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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