Voter Fraud is Rare: So Why Require Voter ID?

If you want an example of the maddening illogic behind the drive in different states to require voters to show photo identification at the polls, consider the remarks of Debra Blanton, the Elections Director for Cleveland County in North Carolina. That county is home to the two state legislators, Tim Moore and Kelly Hastings, who are co-sponsoring an election "reform" bill that includes a voter ID provision and may well be passed by the North Carolina legislature.

Asked about the bill by a local paper, Blanton said that voting irregularities in Cleveland County are rare and impersonation at the polls almost never happens. There was once a case where a dog was registered to vote under its owner's name, Blanton said -- a case that made national news -- but no votes were ever cast in the dog's name.

The scant evidence of voter fraud in Cleveland County is consistent with broader national evidence that such fraud is extremely uncommon, particularly the problem of people voting under false identities. As with the dog registration, most high-profile accusations of fraud turn out to be unfounded, as Barnard professor -- and Demos Senior Fellow -- Lori Minnite documents in her recent book, The Myth of Voter Fraud.

Nevertheless, Blanton thinks the voter ID provision is a good idea: “So many other places you go, you have to show ID. Why would voting not be another one of those places? People are just used to that.”

Really?

In fact, as an election official like Debra Blanton should well know, some people don't have photo identification. These include young people -- one in five young people don't have a driver's license -- and  seniors who don't drive any longer or urban residents who don't have cars. And guess what: many of these people are non-white. Indeed, a full quarter of African-Americans and 15 percent of low-income people don't have photo identification.

Given these numbers, you don't need to be mathematician to figure out that when states demand ID at the polls, it reduces electoral participation among certain groups. A 2007 study on voter ID requirements by scholars at Brown University, for example, found that:

voter I.D. policies reduced Asians’ registration and diminished voter turnout by blacks and Hispanics, by about 14 percent and 20 percent respectively. The net reduction in minority voting in these states in 2004 was more than 400,000 votes. The suppressive effect of voter I.D. disproportionately affected not only minorities, but also persons with less than a high school education and less than $15,000 income, tenants, and recent movers. While persons with these characteristics are substantially less likely to participate in civic affairs regardless of their state of residence, they experience an additional significant reduction in participation relative to others in voter I.D. states.

One of the study's co-authors, John Logan, commented on the findings that: “It is incredibly clear how voter I.D. requirements disproportionately affect and suppress minorities. This data shows that if voter ID policies had NOT been in place in 2004, voter turnout would have increased by more than 1.6 million."

Another 2007 study on voter ID requirements by three political scientists -- Matt Barreto, Stephen Nuño, and Gabriel Sanchez -- found that "voting laws which require specific or multiple forms of identification will disproportionately impact racial and ethnic minorities, immigrant populations, and those with lower incomes." And more specifically, "voter identification laws could immediately disenfranchise many Latino, Asian and African American citizens."

That second study also found that voter ID laws had clear partisan effects:

We find compelling evidence that those less likely to have access to multiple forms of identification are disproportionately Democrat. . . . voters with more access to identification are more likely to vote Republican. . . .

Just maybe this explains why the proponents of voter ID laws are nearly always Republicans.

The authors found further that voter ID requirements tend to be pushed most aggressively in states where presidential elections are super competitive. In turn, that would help explain why voter ID laws are now on the fast track in the recurrent battleground state of Ohio -- which Obama won by only 5 points -- and in North Carolina, which Obama won by the stunningly close margin of 14,177 votes. If enacted, new voter ID laws could help tip these state back into the GOP column and perhaps decide the outcome of the 2012 election.

But back to Debra Blanton: How could an election official in a county with nearly 100,000 residents, including many low-income people from historically marginalized communities, not know the elementary fact that a voter ID law would mean lower voter participation among groups in her county that already have low rates of turnout? And why should she support such a law when she herself says that voter fraud is extremely rare?

Good questions. And here's another one: Does Debra Blanton understand that it is actually her job to help more people to vote?

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[james]

If you want an example of the maddening illogic behind the drive in different states to require voters to show photo identification at the polls, consider the remarks of Debra Blanton, the Elections Director for Cleveland County in North Carolina.-buy replica Fendi Sandals