Our country has a lot of problems, but despite what Republicans have been saying, voter fraud isn’t one of them. And even if it were, that’s not what they’re worried about. What Republicans are actually worried about is losing. It used to be just a suspicion. Now it’s pretty clear.
Requiring voters to show photo identification sounds completely acceptable. It would appear that every American should have a state-issued photo ID, but for whatever reason, many don’t — 21 million, in fact. It’s important for everybody who is capable of obtaining a photo identification to do so, but sometimes it’s not that easy. For example, 81 out of 254 Texas counties don’t have public safety offices that allow citizens to obtain a government-issued photo identification. This makes it much harder for the elderly and poor minorities, who are statistically less likely to drive a vehicle, to make it to their closest DPS office.
It’s not required by law to carry a photo ID, and therefore, it shouldn’t be a law to show one in order to vote. Voting is one of our most basic rights, and we should be encouraging new people to vote, not discouraging the voters we already have.
It would be a different story if we had reason to believe that voting fraud was actually distorting our elections. A report released last year by the Republican National Lawyers Association showed there were 400 nationwide prosecutions of voter fraud between 2000 and 2010. No state had more than four convictions of voter fraud during the 10 years, and 30 states had less than three convictions. It’s hardly an urgent issue.
Why then are Republicans so adamant on tightening up voting laws? It seems, since there’s no serious voter fraud issue, that there has to be some other reason.
It turns out that many of those affected by the voter ID laws, specifically minorities and young students, tend to vote Democrat. This could be a big game changer come election time, and Republicans know it. In Pennsylvania, for instance, a major swing state, there are more than 750,000 registered voters that don’t have state-issued photo identification. A Pennsylvania win is vital to a victory for the Obama administration, and it’s more than likely that a large chunk of those 700,000-plus voters leaned left. However, unlike Texas’ proposed law, Pennsylvanian students are able to use their student IDs to vote, which will surely drop that number considerably. It’s also worth noting that there hasn’t been a Pennsylvania voter fraud conviction in the last five years.
But that’s all just speculation. Assuming that Republicans are conspiring to disenfranchise a major portion of America’s population is just as presumptuous as Republicans assuming that voter impersonators are infiltrating our voting system. At least, it would have been, if it weren’t for Pennsylvania House Republican Mike Turzai, who proudly — and perhaps too comfortably — claimed the voter ID law would “allow Gov. Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania.” It doesn’t get much clearer than that.
It’s time that Republicans stop this horribly unconvincing illusion of being the “defender of the vote.” It’s common knowledge now that the truth is quite the opposite. It’s sad because that kind of desperation isn’t necessary. It’s clear now that Mitt Romney is not going to be the underdog everyone thought he was. Democrats have no reason to feel comfortable during this upcoming election so play fair, Republicans, and keep political agendas out of the legal system.
Lucas Sepulveda is a creative writing senior and may be reached at [email protected].
Very well written Lucas. The daily Cougar Opinion writers are getting much better.
I totally disagree with you though. Your argument is full of supposition and hearsay and not based on real studies or facts. What requiring Voter ID will do is prevent/reduce illegal imigrants, felons, and dead people from voting. These are the votes that the GOP is really concerned about. It is a fact that Lyndon Johnson was elected on the narrowest of margins and that dead people had voted in South Texas so we have a history of voting fraud. As to your argument about not being able to get a picture ID, just how many legal registered voters do you really know who do not have a valid driver’s license, passport or other acceptable picture ID in Texas? Be honest about you answer.
As to your argument about this requirement causing the elderly and minority voters to not vote, well here are studies in states that already have voter ID laws:
-A study by the University of Missouri on turnout in Indiana showed that turnout actually increased by about 2 percentage points overall in Indiana in 2006 in the first election after the voter ID law went into effect.[17] There was no evidence that counties with higher percentages of minority, poor, elderly, or less-educated populations suffered any reduction in voter turnout. In fact, “the only consistent and statistically significant impact of photo ID in Indiana is to increase voter turnout in counties with a greater percentage of Democrats relative to other counties.”[18]
-In September 2007, The Heritage Foundation released a study analyzing the 2004 election turnout data for all states. This study found that voter ID laws do not reduce the turnout of voters, including African–Americans and Hispanics. Such voters were just as likely to vote in states with ID as in states where just their names were asked at the polling place.[19]
-A study by the University of Delaware and the University of Nebraska–Lincoln examined data from the 2000, 2002, 2004, and 2006 elections. At both the aggregate and individual levels, the study found that voter ID laws do not affect turnout, including across racial/ethnic/socioeconomic lines. The study concludes that “concerns about voter identification laws affecting turnout are much ado about nothing.”[20]
-A survey by American University of registered voters in Maryland, Indiana, and Mississippi to see whether registered voters had photo IDs concluded that “showing a photo ID as a requirement of voting does not appear to be a serious problem in any of the states” because “[a]lmost all registered voters have an acceptable form of photo ID.”[21] Less than 0.5 percent of respondents had neither a photo ID nor citizenship documentation.
-A 2008 election survey of 12,000 registered voters in all 50 states found that fewer than nine people were unable to vote because of voter ID requirements.[22]
-In 2010, a Rasmussen poll of likely voters in the United States showed overwhelming support (82 percent) for requiring photo ID in order to vote in elections. This support runs across ethnic and racial lines; Rasmussen reports that “[t]his is a sentiment that spans demographics, as majorities in every demographic agree.”[23]
-A similar study by John Lott in 2006 also found no effect on voter turnout and, in fact, found an indication that reducing voter fraud (through means such as voter ID) may have a positive impact on voter turnout.[24]
I disagree with your implied premise that, because studies have shown that turnout has increased in states that have passed photo ID laws, it is OK to disenfranchise those who cannot obtain photo ID at all or without significant burden and expense.
Here are a few more actual cases turnout increases in states that have already implemented Voter ID laws:
Classic case of voter fraud committed in Greene County, Alabama.[25] In that county, which is 80 percent African–American, voter turnout increased after several successful voter fraud prosecutions instilled new confidence in local voters regarding the integrity of the election process.
Actual election results in Georgia and Indiana Turnout in both states increased more dramatically in 2008 in both the presidential preference primary and the general election in the first presidential elections held after their photo ID laws went into effect than they did in some states without photo ID.
There was record turnout in Georgia in the 2008 presidential primary election—over 2 million voters, more than twice as much as in 2004 when the voter photo ID law was not in effect (the law was first applied to local elections in 2007). The number of African–Americans voting in the 2008 primary also doubled from 2004. In fact, there were 100,000 more votes in the Democratic primary than in the Republican primary,[26] and the number of individuals who had to vote with a provisional ballot because they had not obtained the free photo ID available from the state was less that 0.01 percent.
In the 2008 general election when President Barack Obama was elected, Georgia, with one of the strictest voter ID laws in the nation, had the largest turnout in its history—more than 4 million voters. Democratic turnout was up an astonishing 6.1 percentage points from the 2004 election when there was no photo ID requirement, the fifth largest increase of any state.[27]
Overall turnout in Georgia went up 6.7 percentage points, the second highest increase in the country and a striking jump even in an election year when there was a general increase in turnout over the prior presidential election.[28] The black share of the statewide vote increased from 25 percent in 2004 to 30 percent in 2008 according to the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies.[29] And according to Census Bureau surveys, 65 percent of the black voting-age population voted in the 2008 election compared to only 54.4 percent in 2004, an increase of over 10 percentage points.[30]
By contrast, the Democratic turnout in the nearby state of Mississippi, also a state with a high percentage of black voters but without a voter ID requirement, increased by only 2.35 percentage points. Turnout in the 2010 congressional election in Georgia was over 2.6 million voters—an increase of almost 500,000 voters over the 2006 election. While only 42.9 percent of registered black Georgians voted in 2006, 50.4 percent voted in 2010 with the voter ID law in effect, an increase of over 7 percentage points.[31] As Georgia’s secretary of state recently pointed out, when compared to the 2006 election, voter turnout in 2010 “among African Americans outpaced the growth of that population’s pool of registered voters by more than 20 percentage points.”[32]
The Georgia voter ID requirement went into effect because it was upheld in final orders issued by every state and federal court in Georgia that reviewed the law, including the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals[33] and, most recently, the Georgia Supreme Court.[34] As these courts held, such an ID requirement is not discriminatory and does not violate the Constitution or any federal voting rights laws, including the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
In Georgia, as has happened in every state that has considered voter ID legislation, organizations like the ACLU and the NAACP made specious claims that there were hundreds of thousands of voters without photo ID. Yet when dismissing all of their claims, the federal court pointed out that after two years of litigation, none of the plaintiff organizations like the NAACP had been able to produce a single individual or member who did not have a photo ID or could not easily obtain one. The district court judge concluded that
More actual results of Voter ID laws not affecting Voter turnout:
In Indiana, which the U.S. Supreme Court said has the strictest voter ID law in the country, turnout in the Democratic presidential preference primary in 2008 quadrupled from the 2004 election when the photo ID law was not in effect—in fact, there were 862,000 more votes cast in the Democratic primary than in the Republican primary. In the general election in November, the turnout of Democratic voters increased by 8.32 percentage points from 2004, the largest increase in Democratic turnout of any state in the nation. According to Census Bureau surveys, 59.2 percent of the black voting-age population voted in the 2008 election compared to only 53.8 percent in 2004, an increase of over 5 percentage points.
The neighboring state of Illinois, with no photo ID requirement and President Obama’s home state, had an increase in Democratic turnout of only 4.4 percentage points—only half of Indiana’s increase. Turnout in the 2010 congressional election in Indiana was almost 1.75 million voters, an increase of more than 77,000 voters over the 2006 election. Indiana was one of the states with a “large and impressive” increase in black turnout in the 2010 election: “the black share of the state vote was higher in 2010 than it was in 2008, a banner year for black turnout.”[36] In fact, the black share of the total vote went from only 7 percent in 2008 to 12 percent in 2010 (this in the state with the strictest voter ID law in the country).[37]
Photo ID is a legitimate method to help protect the integrity of one of the greatest privileges of being a citizen: the ability to vote. Any amount of photo fraud is pretty unacceptable in my opinion, even if it doesn’t exceed the margin between the winner and the loser(s).
Plus most statistics are based on reported accounts of fraud. Fraud can be difficult to detect in some cases and may not be fully realized. A bigger problem is voter registration fraud for sure.
Photo ID is nearly required to do a lot of activities, and the vast majority of the country has a photo ID. I don’t know why having a car is necessary to get a government issued photo ID; there’s plenty of bus services, people can bike or walk to places too in metro areas. I’m sure if the law were in effect, the government would ensure that any citizen that wanted to vote will be able to vote. I’ve even heard they’ll make special voting card ID’s for free.
I’m far from rich, don’t have a car, and I’ve managed to get both a state ID and a driver’s license. If I can do it, I’m quite sure others can too.
I am VERY happy to read the comments below specifically, Coug78!! Way to go! It makes sense to require everyone to have an ID so they can vote–just like it makes sense to require someone to have a DL so they can drive a car! What this Administration is doing is undermining the states, and hoping to gain those “crooked” votes, from those who are not here legally, so they CAN stay in the WH.—
Thank you Coug78. Please send me an email to [email protected] so I can get in touch with you!
The voters who sued to challenge the PA Photo ID Law — all citizens (one a veteran) who are registered to vote and have been voting for years — do not have have and, more importantly, cannot obtain one of the approved forms of photo ID. Therefore, they are disenfranchised by the law. You can read more about it by clicking on my username and selecting “Summary of Applewhite Petition” at the top of the page.
Disenfranchising voters to solve a non-existent problem makes no sense. The fact is, there is no evidence that voter impersonation fraud — the only type of fraud a requirement that voters show ID can prevent — is actually occurring. If voter impersonation was widespread or even happening occasionally, you would expect to see evidence that voters showed up at polls only to learn that someone already had voted for them. You also would expect to hear evidence that, every once in a while, an impersonator is caught because the poll workers or poll watchers know the voter that the impersonator is attempting to impersonate or the impersonator is unable to convincingly forge the real voter’s signature. But I have not seen any such evidence.
Also, it would be extremely easy to perform an empirical study to determine if voter impersonation fraud was occurring: (1) check the poll books to see whether people who died before any given election signed in to vote; (2) contact a statistically significant number of voters who signed in to vote at any election and ask whether they in fact voted; and (3) check to see whether anyone who fraudulently registered to vote actually signed in to vote. The fact that proponents of the law have not done these studies (or, if they have, did not publish the results) is telling.