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Voter photo ID sounds like a fantastic idea, but it’s not
Steven Robert Allen
I used to think everyone should have to show photo ID to vote, but I now realize such proposals are basically 21st-Century descendants of poll taxes or literacy tests. They’re designed to prevent qualified voters from the most vulnerable segments of our society from voting.
Many people believe it’s a no-brainer that voters should be required to show a photo ID at the polls. They think any decent, law-abiding member of society carries a photo ID with them wherever they go. I carry one with me. I’m sure you do, too. Why shouldn’t everyone else do as we do?
To be honest, before I got involved in voting-rights work, I felt the same way, but I’ve since drastically changed my view. I now realize such proposals are basically 21st-Century descendants of poll taxes or literacy tests, concepts that I’m sure sounded perfectly reasonable in their time. We now realize these obstacles to voting were implemented purely to prevent qualified voters from the most vulnerable segments of our society from casting a ballot.
The truth is that there are many elders – maybe even your own grandparents – who no longer own a photo ID. They don’t drive anymore, so they don’t have a driver’s license. They don’t travel anymore, so they don’t have a passport. Why should these seniors, those who have contributed the most to our society, be denied the right to cast a ballot? How does denying them that right increase the integrity of our elections?
Another point is that any remotely realistic voter photo ID requirement must somehow include absentee voters. This means we would also be making our soldiers fighting overseas jump through additional bureaucratic hurdles to cast a ballot. Do I even need to point out the irony here?
Largely false claims of election-related crimes
Taking a look at the politics of these proposals is likewise important. Lobbying efforts to pass voter photo ID laws and other measures designed to suppress voting most typically crop up in swing states like New Mexico. In our state, we have a disturbing recent history regarding unsubstantiated claims of election-related crimes that are directly attached to efforts to make voting more difficult for qualified voters. Time after time those claims have turned out to largely be false.
In March of this year, while I was seated in the room, New Mexico Secretary of State Dianna Duran told a legislative committee that she had evidence of 37 undocumented immigrants casting ballots in New Mexico elections. She made this statement while testifying in favor of a voter photo ID bill. This allegation certainly sounded shocking. She got national media coverage for the claim. My organization immediately urged her to forward her evidence to law enforcement.
We should have known better. The whole thing has since turned out to be a ruse. For months, Heath Haussamen, the owner of this website, has been asking the Secretary of State’s office to provide relevant documentation to back up these claims. In response? Layer after layer of obfuscation.
After failing to provide evidence for her statement, Duran forwarded 64,000 voter files to the Department of Public Safety for review. When this, predictably, led nowhere, she distributed a report to lawmakers filled with political attacks on county election officials and groups engaged in voter registration drives.
Grab a trowel, scrape off all the bluster, and you still won’t find any documentation to back up her fear-mongering about New Mexico elections. At this point, I think the reason why Heath and others aren’t getting the evidence they’re requesting couldn’t be more obvious.
It simply doesn’t exist.
Catching on to creative acts of deception
This example is just one of a dozen in recent years from New Mexico. Creative acts of deception have often been used to push voter photo ID measures that will have the effect of preventing many qualified seniors and U.S. soldiers as well as Native American, Hispanic, low-income, disabled and new voters from casting a ballot.
Luckily, the media finally seems to be catching on to these dishonest political tactics. I suppose they have had egg on their faces one too many times. They’ve started to note that our existing voter identification procedure in New Mexico has been quite adequate to ensure that people coming into the polls to cast a ballot are who they say they are. Pushing to go beyond that existing procedure is simply a way to rig the election in close races by denying qualified New Mexicans the right to vote.
Here’s hoping that 2012 will bring greater public awareness about how the voting process actually works in New Mexico. There are lots of things we can do to improve elections in our state, but policy decisions need to be based on facts, not on the creative advertising campaigns of partisan ax grinders.
Allen is the executive director of Common Cause New Mexico, but he will be leaving this position in January for a new job at the ACLU of New Mexico. If you’re interested in applying for his current position, you can find more information here.
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@stephan helgesen
So Voters have the burden of proof, but not everyone else?
I too resent the idea of a National ID, but not as much as I resent making it harder to vote, which is what I think is behind Voter ID. I take you at your word. It’s a logical opinion, if you are a trusting person, to despise the concept of a National ID. Having grown up in the South at the tail end of Jim Crow, I’m not so trusting.
As to our privacy, try doing any kind of electronic business or even personal business with Corporate America and you will find out how much privacy we have.
So, I’ll strike a deal with the Devil (that Devil being those who really want to suppress the vote). I’ll take Voter ID in exchange for a National ID which would then be required in work place. Somehow, I don’t think my Republican friends really want to verify that workers are citizens or otherwise permitted workers, so I doubt they’ll take that bargain.
Peace, Michael J. Flynn
Mick,
The whole area of immigration is a murky one, but if the U.S. is going to allow illegal immigrants the right to stay and work here (either temporarily or permanently) then I would support mandating an ID card for them with cutting edge biometrics and non-forgeable holograms. As far as national ID cards goes, I’m not for it at this point. I think most Americans like some semblance of anonymity and think a national ID would be the next logical step to a loss of that anonymity. With the kind of technology we have for surveilling people and recording their movements and purchases, etc. I think what it comes down to is trust and I’m afraid to say it out loud but I think most Americans don’t trust their government to resist the impulse to monitor them.
@stephan…sorry I mistyped your name. I’m not skilled on this touch screen.
@stepen h
Why would you insist that citizens have Voter ID, but not a National ID? I’m willing to have one if we have both. Please comment on why genuine citizens who have the right to vote will have to suffer this insult, while undocumented workers would get a pass along with the employers who exploit us all?
A very thoughtfully -written piece, but voter registration and proof thereof is a critical aspect of the process. We should not fear a voter ID but embrace it if we are to rid ourselves of voter fraud. I have lived in six countries and each one had a national ID card which doubled as a voter ID card. Though I do not advocate a national ID card for Americans, a voter ID card is the least we can do to safeguard our constitutional right of casting our ballots for the candidates of our choice and I would hope that we can get it done in the very near future. I am sure we can find a mechanism for getting those who might have a hard time getting to a government offices to register.
Why go to so much heavy lifting. The Indiana voter ID plan has already been scrubbed by the U. S. Supreme Court and Justice John Paul Stephens..a liberal member of the court wrote the opinion. Just copy that. The vote was 6-3. Take a look. Not that hard folks. Now, no system is perfect but at least we would have something that has been through the legal review. I know the more progressive members of the board would wail away at such a suggestion but why? I suggest you come up with something more balanced. If not I would think we could be in for some additional changes in the NM House come next November. I believe what I learned during the last election is that politics is local, and local voters want to make darn sure their votes are counted, and that elections are fair. Now we can opt for a no voter ID system and then have more poll watchers than voters at lots of sites. The law of unintended consequences. Or we can improve on what we have and make the process more efficient.
Apparently it is the short and stabbing comments (as opposed to some of the diatribes here) that make an impression.
IP: If Karla Johnson’s comments were satirical, then mine must be tongue in cheek.
Get over yourself.
There are a lot of comments here about how to achieve voter ID, but the first basic question is “who pays?” It shouldn’t be the prospective voter. The second basic question is “how accessible and convenient is it to get registered with the proper ID?” I think you need booths in every grocery store in the country to achieve that.
Ms. Johnson, rather… seriously, that’s happening to me a lot today.
Er, Mr. Best? I’m fairly certain Ms. Jonson is a Republican, and I can guarantee that she was being satirical; as ever, we thank you for the amusement that we are all provided with by your complete lack of an attention-span.
Let’s call the Republicans on their bluff. Let’s go for the Voter ID, and how about we make that a National ID with biometric proof.
Let’s quit subsidizing crony capitalism by building physical and virtual fences in the desert when we all know that Work Place Verification would be a better countermeasure. If we are going to subject voters to an ID system, let’s subject everyone. My wife is an educator; I’ve worked as a defense contractor. We both have had to give our finger prints and our life stories when we verified ourselves for employment. I even had to show my passport or birth certificate. The benefits people required I show a marriage certificate if I wanted to include my wife, birth certificates for kids.
Yes, I hate the idea of a National ID. But it’s come to that.
Having said that, let’s see if the Republicans are honest about what they want. If were are going with Voter ID, I want a National ID with biometric verification. Failure to have one in the work place would result in a fine for both the Worker and the Employer unless the ID could be produced in a timely manner.
Of course this would be expensive, but it probably wouldn’t cost as much as we’ve spent on border security and I think it would be much more effective.
The same ID would be required to purchase beer, to cash a check, to enroll in school…why just harass Voters?
To safeguard Voters’ Rights, we could still maintain the Provisional Ballots. Let anyone cast there ballot without dispute, and then give that voter and their legal support reasonable time to produce their iD.
Peace.
Michael J. Flynn
Regardless of how it is done, can we agree that society needs to know the true identity of those who vote?
If so, then we are just discussing the procedures for assuring ourselves of the identity of those who vote. In banking that assurance takes the form of a photo ID. Perhaps it does not in voting.
Could we have everyone scan their thumb print for an absolute identity of the voter, not as a criterion to vote but as an ex post facto record of who really voted?
Or, should we just let whoever comes to the polls say whatever name they want to say and be glad someone, anyone in this society, votes?
I think I tend to agree with this blog. No one should have to show an ID for anything. It’s just not American,
Then what would stop anyone from running up credit in the name of KarlaJohnson or any other type of identity theft? Maybe I will just go register to vote in your name as a Republican??
I think I tend to agree with this blog. No one should have to show an ID for anything. It’s just not American, I mean, certainly not multi-cultural. Secretary of State Duran is obviously some kind of reactionary. I mean the very idea of doing all these checks and stuff, where does she think we are? The Soviet Union? We need to have same-day voter registration, no ID, and stop harassing immigrants. She is the lawbreaker for thinking differently on these issues. How many thousands of people has she already intimidated into stopping from voting? Who knows? And for what? A few illegal immigrants registered to vote? I agree with this blog more and more. Monahan is also on the right track. Duran and Martinez are killing our state.
Here we have Mr Allen leaving Common Cause for a position at the ACLU.
Am I surprised at his opinions on this subject?
Hardly
I am afraid that edit buttons would not help me much on those 3am punchy comments to this blog lol.
“Manna from heaven” That Colbert link is the manna from heaven. Thanks Hemmingway for that.
AMEN TO THE “EDIT” BUTTONS….
HEATH, PLEASE….
Sorry; in my first paragraph, the clause should have read, “while we have given poll watchers from both parties the same rights to police the polls…”
I yearn for “edit” buttons…
This is one of those situations where Dr. J and I are in agreement; while giving poll watchers from both parties the same rights to police the polls, non-partisan oversight would be far more effective and sensible; unfortunately, implementation might be a problem, though not an insurmountable one.
Mr. Foley:
What is your source for ACORN only turning in Democratic registration forms? Coming from a member of a party that had several registration agents claiming to be working for them kicked off the University of New Mexico campus several years ago for offering to pay students to register Republican, this seems like a serious charge indeed. As for, “people turning themselves in and saying we have been voting when we shouldn’t have,” it’s actually exactly one person who has actually done that, and unlike every other aspect of the Secretary of State’s investigation, she hasn’t actually bothered to release any evidence. How are GOP attempts at disenfranchisement of legitimate voters the same as “open and accesable [sic] elections”? As has been pointed out before, anyone who honestly believe that the Democratic Party is attempting to steal elections by sending illegitimate voters to the polls has a remarkably high-opinion of the persuasive talents of Democrats. We have enough trouble getting legitimate voters to show up and vote; what makes you think we can turn an election with immigrants – a theory which the Republican Party of New Mexico has been espousing for a decade-and-a-half and has yet to prove even once? It is far easier to turn the results of an election by minimizing access for legitimate voters than it is to create it for illegitimate ones.
First let me say I enjoy my discussions with Mr. Allen he is a very worthy opponent, but he is just that an opponent. He tries to write this piece from the perspective that he has received some “Manna from heaven” when the reality is he is laying the ground work to start attacking those of us who believe in a safe and secure voting system.
I can go on for hours pointing out the flaws in his logic but there is no need to do that, he has no desire to recognize the facts in this discussion. From ACORN turning in only Democrat registration forms to people turning themselves in and saying we have been voting when we shouldn’t have clearly has zero impact in Mr. Allen or those who oppose clean, open and accessiable elections. We know there are examples of voter fraud al over the United States and even right here in NM but those facts mean nothing to those who continue to argue against clean, open and accesable elections? In the end making sure that every legitimate vote is counted and every illegitimate vote is prevented should be priority number one and only those who have somehting to gain by fradulant votes seem to oppose this notion. Presenting this as some move to take us back to Democrat racist policies of the past is wrong and in my opinion a form of revisionist history.
No, voter ID doesn’t even sound like a good idea. A good idea is to allow non-partisan poll watchers and enforcers to police the corruption at the polling places.
Voter fraud has been constant Republican hysteria from 2002 to the present even though it is non-existent. . Here is the laughable Colbert Report on Voter ID’s and voter fraud:
http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/392598/july-20-2011/voter-id-laws
Republicans are a real hoot regarding Voter ID’s. However, there is a serious problem when people are denied the right to vote!
Democracy is the delusion that most of the people are right most of the time.
Thanks, Mr. Allen. When we moved to Las Cruces in 1993, the County Republican Party was squawking about voter fraud. And no fraud was uncovered. It’s a perennial tactic with them and the State GOP, I’ve found as the years passed. Election Boards have more problems with citizens who move and don’t notify the Board than they do with fraudulent voters.