North Carolina Republicans are supposed to be introducing a bill soon that would require voters to show photo IDs at the polls.
I have addressed this issue before and explained the serious problems with the arguments made by opponents of such a requirement.
This new WRAL article contains a key issue worth addressing because it is constantly brought up. WRAL continually points to State Board of Elections analysis that shows "as many as 700,000 to 1 million registered voters might not have a state-issued photo ID." That estimate is being used to suggest the number of voters that would be harmed by a photo ID requirement.
This "harm" is a moot point because photo ID laws, such as Indiana’s and Georgia’s, provide protections such as free IDs to anyone whocould be harmed by a photo ID requirement.
Even if the SBOE analysis is accurate (which is very questionable), what’s the point?
1) Most photo ID laws require that voters provide any type of government-issued photo ID, not that a voter provide a state-issued photo ID. These other IDs could include passports, military IDs, out-of-state driver’s licenses, federal employee IDs, tribal IDs, etc.
This isn’t a minor point. It helps to explain, in part, why the Civitas Institute poll cited in the article found that only one percent of current voters don’t have one form of government-issued photo ID (not just state-issued ID).
2) The suggestion somehow is that because these people don’t have a state ID, they make up a population that would have to face a massive obstacle to secure an ID. This premise is faulty.
The question that must be asked is: Out of those who don’t have any photo ID (not just state ID), how many can’t afford an ID (or have some other obstacle to obtaining an ID)? Focusing on this point will bring the SBOE numbers down dramatically as to who could be harmed. Again, this is all moot because of the protections that voter ID laws have in place.
3) Also, just to make sure there really aren’t any financial obstacles, as mentioned above, photo ID laws require free IDs so people can vote. There goes the poll tax argument.
4) If the photo ID law is modeled after Indiana’s, indigent voters wouldn’t even need a photo ID because they could cast provisional ballots and later sign affidavits.
5) In the Supreme Court case holding that the Indiana photo ID law was constitutional (Crawford v Marion County Election Board), the plaintiffs couldn’t even establish the harm caused by a photo ID requirement:
Further, the deposition evidence presented in the District Court does not provide any concrete evidence of the burden imposed on voters who currently lack photo identification. … The record says virtually nothing about the difficulties faced by either indigent voters or voters with religious objections to being photographed.
6) Experience in other states regarding the issuance of free IDs also is very instructive. Every state law is different regarding ID requirements at polls (see complete list), so it is possible that a state that accepts more non-state issued ID’s would provide fewer free IDs. There are other factors as well that could go into how many free IDs are issued.
It is also important to remember that free IDs are issued to anyone, regardless of income. Therefore, the number of free IDs issued doesn’t necessarily indicate how many people need IDs due to financial reasons. The reason why everyone doesn’t get a free ID is because these IDs have limited purposes.
Indiana
Free IDs issued in 2010: 168,264
Total registered voters: 4,332,865 (as of January 5, 2011)
Free IDs issued as % of total registered voters: 3.9%
Note: North Carolina has 6,099,066 registered voters.
I am still going through other state data, but it appears that the numbers could be much lower than Indiana’s when it comes to total free IDs issued. For example, in the far more comparable state of Georgia:
Georgia
Free IDs issued between June 2006 and Dec 31 2010: 23,899
Total registered voters: 5,839,998 (as of February 1, 2011)
Free IDs issued as % of total registered voters (per year): 0.09%
As you can see, even these numbers are not remotely consistent with a concern that a photo ID requirement would affect nearly a million people.
Bottom Line: The photo ID laws protect people from any potential harm, and even without these protections, very few people would be affected.
Resources: Here’s a study (pdf link) from the Center for Democracy and Election management at American University that is very useful to understanding these issues.
Quick Takes
Bill aims to let the sunshine in on state records
Lawmakers have launched an effort to codify government sunshine as a constitutional right in North Carolina.
A proposed amendment to the N.C. Constitution would give every person in the state the right to inspect or copy a public record. It would also require all meetings to be open to the public. It would also allow lawmakers to make exemptions to public records laws, provided they adopted such exemption by supermajority votes.
Racial Justice Act ruled legal
The Racial Justice Act survived its first legal challenge Thursday, when a judge rejected prosecutors’ contentions that the law was too sweeping to comply with the state constitution.
Judge William Z. Wood issued his findings in Forsyth County Superior Court.
The Winston-Salem courthouse has been the setting for the first wave of North Carolina death row inmates seeking relief from their sentences under the 18-month-old law.
North Carolina Lawmakers Push Back Against Federal Government
North Carolina is joining a nationwide movement in which states are attempting to reassert their sovereignty.
House Bill 2, Protect Healthcare Freedom — which attempts to exempt North Carolinians from the federal mandate requiring them to purchase health insurance — is only one of several bills state lawmakers are introducing this session in an effort to re-establish the authority of the 10th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
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