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 15th
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 24th 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.
