Tuesday, June 12, 2007

I See a Voter ID

Requiring voter ID at the polls looks, at first glance, like a sensible idea. Until you realize the havoc it would create. Most voters, especially in urban areas, and even smaller close-knit communities, walk to the polls. Not everyone carries ID on them. Many voters would have been turned away by a new law they may not have even known about.

The right to vote is a part of our democracy that should be encouraged, not discouraged. Not only would people who forgot their ID not be able to vote, many people do not have ID. It is estimated that 12% of adults do not have a driver’s license or state ID card. Many senior citizens and people with disabilities do not drive. To require people to then obtain a non-driver’s identification just so they could vote would be a burden of time and expense. Further, if they also need to obtain a birth certificate in order to obtain their identification in order to vote, there may not always be enough time to process this paperwork before the election. On top of that, the expense of obtaining this identification would have had the effect of a poll tax, which is unconstitutional.
Let’s consider what is really behind this issue. The push for voter ID is part of a national Republican strategy that realized that Republicans tend to live in suburbs and in rural areas and they tend to drive to polls and carry ID while Democrats tend to live in cities where they walk to the polls and don’t always carry ID. Republican legislators have made this same proposal in states across this country. This is primarily a political ploy to tilt elections to the Republican side.

If Republicans were serious about the voter ID issue, they would take their position to the next logical step. Why not automatically declare that anyone with a driver’s license or state ID automatically be a registered voter, so long as they are over age 18 and an American citizen? The Carter-Baker Commission reports this step would automatically increase the percent of eligible voters from 79% to 88%. I believe, in addition to keeping our current voter registration system for those without ID, this would be one of the most significant steps we could take to increasing the invitation to participate in our democracy to more voters that has been taken in years.

This issue by no means is voter fraud. The Elections Bureau reports that Pennsylvania is a state that most effectively prevents voter fraud. In Pennsylvania, a voter provides a signature in order to vote. The signature is matched against the signature when the person registered to vote. This signature evidence is one of the most effective ways to combat voter fraud, and it does so in a manner that does not intrude upon a voter’s right to cast a ballot.

Advocates of voter ID point to a Republican State Committee mailing to voters in Philadelphia where they state thousands of names on the mailing were returned. This indicates more that the voter lists are severely outdated. People move, even their homes and blocks destroyed, yet their names remain on the voter lists for years afterwards. What the Republicans found is that voter registrations continue to list voters long after they have moved away, not that people are voting fraudulently. The Republicans have made no claims that any of these thousands of names of voters to whom their mailing was not delivered have in fact then illegally voted.

Indeed, the national Republican Party has made a push for increased absentee balloting. This is a fine and welcome push to increase democratic participation. Except, if their primary concern is verifying that voters have ID, there is no requirement to provide an ID to vote by absentee. If anything, this position increases the possibilities for voter fraud.

There have been very few instances of actual voter fraud claimed in Philadelphia and there are current laws and procedures that deal with voter fraud. Denying the right to vote to people without IDs is not an answer to a problem that does not exist.


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