Today, in Crawford v. Marion County Voting Board, a divided panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit rejected a constitutional challenge to Indiana's new photo ID requirement for voting. Writing for himself and Judge Diane Sykes, Judge Richard Posner held that the photo ID requirment did not impose an undue burden on the right to vote, even though the law would deter some individuals from voting, and even assuming that the law would have disproportionate effects on voters of one party.
In ananlyzing the statute, Posner rejected strict scrutiny, observing:
The Indiana law is not like a poll tax, where on one side is the right to vote and on the other side the state’s interest in defraying the cost of elections or in limiting the franchise to people who really care about voting or in excluding poor people or in discouraging people who are black. The purpose of the Indiana law is to reduce voting fraud, and voting fraud impairs the right of legitimate voters to vote by diluting their votes — dilution being recognized to be an impairment of the right to vote.According to the majority, the law represents a reasonable regulation designed to balance the right to vote with the state's interest in reducing the likelihood of voter fraud.
Judge Evans dissented:
Let’s not beat around the bush: The Indiana voter photo ID law is a not-too-thinly-veiled attempt to discourage election-day turnout by certain folks believed to skew Democratic. We should subject this law to strict scrutiny—or at least, in the wake of Burdick v. Takushi, . . . something akin to “strict scrutiny light” — and strike it down as an undue burden on the fundamental right to vote.
UPDATE: I neglected to add that both opinions are short and worth reading in full. This was a high-powered panel addressing an important issue.
I've also fixed the link above, or try this one.
Related Posts (on one page):
- More on Indiana Voter ID Decision:
- Indiana Voting Law Upheld:
Fraudulent voters?
In any event, if you read that passage from the dissent and substitute "Democratic" with "Republican," most Democrats would change their tune about the law.
The dead, illegal aliens, felons... no, its not a thinly veiled attempt at all, its quite explicit.
It's a bit hard to imagine the rest of the opinion creating a context in which the above does not read as an ugly politically-motivated slander.
Now, could the state fix this problem simply by making a provision for free Voter IDs upon submission of some kind of proof of identity. Perhaps the issuing authority can have an advocacy branch to help people get the necessary papers. If the issue concerns so few people, it does not seem that the cost would be so great to ensure a valid vote.
I would have been happier if Posner had explicitly weighed the two factors: demonstrably small amounts of voter fraud against small inconveniences to certain classes of legitimate voters who would not otherwise obtain a government ID. He is certainly not compelled to defer to the legislature's stated intent in cases such as this where important rights are (theoretically) at stake.
As for the above comments about fraudulent votes trending Democratic: you do yourselves little credit by pretending to be ignorant of the issues involved. At best, you'll manage to persuade others that you are, in fact, ignorant. Congratulations on that.
Andy- Buying beer is not a fundamental right - your analogy is fatally flawed. The government at every level puts restrictions on alcohol (selling liquor licenses, forbidding the sale of alcohol on Sundays, taxing it, etc) of the sort that would be unconstitutional if applied to voting (selling the franchise, having a poll tax, etc).
And as the dissent notes, there’s not a shred of evidence that this law will prevent any fraud; indeed, there’s no evidence there’s any problem of voter fraud in Indiana.
This law is mostly going to prevent poor and disabled people from voting -- a point even Posner seems to concede. Those groups of people are, of course, more likely to vote democrat.
(And if we're going to cast stones about whether democrats or republicans are more likely to engage in voter fraud, shall we add up the conviction totals for both groups stemming from roles in voter fraud?)
Trust me, I've been an election official for years. Fraudulent votes have always skewed Democrat and always will.
To those who suggest this is a "tough case," it's not. The state has every right to ensure that the people who are voting are legitimate voters.
Meanwhile, as Posner points out, there's "little evidence" that anybody who wants to vote has actually been or would be "disenfranchised" [sic] by such laws; the plaintiffs couldn't find a single such person to make a party to their suit.
Surely they could do many things, but they're not going to, now that the law has been upheld as-is.
When I register to Vote, I submit my address so that I am registered in the proper district for the purposes of local elections (now my address is volunteered to the public)
When I show up at the poll, I show my face in public, and in some places sign a signature card (now my face is in public)
The ID does not make my identity public, It just shows that I am who I purport to be.
I don't recall ever voting without showing a voter registration card, which I had obtained well in advance. The cards always show my name and address. I never gave privacy a moment's thought in that context. I fail to see how pulling out my driver's license is a material additional burden on my privacy.
Obviously you're not familiar with Chicago's storied history, to raise one obvious example.
Irrespective of which party benefits most from fraud, from a public policy point of view fraud only has to occur in amounts sufficient to make the outcome of elections less clear to be important. As we have seen in the last three national elections, this is a low hurdle where voting is regionally segmented and some districts are closely divided.
Wisconsin does not yet have a photo ID requirement; the Democratic governor keeps vetoing it.
link
Wisconsin does not yet have a photo ID requirement; the Democratic governor keeps vetoing it.
I will have to give than a big Amen.
Just consider it a piece of the National Security not unlike the efforts to insure safe travel. I can't see an argument for LESS scrutiny because it is a Right. That makes no sense at all. Should my claim of real property ownership be satisfied merely by swearing an oath?
Is that because it's a *picture* ID?
This strikes me as an awfully strange statement. Is 4% something that a judge should be stating without any evidence whatsoever??? It doesn't strike me as something that one may take judicial notice of. I'm shocked that a judge would put something like that in an opinion without a shred a evidence supporting it.
If there really was some signficant number of voters for whom an ID requirement is a significant barrier to voting, isn't it incumbent on the parties challenging the law to provide some evidence to that effect?
Secondly, it is just as empty a statement to declare that their is little or no voter fraud to combat as it is to declare there is enough to worry about. Anybody got any data?
That, and I am too lazy to preview (and my Italian stinks)
I don’t have a problem with requiring someone who tries to get an absentee ballot to produce a photo ID.
It's a dissent. He's not taking judicial notice of a fact, he's explaining why he did not vote with the majority. It's an entirely different level of formality.
Well judging by Judge Evans’ amateur Karnack act in which he tells us what he thinks the real motives behind the law are and his opining from the bench about what sort of laws he thinks the legislature should pass, I’d say that since his dissent is based on his own policy preferences (or partisan leanings), it’s not surprising that he picks his own “facts” as well.
From their website:
I'm genuinely serious here. Aside from the snarky answers (dead people), who is it that is supposed to be so inconvenienced by this that they are being disenfranchised? The cost is hardly prohibitive, but it can be waived. The card lasts six years, so getting it or getting it renewed is no more of a hardship than getting to the polls.
Can someone explain to me what the issue really is? Or is it really the contention that the people opposed to it really are promoting voter fraud with no cover story?
This amount of money may be trivial to all of us here, but to some, that could mean the difference between two meals in a day or one. I dont know if the DMV takes welfare cards. But if not, it would surely suck to be some candidate who loses by a few hundred votes (less than 4% of the total) because those who would have voted for him couldnt afford the 10 dollars. Just a thought.
I think the ID requirement is reasonable, i dont think it will prevent fraud and i think it will burden some people who are either too poor or lazy to get an I.D. Other than that, the law is useless. Whats the old adage, its not the people who vote that matter, its the people who count the votes that matter? (Diebold anybody?)
I understand this is a dissent, but how does he know this?
Yes, please; would be interested in this.
I'm sorry, but aren't we setting the bar a might low, here? I am all for voter participation, and I would love to live in a country where everyone felt passionately a desire to vote.
I understand voting is a right, but does the government really have a responsibility to make it so effortless to exercise that we seriously talk about whether people will "bother" to do so?
They need an ID to vote. They need pants to be out in public. What about the people who don't "bother" to dress first?
It would surely suck to be some candidate who loses by a few hundred fraudulent votes that could've been prevented.
Personally, I don't think just a voter ID is enough to catch the majority of voter fraud. Combine the picture ID with indelible purple ink on the thumb and I think you've got it.
I tend to agree with Evans that this case should be subjected to strict scrutiny (light). Voting is a constitutional right that is fundamental to our system of government. Any law that impinges on this right needs to be examined very carefully. If a statute has the effect of disenfranchising, hypothetically, 4% of the voters, there needs to be some real justification for the law.
I differ from Evans in that I am not at all certain that the statute would fail under strict scrutiny. It's easy to - again hypothetically - justify the statute on the basis of voter fraud...and it may well be the case that (some) disenfranchisement may be necessary to prevent (more) voter fraud. In this context, it's important to keep in mind that voter fraud itself is disenfranchisement.
But I believe that the strict scrutiny analysis needs to have been done.
I'm not aware that there is supposed to be a different level of formality to a dissent. It seems to me that the purpose of a dissent is to convince others that the majority opinion is wrong. But a dissent that is based, in part, on "facts" for which no support is provided seems to me to be not very convincing. What reason is there for me to believe the 4% number? I can't see any.
The dissent is extremely poorly argued, IMO. It is nothing more than a judicial temper tantrum; an argument that contains baseless charge after baseless charge. Perhaps Judge Evans is farming his opinions out to Judge Anna Diggs Taylor?
Voter ID laws make it harder to commit fraud by eliminating one of the easy ways to do it. Such laws won't eliminate the possibility of fraud - there are plenty of other ways to go about it - but if it eliminates one of the possibilities at minimal cost it's worth it.
With rights come responsibilties. In order to exercise your right to vote you have to register. Upi have to show up at the polls or possibly get an absentee ballot. If someone is too lazy to make the minimal effort required then he has chosen not to exercise his rights. As for the cost issue, as others have pointed out one can potentially get a state ID in Indiana for free. Certainly this takes more effort than paying the fee but requiring someone to make some additional effort is not unreasonable.
And if someone forgets their ID and then just says "to hell with it" and goes home then exercising their right to vote wasn't very important to them. I don't feel sorry for that person.
That's an excellent point, in light of which it seems to me that this statute might fail even under the "more searching form of rational basis review" that Justice O'Connor suggested might apply to issues of particular constitutional sensitivity in Lawrence v. Texas. It seems as if, to be a legitimately rational decision, the state would need reliable evidence that the statute would prevent more voter fraud than it would cause disenfranchisement. In the absence of such evidence, I would think that this should be struck down as an irrational infringement on the exercise of voting rights.
Perhaps the advocates of such methods will work to put those methods in place in some jurisdictions.
Then we could compare the effects of different ways.
I only wish we had requirements so, um, burdensome in California. All I have to do to vote here in Marin County is sign my name to the register. No one, in twenty years of voting in this state, has asked me to demonstrate that I am who I say I am when voting. I find this peculiar and disturbing.
Not enough of these people participate in the electoral process to begin with. The addition of a photo id requirement will certainly preclude more of them from voting. I think that is the real purpose of these new photo id laws.
I would have thought the deliberate disenfranchisement of the poor by deleting their names from the registration rolls, as in Florida, and by understaffing and underequipping polling places where the poor vote, resulting in long lines and waits of several hours to vote, as in Ohio, were enough to prevent their vote, but I guess not.
If the requirement of a photo id is upheld, my suggestion to the Democratic Party and other political organizations concerned about fairness in voting is that they develop a program for getting free photo id's to the poor, one that will not only make voting easy for them but also encourage them to vote. Then, of course, there will be screams about fraud in the production and distribution of photo id's.
I ought to add that there exist people without either bank accounts or utilities billed in their names. A fair number, in fact. Most of them are children, of course, but some are indigent adult citizens with a legitimate right to vote. What to do?
If we are shooting for a 100% fraud free election then you may have a relevant point but a non-photo ID is enough of a hurdle to ensure that material instances of in person voter fraud will not occur.
There are other forms of non-photo ID, leases, paystubs, government assistance checks, etc. If a person can't produce one piece of paper with his address and name on it then he probably couldn't register to vote in the first place.
I'm struck by your statement that "a significant number of [the poor in LA] have no photo identification, certainly not valid photo identification[.]" Meaning some have "invalid" photo ID? There are really only two reasons to have fake ID: You want to buy cigarettes or alcohol while under age, or you want to pretend you are a citizen when you aren't. There are an awful lot of noncitizens in LA, and I don't think they ought to be voting. Have you any thoughts on how we'd go about restricting voting to citizens without over-burdening the poor?
There are supposed to be some thousands of homeless people in San Francisco alone. They by definition haven't fixed addresses, and most likely not jobs (of the kind that generate paystubs, anyway) either. As to whether they would have difficulty registering to vote in such circumstances: I doubt it, but if they did, wouldn't it just push the whole problem back to registration? Or is it OK to place burdens on registering to vote that would be wrong to impose on actually voting? I can't see why.
Actually, I was thinking of expired drivers' licenses as invalid photo ID, the invalidity arising from the fact of expiration.
There are really only two reasons to have fake ID: You want to buy cigarettes or alcohol while under age, or you want to pretend you are a citizen when you aren't. There are an awful lot of noncitizens in LA, and I don't think they ought to be voting. Have you any thoughts on how we'd go about restricting voting to citizens without over-burdening the poor?
I don't no about other types of invalid photo ID's, although I saw TV programs a couple of years ago on a brisk market in creating and selling phony ID in the environs of McArthur Park. The purpose of the scam was to get illegal immigrants drivers' licenses. There has been a crackdown on this and there are new restrictions, including required provision of social security number, on getting a driver's license.
I don't know that the huge immigrant population here translates into a voting fraud problem. I do know that Republicans have tried to frighten even immigrants who have become citizens away from the polls in Orange and Los Angeles Counties.
In any event, the Republicans usually have some sort of intensive campaign advising immigrants they cannot legally vote. Unfortunatley, they sometimes fail to distinguish between immigrants who have become citizens and other immigrants. Typical.
I can't imagine why anyone with a valid driver's license wouldn't renew it before it expired.
I don't know that the huge immigrant population here translates into a voting fraud problem. I do know that Republicans have tried to frighten even immigrants who have become citizens away from the polls in Orange and Los Angeles Counties.
I would say that if you have a large non-citizen population and no particular control on who votes, you have a potentially massive fraud problem, yes?
If any of them participate its too many, imho. They are not sufficiently mentally competent to vote. They are not sufficiently invested in our society to vote. These are the kinds of people that democrats love to load on buses with payments in booze and cigarettes and drive to various polling places within and without the state in which they might be found.
Any person in today's society who doesn't know how to get a photo ID when one is available for free or next to free; or can't be bothered to get one; or is incapable of caring for their own physical needs such as providing their own housing and food and clothes has not demonstrated sufficient intelligence, investment in the society, and/or sufficient mental competence to be allowed to vote.
There are way too many ill informed incompetent a**holes allowed to vote as it is, at a minimum those who are not competent to care for themselves or secure a voter ID card should not vote.
Also, to those who say voting is a fundamental right. You are wrong. Its only a fundamental right if the state in which you live chooses to allow you to vote. States are not bound by the constitution to pick presidents by the popular vote of the general population, and the states are free to establish voting requirements.
I for one think you should have to have a drivers license, have a lease of 6 months or longer on a home/apt, and own other property at a minimum to be able to vote. Anyone who is mentally or physically competent to work should be disallowed from voting if receiving any form of direct government aid. Its a blatant conflict of interest between their voting and their direct disposable income.
So forgive me if I don't get all excited because in this day and age we should try to take voting as seriously as we take opening a bank account or a movie rental account or any of the other hundred things we do each month that require showing a photo ID. Boo Hoo, Boo Hoo. Poor little incompetent can't bother to vote if they don't get paid mental incompetents incapable of caring for themselves.
Says the "Dog"
If voting in SoCal is anything like voting in the Bay Area, the "authorities" can be trusted not to give a damn who's voting under which voter's name.
Seriously, VA, what would you think allowable in the way of ascertaining that a would-be voter is a registered voter and a citizen? Do you take it on faith? If not, what do you require?
Try getting out in the real world sometime. A huge number of people fail to renew valid drivers' licenses before expiration. Many of them don't do it until a traffic stop brings it to their attention by way of a ticket, sometimes years after expiration.
You obviously live an organized life. Many don't. They don't have calendars and reminders. Sometimes they don't have even the few dollars to pay for the renewal and put it off, then forget about it.
Seriously, VA, what would you think allowable in the way of ascertaining that a would-be voter is a registered voter and a citizen? Do you take it on faith? If not, what do you require?
I require nothing. I take most people on faith. I prefer it that way, even if I get burned occasionally.
Both political parties have representatives at polling places. They are able to challenge a voter if they think it is justified. I don't know the procedure. I'm not a voting rights attorney. But I have not read anything about immigrant voter fraud having been discovered here.
JYLD provides insight into the motivation behind the law.
Try getting out in the real world sometime. A huge number of people fail to renew valid drivers' licenses before expiration. Many of them don't do it until a traffic stop brings it to their attention by way of a ticket, sometimes years after expiration.
You obviously live an organized life. Many don't. They don't have calendars and reminders. Sometimes they don't have even the few dollars to pay for the renewal and put it off, then forget about it.
You seem to know an awful lot about me, VA; unfortunately, it's mostly wrong. I do not have a driver's license. I don't drive. If I need to identify myself, I use my passport. That is what we do out in my particular suburb of the "real world."
If I DID drive, I would have the elementary common sense to renew my license when it expired. Because, y'know, driving without a valid license is, um, illegal. This is not complicated.
1. While the voter ID may be free, a certified copy of your birth certificate, even if it exists and can be located, is not free.
2. In Wisconsin, the last time I renewed my drivers license, the woman at the DMV returned my old one and told me I could use it as a backup for, e.g., airline travel if my purse were stolen. Hence a real life example of a no longer valid ID.
Had you bothered to actually read the opinion, Posner cited three cases: Purcell v. Gonzalez, supra, 127 S. Ct. at 7; Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U.S. 533, 555 (1964); Siegel v. LePore, 234 F.3d 1163, 1199 (11th Cir. 2000).
Where did I say you had a driver's license or that you drove, Michelle? Nowhere. What I did do was say that you obviously lead an organized life on the basis of your statement that you could not imagine circumstances in which someone would fail to renew a valid driver's license. So am I wrong about you living an organized life? If I am, I will retract that and apologize.
That said, voter registration is not an unreasonable measure, and in order to register to vote, you have to be able to do at least a minimal amount of paperwork; there's nothing about obtaining photo identification that makes it obviously worse. Why, if voter ID is such a restriction on the right to vote, is voter registration not? After all, plenty of people move and don't renew their voter registration in time; those people are effectively disenfranchised in their new domicile...
I do not live an "organized life" as you evidently define it. I do not have "calendars and reminders." And yet I do have occasional contact with the "real world." I'd appreciate it if you would make it clear how one gets "real world" cred chez vous. Round here it involves just living, but possibly it's different in your neighborhood.
It took years to straighten out and the only way it could be done was through the census records. When she went to get a passport at age 50 it got interesting and that was back in the 60s. Want to guess what would happen today?
From 1964, when I first became eligible to vote as a 21-year old, until 2000, I voted in every election save two minor local elections when I was out of town and forgot to get an absentee ballot. But I have not voted in any election since the 2000 election, when the Republican Party and the Republican members of the U.S. Supreme Court pulled off the biggest heist in world history, disenfranchising the poor and crowning the pretender Bush king of the U.S.A. for four and, ultimately, eight years and allowing the Republican Party and its backers to loot the country.
It's a matter of personal principle; I will not participate in and thereby lend credibility to an election system that is thoroughly corrupt, rotten and anti-democratic. Continuing successful efforts to disenfranchise the poor, motivated by elitist attitudes like those demonstrated by Junkyard Dog, confirm that. One less vote the Republicans have to worry about, I know, but it's the form of protest I feel most comfortable with--nonviolent nonparticipation. I don't urge anyone else not to vote, and I still occasionally exercise free speech rights, as my posts here show, because I still care passionately about the issues.
Let me guess, you wouldn't wait 50 years to make sure that you had a birth certificate?
Hattio, what could the state of Indiana do above and beyond providing free ID's to the indigent, as it already does, to reduce what you refer to as the "poll tax" to zero? There will always inevitably be some costs to voting, i.e. the cost of gas to drive to the polling place, the 37 cents for the stamp on an absentee ballot, or just the opportunity costs imposed by voting instead of doing something else valuable with one's time.
So college students with grants or student loans, who do not work, and live in dorms (or in an apartment that mom and dad are paying for, or live at home) shouldn't be allowed to vote?
How about a young professional, paying off said student loans, who lives in a house where the mortgage is in mom and dad's name, so that they can get, say, 6% interest instead of 7.5?
Well as somsone who worked all the way through college, didn't take a dime in financial aid, and paid taxes so that my future competitors in the job market had more time to study, I say damn right.
You get in touch with the real world by broadening your capacity to imagine that other people do things differently than you do--possibly because there circumstances are different--so that you no longer say things like
or this
For some people, regrettably, it is complicated, Michelle. Not for you, apparently, but put your thinking cap on about others.
I'm sorry I wrongly concluded that you live an organized life. I would have bet a lot that you did, but I accept your statement that I am wrong on that and apologize.
Kelvin, a $10 fee (1000 cents) levied every six years (2191 days, give or take a leap year) is equal to a charge of ~0.46 cents per day. It's very difficult to believe that the difference between one and two meals a day is less than one half of a single penny. After all, one can very literally find that much money just lying around on the street.
No they shouldn't, and the voting age should be raised back up to 21 at a minimum where it used to be before the hippies raised a ruckus and got it lowered to 18. If 18 is too young to buy booze its definitely too young to vote. The college student living at home could lease a room from mom and dad and qualify for voting under my "dream" scenario but the college student in a dorm room without a 6 month or longer lease is out of luck. Not sufficiently invested in society and the success of our society to need to vote, and for most too damn young to vote.
That's easy. They do a lease with mommy and daddy until they grow up and stand on their own two feet. So not a problem for the young professional still sucking off mommy's tit.
Says the "Dog"
I don't give a rat's ass whether you or others care about their political involvement. I do care when the state tries to make living an organized life with records at hand a qualification for voting. The fact is, whether it is their fault or not, many of the poor do not have photo id at hand, and some of them do not have the means to acquire it.
You should be right about that. But try using an expired driver's license as identification at a bank and see where it gets you. Nowhere. Or as id to get into a jail or a prison as a visitor. Nowhere. Or as id to establish age sufficient to buy liquor. Nowhere. Will voting authorities act differently? I bet not.
You get in touch with the real world by broadening your capacity to imagine that other people do things differently than you do--possibly because their circumstances are different
Fine. If you can explain to me why anyone with a driver's license wouldn't renew it when it was about to expire, I'd appreciate it. If you have a driver's license, you likely have a car; therefore, you can drive to the DMV. And if you do have a car, and a license, it is very strongly in your interest to renew the license.
The fact is, whether it is their fault or not, many of the poor do not have photo id at hand, and some of them do not have the means to acquire it.
And many of the poor will have a hard time proving their US citizenship. Can we please start talking about what we should reasonably require as proof of elegibility to vote? Because anything we do is going to present some sort of inconvenience to some people who legitimately have the franchise.
This at least overlooks Article I, § 2 of the Constitution, which provides for popular election of the House of Representatives, the Article IV, § 4 guaranty to every state of a republican form of government, and the Seventeenth Amendment, providing for popular election of senators.
Voting is indeed a fundamental right, and states are not free to establish voting requirements that unreasonably impinge thereupon, such as onerous requirements as to length of residence within the state. Last I knew, Dunn v. Blumstein, 405 U.S. 330, 92 S.Ct. 995, 31 L.Ed.2d 274 (1972), is still good law.
This may sound harsh, but should people who live off government benefits have the same voting rights as people who pay large amounts in taxes? Oh sure we're raised to think that everyone should have an equal vote. But is it really fair for part of society to vote away the property rights of other members of society? What if 51% vote to take everything away from the other 49% because they are jealous? Maybe we should reconsider who has the right to vote and deny the vote to anyone who does not pay taxes.
In San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez, 411 U.S. 1, 35 n. 78 (1973) (emphasis supplied), the Court noted that:
At note 74 (emphasis supplied), the Court said:
In his concurring opinion in San Antonio, Justice Stewart said:
411 U.S. at 59. In his footnote 2 (emphasis supplied), he wrote:
In Bush v. Gore, 531 U.S. 98, 104-05 (2000) (per curiam)(emphasis supplied), the Court majority noted:
Does anyone have an estimate for how much money it would have cost William Crawford, et al. to have set up a fund to pay the $13 for a legal photo ID for every indigent would-be voter who wanted one?
I believe beyond a reasonable doubt that the latter amount of money is minuscule compared to the former one.
From this, I think it's reasonable to infer that concern for the voting rights of the "disenfranchised" poor was not what motivated the plaintiffs. YMMV, of course.
I already did explain.
I disagree that the fact that someone has a driver's license means it is likely he or she has a vehicle; lots of poor people have a license, valid or expired, but no car.
That a main focus of the discussion has become expired licenses is ridiculous, and I will take the blame for that.
I said "a significant number of them [the poor] have no photo identification, certainly not valid photo identification, and that a lesser, but still significant number have no identification at all." You asked, "Meaning some have "invalid" photo ID?" I responded: "Actually, I was thinking of expired drivers' licenses as invalid photo ID, the invalidity arising from the fact of expiration." You replied you couldn't imagine circumstances in which people did not renew a valid license, and we then took off on a dispute engendered by my snarky remark, which I ought not to have made and for which I apologize, that you needed to get in touch with the real world, a dispute accompanied by much ado over whether and why people do not renew their licenses.
It is a fact that lots of people do not renew their licenses in timely fashion, including, by the way, otherwise perfectly respectable, law-abiding middle class people. It may be difficult for poor people to get their licenses renewed late because of the accumulation of ticket fine for nonpossession of valid license and penalty for late payment on top of the renewal fee. That may present a problem for them when it comes time to vote if they do not have the money to pay all this and get their photo id license renewed. It is my view that their neglect in timely renewal of their driver's license is not grounds for taking away the vote from them.
But the main problem is people who do not have any driver's license at all, expired or unexpired. There are plenty of them among the poor.
California DMV used to have a nondriver's id card available for a few dollars. I don't know if it still does. I vaguely remember reading that it is no longer available in the wake of 7/11 and increased security concerns, but I'm not sure of this.
Requiring people to pay to get photo id or to undertake any cumbersome or burdensome process in getting an acceptable id is, in my view, a violation of the equal protection clause's guarantee of equal treatment in the voting process.
The circumstances of the poor are simply not understood by many middle and upper class folks. They cannot imagine that the small expense of getting a photo id can be difficult.
People literally live on nothing the last week or more of every month. Those who have a little share food and a few dollars with their friends and neighbors until the first comes. I'm not talking just about recipients of welfare, unemployment and disability benefits, but about working people, too, those who subsist on the minimum wage or little more and those who scrounge around for odd jobs here and there and who find work only irregularly. Most of these people do not have cars or driver's licenses. A few dollars is a lot of money to them.
The very least the state should be required to do if this photo id requirement is upheld is to provide free photo id at the time and place of voter registration. No hassle, no trouble, no payment required.
There haven't been any voter frauds uncovered in Los Angeles County that I know of. All this talk about potential fraud is a bunch of mullarkey designed to put obstacles in the way of the poor voting and to aid the Republican Party, which has taken the mantra that every vote counts to new levels in its determination to ensure that as few Democrats vote as possible.
I hope that adequately explains my position.
I forgot to answer this, although part of my answer is that there is no voter fraud problem requiring any sort of photo id system.
When people show up to register to vote, they might be asked to swear to their place of birth and/or citizenship on a form. That's all the state should require. If the state still wants to disenfranchise them, it should bear the burden of showing why they should be disenfranchised. That's fair. There should be a right to a hearing meeting standards of due process since the fundamental right of equal treatment in the voting process is at stake. In general, once a declaration or affidavit of eligibility has been filed, the state must accept it without further ado unless it has grounds to question eligibility. There's no reason why anything more should be required to become eligible to vote.
Not sufficiently invested in society and the success of our society to need to vote,
Truth Seeker:
This may sound harsh, but should people who live off government benefits have the same voting rights as people who pay large amounts in taxes? Oh sure we're raised to think that everyone should have an equal vote. But is it really fair for part of society to vote away the property rights of other members of society?
We're getting into Starship Troopers territory here.
Voting is used to do more than vote how to use other people's tax money. Voting is used to affect *what the government can force you to do*.
College students and people who live off of government benefits may not be paying many taxes, but they can get arrested for having an abortion, put in jail for practicing gay sex, forced to use segregated drinking fountains, and all sorts of other things that were either established by government or eradicated by government, down to the smaller laws like no-smoking laws, zoning laws, and laws saying you can't buy beer on Sunday (not to mention the military draft). As such, they have enough of a stake that they should be allowed to vote.
Voting is fundamentally about a government run by the consent of the governed.
I am completely persuaded by your arguments. Keep up the good work. =)
As some of the responses to your persuasive points illustrate, it is clear that some people just don't care about the basic rights of the disadvantaged. This isn't suprising. Society has always had a decent number of completely self-centered individuals, totally devoid of character and compassion. Also known as sociopaths. Nowadays, those people tend to make up a subset of the Republican party. Fortunately, there are many other Republicans who are reasonable individuals. (EV comes to mind as an example.)
The point is, always remember that your inability to persuade a few fringe fanatics does not reflect on the strength and persuasiveness of your argument. You have made your point well.
As has been repeatedly pointed out, the absence of any ID check precludes there being any evidence of the fraud taking place; You can't see what you avoid looking for.
Free speech is a fundamental right. The BCRA decision allowed onerous restrictions on it to prevent the possiblity of the appearance of fraud.
Owning a firearm is a fundamental right. I have to undergo an FBI check to exercise it.
Nope, sorry, I'm just not impressed with how terribly burdensome it is, having to prove you're who you claim to be before voting.
Bull. All they have to do is ask for it and ask that any fee be waived, as provided in the law.
A fraudulently cast vote disenfranchises a legitimate voter to exactly the same degree that wrongly turned away voter is disenfranchised. The difference is that the second case has a name associated with it, but that doesn't make it any worse to the legitimacy of the election than an illegitmate voter voting.
Given that the law waived the fee for the ID for need, you're essentially arguing against any mechanism to validate that a voter. With your political motivations duly noted, it seems that you're the one who doesn't care about respecting the franchise if it helps your party can win.
But leaving intentions aside, is there anyone here who would deny that this is an inevitable effect of the legislation? Regardless of how much of fraud this prevents, let's be honest that, like it or not, it will surely discourage some legit voters from voting. At least some posters above are forthright about desiring this outcome (those voters are too lazy, dumb, poor, etc., for democracy).
It seems clear to me that this has little to do with concern for fraud per se, but is a proxy war over voter turnout. If the poor, largely minority demographics we are discussing here (those likely to not have govt. issued photo ids) were to start trending heavily Republican, might not the parties reverse positions on "voter ID" measures? I suspect so.
People literally live on nothing the last week or more of every month. Those who have a little share food and a few dollars with their friends and neighbors until the first comes. I'm not talking just about recipients of welfare, unemployment and disability benefits, but about working people, too, those who subsist on the minimum wage or little more and those who scrounge around for odd jobs here and there and who find work only irregularly.
Not that it matters at all to the point, but anyone who is short at the end of the month and waiting for the first to roll around is almost certainly waiting for a government check. Low-paying retail jobs (I should know; I have one right now) pay weekly or bi-weekly; odd jobs, obviously, pay on completion. The only checks I know of that arrive once a month are gov't checks, salaries, and rental income, and I can assume you're not talking about people living on the latter two.
Re voter identity: What, if anything, would you do to ensure that the person voting is the same person who registered to vote?
What happened to all the people here who say government ALWAYS messes up. Think it will get this perfectly right, or are you assuming that someone else will be disenfranchised?
IMO, those 2 pieces of evidences are completely irrelevant to deciding the matter. See here.
Back me up on this Visitor Again.
You're right! Here's an idea - instead of "Motor Voter," how about a federal law requiring states to use the same process for voter registration that they do for firearms purchases? ;)
Visitor Again: "My client had one of his names wrong, his date of birth wrong by a couple of months and his place of birth wrong, but he had his parents right and that was enough for a diligent search to pay off."
Are we supposed to be surprised or concerned that it's difficult to prove you're eligible to vote if you don't know your own name, your own date of birth, or where you were born?
OK. And some of them are in prison or stoned out of their minds on election day, "whether it is their fault or not." Should they be allowed to vote, too? Maybe, maybe not. You can take either side, I suppose. But it simply will not do to invoke "the fact" that some poor people have robbed liquor stores as the end of debate about the extent to which we should shield them from the consequences of these bad decisions.
Again: the people you describe find themselves disenfranchised by the undesireable consequences of their own poor decisions. So, the relevant question is, to what extent should the rest of us relinquish our power (through allowing fraudulent votes that offset our own) to shield these people from the consequences of their mistakes? If you care about your disorgnized friends so much, you had better "give a rat's ass" how much I and everyone else cares as well, because our level of caring about them will determine how we choose to answer this question.
As an aside: invoking deep, dark, scary Mississippi as a sort of rhetorical trump card will not work with me. ("For the love of God, some people are from Mississippi! How can you deny that there's no way they could possily have their papers in order?!") You see, I'm from Mississippi myself, and can assure you that navigating county bureaucracies is quite easy there --- as proven by your own example of the helpful clerk, a common species in the South that is on the brink of extinction in other areas of the country.
That’s interesting but what does it have to do with JunkYardLawDog’s point that there is nothing in the constitution which requires a popular vote of the general population to pick the President?
top of my head aided by the failure of a very similar law to get past the courts in Georgia.
Primarily because they can no longer drive.
Got to old, and child/doctor got judge/dmv to revoke.
New physical disability.
Driving Under the Influence.
Too many speeding points.
Cannot afford the required proof of insurance.
Moved to Atlanta, and MARTA is good enough.
And cited in Georgia lawsuits, many rural folks allowed to drive farm vehicles without a license.
My personal bias is that I don't like these laws adding an additional ban to pre-existing voters. If you are on the books, you should be able to vote by non picture ID. New registrants should have to go through the hoops to prove themselves and upon such proof, be issued a free voter ID. Particularly in Georgia where any new, renewed or change of address of a driver's license comes with an opportunity to register to vote. So that's a fee for the license to drive, but a freebie to vote. Every state except North Dakota requires pre-registration to vote, and pre-registration requires proof of id in some fashion. That's the time to give out voter ids. Grandfather everybody else.
Politically, I don't like the Indiana/Georgia law because it is openly a partisan issue. The Republicans want picture ID, the Democrats want the picture ID or notarization for absentees. Neither wants the other.
Personal note. After a hospital fire in Alexandria, Virginia I cannot get a certified birth certified. No problem since I had a military dependent's id at the time, which got me a passport and early driver's licenses. So I moved to Georgia in December 2001. Georgia wouldn't accept my then current Oklahoma driver's license. Georgia wouldn't accept my recently expired passport because it was expired. That same passport allowed me to fly 9/18/2001. My one and only option was to renew my passport. The passport office asked me why I was renewing. They then laughed and called the DMV "idiots." Now imagine the hoops if I didn't have a previous passport.
Interestingly enough, while waiting for my new passport, I registered to vote using the Oklahoma license and Georgia utility bill.
Those f*$#ing RACISTS!
;P
True? Anybody know?
And if this is true, is the same true of voting registration?
Who the hell are you to decide what is material or not? People don't want non-citizens voting. That's not racist or unreasonble in the slightest. Bring a photo ID (if you drove to the polling station, you should have one anyway). It has nothing to do with disenfranchisement, it has to do with ensuring the integrity of the vote.