economic ladder." Posner nevertheless opted to uphold the law, and thus propelled the case towards the Supreme Court, demonstrates the power of the voter fraud myth.
Supporters of ID requirements say they are necessary to stop voter impersonation at Indiana's polls. Yet as the state's lawyers concede, there has never been a single documented instance of voter impersonation in the history of Indiana. Nationally, voter impersonation happens about as often as someone gets killed by lightning - in the 2004 election in Ohio, for instance, once in 2.5 million votes. Maybe that's because voter fraud is already punishable by a $10,000 fine and five years in prison, and there's just very little to gain from pretending to be another voter.
Asked by the Indianapolis Star to explain the state's lack of impersonation evidence, Indiana Secretary of State Todd Rokita gave this Tannerist response: There is no proof of voter impersonation, because voter impersonation "is hard to prove." Rokita nonetheless insisted the ID law is sound policy "[w]hether you want to believe fraud exists or not."
But investigations into alleged voter fraud - from Missouri to New Hampshire to Wisconsin, and beyond - consistently reveal that the problem is bad bureaucracy not bad, or fraudulent voters.
Those who input data botch birth dates and misspell names. Computers and officials, failing to realize that people commonly share names or birthdays or sometimes both, flag mere coincidences as "fraud." Dead voters turn out to be alive. So-called "vacant-lot voters" often live in legitimate residences, but on property with outdated commercial zoning. And, most commonly, state databases don't keep track of voters who move or pass away.
These problems scream for solutions - mainly, better administration, which existing but under-implemented federal law already requires. But none has anything to do with people showing up at the polls pretending to be other people.
It might still be okay for Indiana to police an imaginary problem - Posner calls this "preventive action" - were it not for the constitutional protections for fundamental rights.
Requiring official photo ID is an exclusionary policy premised on a phantom menace. It won't fix real problems, but it will sacrifice real people's fundamental right to vote.
Chisun Lee is counsel at the Brennan Center for Justice at the NYU School of Law, which will serve as amicus in support of petitioners in the Indiana case and has just issued a new report, The Truth About Voter Fraud.
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"Where are your papers, Sir?"
I am saddened and dismayed by the number of posters who seem to assume that all of the illegal immigrants in this country are gonna storm the polls, boldly come out of the shadows declare their presence, and vote, for whom? isn;t quite clear, but I guess the most hateful posters mean Dems, with only a utility bill as proof of residence.
Heaven help us--Rove has thought of everything-- Repressive voter ID laws coupled with the red flag of those "illegal aliens" swarming us.
I guess the American people just love what has been going down the last 7 years and want more of the same. Just deport those 20 million illegals and we don't care wwhat else you do!
God help us all! Now I am really scared about the future. I thought electronic hackable voting machines was what we had to fear most. Rove and his minions will cover every possible contingency. SCARY!!!!!!
These ID laws are so scary. Somehow all of these people that are unable to get an ID or scared to show it at the polls have no trouble showing identification when cashing a Social Security check, income tax refund or Welfare Check. It's amazing. The fear just disapears.
No need to tamp down turnout. Millions and millions of voters who are already registered don't show up to do their civic duty. Example: 2000, 2004. REMEMBER?
As for the cost of a drivers license, too bad.
We all pay for them. And for our birth certificates. The 'poor me' isn't cutting it anymore.
Many of these people have a freaking cell phone but no drivers license or birth certificate? It costs to live in the WORLD. Anywhere in the world. And here is a 'news flash'. There are RULES in the world.
We all can't collapase in heap everytime there is a requirement to function in life. I see post after post of those who actually think, prepare and function quite nicely and those who have become professional whiners and excuse makers.
Find an island and have a y'all come party. Good luck. The rest of us will plow ahead and be grownups.
I may be fortunate or something, but I am 74 years old living in North Carolina. When I turned in my drivers license at age 72 (by my own choice) I got a state picture id identical to the drivers license except that I can't drive with it. The cost was zero. What's the problem here? Do other states not offer the option? If not, why don't they?
Voter ID is a must. It will cut voter fraud. Voter fraud as in illegals who have no right to vote in our elections despite what the far left would have everyone believe. And a drivers license is not needed. A state photo ID is available in every state and can be had by every legal citizen. Tell the truth and quit lying to the people.
Further to my earlier reaction:
As long as a driver's license is taken as sufficient proof of entitlement to vote, it is entirely possible for a non-U.S. Citizen (in other words, someone who is not entitled to vote) to do so anyway.
There are many ways a driver's license can be obtained legally, by the following categories of foreigners living legally in the U.S.:
1. Permanent Residents (green card holders)
2. Temporary Residents admitted to the U.S. under one of numerous categories (students, executives of foreign companies, etc.)
3. Artists, technicians, researchers.
These are just a few examples.
All these people are in the U.S. legally and even if they have a U.S. driver's license - and a Scial security card, which a.o. Permanent Residents have - this still does not entitle them to vote; they are not U.S. Citizens and everything else is of no consequence.
(Yes, the penalties for registering to vote when not entitled to the right to vote are severe. What no one tells you is that there really is no system in place to determine infractions).
The excuse that elderly people will have a problem obtaining I.D - such as a driver's license, is answered as follows:
1. A driver's license does not prove the primary requirement for voting - Citizenship.
so that will solve nothing.
2. In his native country, my now 86-year old father in law is required to renew his personal I.D. every 4 years. There is a system in place for home-bound people -as he is- to comply with the law (or get a waiver, extending the validity of the current I.D.)
It is obvious that in the U.S., there are too many interests that make big bucks off a system that is murky as can be, and will do anything - mobilize the lobbies - to keep things murky.
I disagree with the authors' assessment that it's SO difficult to obtain an ID card. I'm a low-income, barely got my high-school-diploma Caucasian woman, and I've had my driver's license since I was 16! What's so hard about getting a non-driver's ID card from the government?
Personally, I feel strongly that we need ID cards to keep illegal immigrants from attempting to vote.
We are supposed to have a right to vote but the last 8 years have rought us to the knowing that the right doesn't mean much if it can be manipulated it will be. Hackers can get into machines. Those who control the polls can shut the doors. If the machines don't work the votes can't be done. If all is fails and Ohio or Fla can do the deed we will get who someone else chooses. The SS# would allow people to steal too much information and use it to steal your money and ID.
Such crap!
Our democracy is under assult by corporate pillage, and the invasion and occupation of Mexicans that arrive at our border with nothing but a Mexican flag and their contempt for our borders, laws, ordinance, language, culture, flag and democracy! "Today we march, tomorrow we vote!"
There is not one single transaction out there that does not require an ID. The notion that seniors are unduly inconvenienced by having to have an ID is ridiculous in the extreme. Any senior in California and obtain a non-driving ID at DMV which last for ten years. They can probably renew by mail thereafter!
We witness the corporate contempt for laws as Bank of America and Wells Fargo routinely and illegally open bank accounts for illegals with nothing more than a Mexican consulate phoney ID. No uproar over that.
We have Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer doing exactly what Hillary "La Raza" Clinton would not own up to, push to get illegals illegally registered to vote. Both Feinstein and Boxer, in bed with La Raza, with handfulls of La Raza donors "campaign bribes", push against English only bills, or for having ID's to vote. They know that Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez won her office with the votes of her overwhelmingly illegal constituency.
Sadly these corporate whores would sell us all out to the illegals that have so much disdain for anythign American. Like a corporation!
Certainly Hillary remembers Gore v Bush, and is very eager to achieve an amnesty and the votes of the illegals.
We need for those eligible to vote to be able to vote. The very idea that limiting who can vote brings to mind yet another right for the Bill of Rights being expendible due to control. The problems of the last 2 presidential cycles should point these people another way, to verified votes they can count. The machines are hackable and it has been done, even with paper the "choice" of who voted is left to someone who has agendas. The machines not working keeps hundreds away every time and the deciders in every state having different agendas says we need to have standards that every state has to follow to be counted. The problems with SS #s etc is too many have access to the information and can use it for their own gain/theft.
"You must have ze ID or vee vill not let you vote! Herr Hitler hass decreed ziss!"
What's next - yellow stars for our lapels?
PA Firefighter
The conservatives are desparate & devious. That's a very dangerous combination.
The bottom line is that they want to change the system. Why? Pretty simple-to change the results. Will we still be using the diebold seeding machines? Step by step, people. I weep for my Grandchildren's travail.
You would think that with the most crucial election since 1932 looming, there would be greater public attention, not only to voter i.d. laws, but to the hackable machines that (mis)record and (mis)count the votes.
Here's when and how I learned that the 2000 election had been stolen. After the networks had called Florida for Gore, the network I was watching (probably NBC) went to the hotel room where the Bushes were watching the returns. Bush was asked about his reaction to Florida being called for Gore and he smirked, adding that he wasn't concerned and that the interviewer shouldn't be so sure that Florida was Gore's. His body-language and demeanor announced that he knew something we didn't -- and I knew in my gut that brother Jeb had taken care of the matter. His subsequent fury with Jeb was the result of Jeb's miscalculation of how many votes needed to be stolen in order to ensure a win in Florida.
Remember the Rovian plan to establish a PERMANENT Republican majority -- of 1%. One of the major constituents of the plan was to drive down voter registration and turnout of likely Democratic voters, backed up by acquiring the means to steal just enough votes to win if the former method didn't quite do the trick.
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