Voter ID laws in the USA

What’s the big deal about voter ID laws?

Local elections are taking place in the fall of 2015 in the state of North Carolina.  North Carolina was until 2010 a Democratic State and since 2012 the State House, Senate, and Governorship are in Republican hands, North Carolina is reversing many policies set  from the past decades.

One of these is the controversial voter photo ID law. In 2013, under the freshly elected majority Republican House and Senate, the state of North Carolina passed a law requiring voters to show a valid government issued photo ID. This law is effective starting January 1, 2016, just in time for the Presidential elections of the USA.

While for most citizens of Western countries, presenting a photo ID when voting at an election is taken for granted, in the USA, until 2000, there were no laws requiring the presentation of a photo ID; in fact there is no such thing as a national photo identification.  Since a few years, however, with laws on voter photo IDs popping up in some - mostly Southern - states, this issue has turned into a highly controversial political issue.

As Republican North Carolina House Representative Chuck McGrady explains, he supports the voter ID laws in North Carolina because, “Voter ID legislation has consistently had broad support in North Carolina; polls suggest that about 70% or more of our citizens support Voter ID.” However, he “doesn’t believe there is a lot of voter fraud, but folks generally feel that they want to create barriers to any voter fraud. “

Since the shaky election results of the Presidential elections in 2000, with Florida showcasing potential for voter fraud, although voting laws are a State issue, President Bush voted the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) which required all first-time voters in federal elections to show ID upon registration or arrival at polling places. Thereafter, and more effectively, starting with Arizona in 2004, individual states started passing laws requiring voters to bring photo IDs. Since then, 34 States have some sort of voter ID law, which are more or less strict depending on what type of ID is considered acceptable, as well as what options are available to guarantee proof of identification without presenting photo ID on site.

These developments seem to make sense. However, voter ID laws are not truly motivated by voter fraud…

There is another agenda behind the voter ID laws, which makes them highly controversial.  Voter ID laws enacted primarily in Republican states aim at creating obstacles for voters who traditionally vote Democratic and do not have easy access to government-issued IDs.

California – a currently Democratic voting state- is the most prominent state without any voter ID laws, and none in the pipeline. The only state where a voter ID was actually voted down was the state of Minnesota in 2012, when it was largely Democratic. Republican states voting on and enacting voter ID laws claim they aim at eliminating voter fraud. However, even those law-makers in favor, such as NC State House Representative McGrady, admit it barely exists.  International organizations brought in to help to understand the problem, hone in on the political divide rather than the voter fraud issue.

A Needs Assessment Mission Report of the OSCE on the United States of America General Elections of 2014 explains that the states that have moved toward introducing more stringent voter identification requirements passed by the states typically follow party lines – with Republican States implementing voter photo ID laws. The report goes on to explain that the states that have voter ID laws are predominantly Republican and they predominantly affect a demographic that is under-privileged or a minority and more likely to vote Democrat. The OSCE report also mentions that there have been reports of legislators carrying out these laws with intent of weakening the Democratic vote.

Years before the OSCE report, in 2006, the Brennan Center for Justice did a survey of Americans’ possession of documentary proof of citizenship and photo identification. It determined that 7% of Americans – 13 million citizens – do not have ready access to citizenship documents.  These 13 million affected are ethnic minorities, women, the elderly and the poor.

The Brennan Center for Justice further studied the reasons for the difficulty in obtaining government-issued photo IDs. The problems evolve primarily around not having access to a vehicle or to a government ID issuing office. Lack of money, total lack of transportation options, limited hours of government ID issuing offices are simple yet real problems for millions of Americans – typically for minorities, the poor or the elderly. Some rural elderly do not even possess birth certificates, which makes obtaining government issued photo ID practically impossible.

Because of the evident injustice of mandating voter ID laws, constituents are now filing lawsuits against the voter ID law enacted not only in North Carolina, but other States across the country such as Texas. The clear argument against voter ID laws, as also determined by the OSCE, is that it disenfranchises millions of voters – typically Democratic leaning voters found in minorities.

This is of course not the first time American citizens have fought to equalize voting rights. Back in 1965, The Voting Rights Act was enacted to ensure that African Americans have equal voting rights. Back then, despite the 15^th amendment signed into law at the end of slavery, African Americans’ faced hurdles when voting: Southern States for example set up poll taxes, literacy tests or other forms of bureaucratic obstacles.  The 24^th amendment, under the Voting Rights Act,  finally forbid poll taxes.

Also important is that the Voting Rights Act of 1965 enacted that any state changing voter laws must first obtain legal preclearance from the Department of Justice. However, the Shelby County vs Holder law suit filed in 2013 after many states were not obtaining preclearance for their new voter ID laws, now allows states to put voter ID laws into effect without preclearance.  This case is just another thorn in the eye for those who have been fighting for fair voting rights for minorities and the vulnerable. Not only are some voters disenfranchised, but voting acts aimed at preventing exactly this injustice are now being disassembled.

The Republicans are strategically working on maintaining power by enacting not only these voter ID laws, but now by challenging decade old basic voting right laws. In addition, the Republican states are also manipulating elections results to their benefit by redistricting election districts to unfair advantages for Republicans and unfair disadvantages for minorities; shortening early voting days, which 70% of the African American voters used in North Carolina for the 2008 and 2012 general elections; or not allowing students (who traditionally vote Democratic) to vote in precincts where they study.

For this reason, The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the ACLU of North Carolina Legal Foundation, and the Southern Coalition for Social Justice filed a lawsuit challenging not only voter ID laws but other laws affecting the above mentioned issues – early voting, voting outside precinct, redistricting -  put into law in the state of NC in 2013 to be enacted starting 2016 . The law suit targets provisions of the law that clearly disenfranchise voters who have hourly-wage low-income jobs and lack transportation, work flexibility, and/or child care options.

As a knee jerk reaction to this pending law suit, the North Carolina legislature passed a bill in June 2015 that softened the original voter ID laws. The legislature expected the case would be dismissed after softening of the law. That was not the case; the judge did not dismiss it.  As a result, not only will it be interesting to observe how the new-strict-yet-now-softened voting laws create more chaos in the voting logistics, but even more interesting will be to see if the judge determines, as many other judges across the nation have, whether these laws place unduly burden on minority and vulnerable voters.

While Rep McGrady of North Carolina suggests 70% of citizens are in favor of voter ID laws, in fact public polls indicate Americans are divided along party lines. 87% of Republicans are in favor of support requiring ID to vote, whereas 52% of Democrats do. Most importantly, however, while it remains to be seen how the North Carolina judge decides, so far, state superior and appellate court judges do not agree with the voter ID laws.

As Michael Hiltzik of  the LA Times writes of  and quotes conservative U.S. Circuit Judge Richard A. Posner of Chicago "There is only one motivation for imposing burdens on voting that are ostensibly designed to discourage voter-impersonation fraud," he writes, "and that is to discourage voting by persons likely to vote against the party responsible for imposing the burdens." More specifically, he observes, photo ID laws are "highly correlated with a state's having a Republican governor and Republican control of the legislature and appear to be aimed at limiting voting by minorities, particularly blacks."

In Wisconsin, according to evidence presented at trial, the voter ID law would disenfranchise 300,000 residents, or 9% of registered voters. Democracy North Carolina released a report that voting restrictions in that state would reduce turn out by at least 30,000 voters.

Reverend Dr. Barber, leader of the North Carolina National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) feels how this affects his constituents. As an ongoing series of “Moral Mondays” Dr Barber and followers protest extreme policies enacted by the Republican legislature since 2013, Dr Barber and followers were arrested and put in jail for three days in June 2015 while protesting voter suppression laws.  After his release he said, "We will continue to fight these charges that attempt to limit how loudly we can express our First Amendment rights. We will also continue to challenge our legislature, which wants to make it easier to buy a gun than to vote."

The controversial ID laws lead to emotional political fights that go beyond parliament buildings and into the street reminiscing Civil Rights movements. They go hand in hand with messy law suits in various states. Civil groups are organizing to highlight the injustice of the voter ID laws.

While political and judicial battles highlight how one party is taking advantage of a weak and flawed system to gain unfair advantage in political power, there is no serious sign of anyone going beyond the political discussion and stepping up to declare that maybe the entire structure is flawed and that it needs an apolitical systemic overhaul to progress towards modern election standards, where everyone is treated equally with obstacle-course-free access to basic services. Jimmy Carter and James Baker did write a report a decade ago in which a universal voter photo ID law was recommended – but if enacted, it would need five years to be implemented and it would require mobile vehicles bringing government photo ID issuing staff to where the rural, poor, minorities, elderly and other vulnerable citizens live.

The jerry-rigging and constant changes related to the voter ID laws, as well as the gerrymandering of political precinct borders in the USA come as no surprise – it is not dissimilar to developments in other large public issues such as education,  health care, infrastructure, energy, transportation, where the one determining political tool is not nationwide will, but strings of polarized law suits.

In the meantime, Republican governors such as Hailey of South Carolina who sign off on voter ID laws knowing they are disenfranchising voter groups and thus risking their political image, will hypocritically offer an ineffective one-time: “free ID day at your nearest DMV”.  Then there is the more confident state of Texas that does not accept student IDs, however, it does accept weapon permits as valid photo ID.  Dr Barber knows what he is talking about when he says it is easier to own a gun than vote for some people.

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 [MB1]In practice, they were forbidden from voting.

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Austrians dealing with onslaught of refugees

Small towns of a small European country show big humanity in global crisis

The park benches on the aqua blue lake of this suburb of Austria’s Southern-most provincial capital are occupied by young men soaking up the sun occasionally jumping into the refreshing crystal clear water. These young men share the benches with a few locals, some of whom are there with dogs. At one point two men shyly ask a local to take a picture of them on their cell phone with the backdrop of the majestic lake and prominent mountains; the local happily complies and tries to share photographic preferences. Otherwise, the playing dogs are ice-breakers in due to language barrier (sadly) limited conversation between the locals and these dozen or so refugees who are taking a break from the temporary housing offered in tents pitched on the grounds of the State police compound on the main road of this suburb, Krumpendorf am Wörthersee.

On July 4^th, 2015, Krumpendorf, population of 2,000, received 240 refugees from countries such as Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan or Georgia.  The Federal Government struck an agreement with the locality to take in these refugees since the main refugee camp – the first stop for all incoming refugees - in another province close to Vienna, Traiskirchen, was overflowing. With a capacity of approximately 4,500 beds, 1,500 additional refugees were cramped-in camping under the sky around the buildings without a bed and limited access to sanitation.

The Federal Government is scrambling to transfer these new arriving refugees to other locations throughout the country, in order for them to find hygienically acceptable shelter. The plan, which was widely discussed publicly, was to spread out incoming refugees throughout the nine Provinces proportionally to their population. This was initially met with some resistance from the more conservative Provincial leaders of the Province of Tyrol, as well as some mayors. Before anything could be finalized on a national scale, a handful of small towns the size of Krumpendorf took in a couple hundred refugees as a temporary solution to the overflow in Traiskirchen.

Since the crisis with warfare in the Middle East related to ISIS, refugees are streaming in via the Mediterranean Sea into Italy and more and more into Greece (by July 2015 130,500). Most refugees goal is to go North to Sweden or to neighboring Germany, which is expecting in 2015, 400,000 applications for asylum, up from approximately 200,000 in 2014; Germany is also scrambling to find lodging for the refugees. Austria, with a population of approximately 8 million and ten times smaller than that of Germany, has received by July 2015, 28,300 applications for asylum, twice the amount of all applications in 2014. 80,000 refugees are expected to come in 2015.

Since Greece claims it can no longer feed and lodge refugees, and Hungary (which is one of the countries the refugees travel through from Greece to Northern Europe) started discussing putting up a fence to keep refugees from coming in, Austria has experienced an onslaught of refugees.

While the Austrian Government is scrambling to solve this humanitarian and logistical crisis in a budgetary restricted time (for example empty military camps would be ideal sites to lodge refugees but these are up for sale) and some provincial leaders are not cooperating in easing the transfer of refugees away from the main camp in Traiskirchen to other locations around the country, the Austrian population and media is showing a strong humanitarian side.

Austria has a history of open doors to streams of refugees, dating back to the Cold War when first in 1956-1957 Austria, which had just signed its independence treaty from the Post War Occupation, took in 180,000 Hungarians fleeing the Soviet Invasion. Just above ten years later, in 1968, 162,000 Czechoslovakians found refuge in Austria with their invasion of the Soviet Union. With the war in Yugoslavia, Austria took in 90,000 Bosnians, of which 60,000 stayed permanently - adding a young and cosmopolitain work force positively felt in the streets and coffee shops of larger cities.

Many citizens remember these traumatic historical events right at their borders, and still feel the obligation to take in refugees from war-torn countries or other areas of crisis. Austrians, who are typically regulation-driven and law-abiding, are becoming impatient with lack of problem-solving capacity of the Federal and State Government and their bureaucracies, and thus their incapacity to get involved individually as citizens.

“My friends and I offered housing to the Provincial Government of Carinthia for 10 refugees; they gave us a long list of conditions so strict we were not able to comply. So we were forced to retract our offer. This is a big change from when we let in Hungarians and Czechs with open arms into our homes during the Cold War. Have they forgotten that? We really just want to help these human beings” says the owner of a publishing company in Southern Austria.

If they can’t help directly with the lodging issues, at least they can help in other ways; and many are doing just that. The Mayor of Krumpendorf prominently hung a "Welcome" banner the day the refugees arrived. In small town in the Province of Salzburg for example, that is lodging 6 refugees from Syria, Iran and Afghanistan, citizens are jumping in to offer language classes, and soccer games with local teams. In the Province of Upper Austria, citizens groups are hosting cooking nights where refugees teach their native cooking skills to the locals and other refugees, not only as a way to approach different cultures, but to ease tensions when psychologically helping these refugees talk about any trauma they may have experienced.

Krumpendorf has a very dynamic and active group “Lust auf Gerechtigkeit” (“Desire for Justice”), which organizes not only language classes given by volunteers, but an informal foster network, where retirees mentor refugees; also the Catholic Church organizes benefit concerts, as well as clothes drives, which are all met with enthusiasm and abundance by the locals. One concert organizer excitedly emailed a newsletter the day after a concert to highlight the success of the event by quoting one refugee, "I danced with my new refugee and local friends to the rhythm of African drums and laughed for the first time in four years. Thank you". The local priest is proud to share that twenty Muslim refugees regularly attend his service, although they are not Catholic; in the past year he has also baptized a handful of refugees; he thus provides mental and non-denominational spiritual shelter as a means to cultural integration.

There were at least two instances when Southern-Austrian media reported that employees were instantly fired for posting on Facebook negative and insulting remarks about refugees. Also, original reporting of politicians critical of letting in refugees has been abandoned and replaced by reporting of humanitarian efforts and finding solutions to the logistical problems, bureaucratic weakness and political cooperation between parties, governors and mayors. It is currently politically incorrect to be against letting in refugees.  And that is influencing leaders’ and politicians’ actions.

When some question the fact that all refugees are young males and may represent a threat to security, interviews with the Minister of Interior remind us of a study that these are not young camouflaged mini ISIS cells, but rather were send off by their large family back home selected as the youngest, healthiest and smartest who would make it to safety and maybe later on, help bring the rest of the family also to safety.

The length for applications for asylum also indicate that security issues are not being neglected: the length for application depends on the country of origin. Asylum seekers from war torn Syrian have to wait years to obtain asylum status, whereas refugees from Kosovo wait a few months. And there is open discussion that it might be time to reject refugees from Kosovo, as these are no longer fleeing war or oppression but rather mere economic lack of opportunity, and these should make place for the refugees fleeing war areas or other crisis. That is the extent of open criticism of liberalism with onslaught of refugees.

On his way home from the lake, a retired Member of European Parliament makes sure to greet his fellow lake-enjoyers looking each young refugee in the eye, explaining, “It is my duty to make them feel welcome, not only as refugees seeking humanity but as potentially future productive citizens of this country. Hopefully the latter will be soon, because what a waste of talent to have them wait around for years to receive their asylum status and be able to seek work”. This resonates well with the mood of many Austrians, whose open arms are their war against terror.