Tag Archives: voter id

The story of voter ID laws and how quickly they’ve spread across the United States can be told through one state’s journey. A decade ago, Missouri was one of the first states to require voters to present an ID to vote. But things quickly backfired for voter ID proponents: The state Supreme Court ruled that the law was unconstitutional, and it was wiped from the books. A decade later, Missouri Republicans now have a chance to reinstate a voter ID law. The Republican-controlled legislature voted to put the question in the form of a constitutional amendment to voters this November, where proponents expect it to pass and a new law to go on the books as a result. If it plays out as expected, Missouri will join a totally different voter ID landscape than when it first waded into the issue a decade ago. Voter ID laws have progressed so much over the last decade that if Missouri was once a leader in the voter ID debate, today its reentry will be barely a footnote.

National: Stevens says Supreme Court decision on voter ID was correct, but maybe not right | The Washington Post

In the rapid expansion of states with voter-identification laws and the backlash of litigation that always follows, there is one constant from proponents: that the Supreme Court already has declared them constitutional. The court ruled in 2008 that Indiana’s requirement for a photo ID was legal, with none other than liberal justice John Paul Stevens writing what was described as the “lead opinion” in a fractured 6-to-3 ruling. But in the years since, Stevens — who retired from the court in 2010 — has never seemed comfortable with his role in the case. And he recently expressed doubts again about whether he had all the information he needed in reaching what he called a “fairly unfortunate decision.”

North Carolina: 4th Circuit court sets NC voter ID hearing | News & Observer

The U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals set June 21 to hear arguments in the North Carolina voting rights case. The appeal was filed by the NAACP and other organizations representing voters who challenged the extensive elections law overhaul in 2013. The new law established a voter ID requirement, curbed the number of days voters could cast ballots early, eliminated out-of-precinct voting and stopped letting people register to vote and cast a ballot on the same day.

Wisconsin: Ex-GOP staffer says senators were ‘giddy’ over voter ID law | Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

A trial over Wisconsin’s voting laws kicked off Monday with a former aide to a Republican state senator testifying that GOP senators were “giddy” over the prospect the state’s 2011 voter ID law could keep some people from voting. Todd Allbaugh, who worked at the time for then-Sen. Dale Schultz (R-Richland Center), said some senators expressed a lack of enthusiasm to take up the voter ID legislation early that year during a private meeting of Republicans. Sen. Mary Lazich (R-New Berlin) then made the case for the bill, he testified. “She got up out of her chair and hit her fist or her finger on the table and said, ‘Hey, we’ve got to think about what this would mean for the neighborhoods around Milwaukee and the college campuses,'” Allbaugh said.

Missouri: The Show-Me-Your-Voter-ID State? | The Atlantic

May 16, 2016

Missouri voters will soon be asked to vote on how they vote. Thursday evening, the Missouri State House voted to send a referendum to the ballot that will ask citizens to amend the state constitution to require voters to show photo identification in order to cast a ballot. That measure is the second half of a two-part maneuver: Legislators previously passed a bill that governs how the requirement would be implemented, but thanks to a state supreme court decision ruling against a similar law in 2006, the Show Me State has to amend its constitution in order to create the requirement. Missouri Democrats, outnumbered in both houses of the General Assembly, blasted the law but were powerless to stop it. Nor can Governor Jay Nixon, a Democrat, veto the ballot referendum—though he does get to decide when the vote will be held.

Wisconsin: Federal judge set to weigh Wisconsin voting changes | Associated Press

May 16, 2016

A federal judge is set to weigh whether a host of changes that Republican legislators have made to Wisconsin’s voting laws illegally burden minority and Democratic-leaning voters. Liberal group One Wisconsin Institute, Inc., social justice group Citizen Action of Wisconsin Education Fund and 10 voters filed the lawsuit last June. U.S. District Judge James Peterson has scheduled a bench trial to begin Monday in Madison. There will be no jury, just the judge’s final decision that he’ll likely issue weeks down the line. In the crosshairs are multiple changes that Republicans have made since 2011, including parts of Wisconsin’s voter photo identification mandate; shrinking the state’s early voting window from 30 days before an election to 12; eliminating weekend early voting; prohibiting someone from vouching for a person’s residence if he or she lacks proof of residency during registration; limiting early voting to one location per municipality and eliminating election registration deputies at high schools.

National: Voting has gotten tougher in 17 states, and it could alter elections | Los Angeles Times

Morris Reid did not expect any problems when he went to his local polling station outside Raleigh, N.C., to vote in the 2014 midterm. Yet the long-time voter, a 57-year-old Democrat, found he could not cast his ballot. A poll worker told the African American jail superintendent he was registered in another county. Reid was certain there had been a mistake – he’d instructed the Department of Motor Vehicles to update his voter registration when he moved three months before – but he drove five miles to another polling center, only to find he was not registered there either. After a third trip, he cast a provisional ballot, which ultimately did not count thanks to a new North Carolina law that eliminates out-of-precinct voting. “I couldn’t exercise my right to vote,” he said. “And that’s the way it was.”

Editorials: Prepare for voter whiplash | Renée Loth/The Boston Globe

Presidential candidates Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders have both complained that voting and delegate selection rules in the various primary states are “rigged” or “corrupt” because they favor establishment candidates who know how to play by the complex rules. The two men are right in one regard: America operates under a crazy quilt of voting requirements, with each state making its own laws for different populations and with challenges to those laws whipping back and forth through the courts. But if the primaries have frustrated the candidates, try being a voter in November. In 17 states, voters will face restrictive new requirements for the first time on Election Day. Several states will now require various forms of identification. Georgia, Alabama, Arizona, and Kansas will even require proof of citizenship. Different forms of ID will be required in different states: Some will accept a bank statement or utility bill, others want to see a passport or birth certificate. Texas, notoriously, will accept a gun license but not a college ID card. If you don’t have the proper ID, different procedures apply. Some states require prospective voters to sign an affidavit attesting to their eligibility; others hold the ballot as provisional and only count it if the voter returns to the local election office with proof of eligibility. Then there are new rules for early voting, same-day registration, and mail-in ballots. Confused yet?

Missouri: Voters will decide on voter photo ID this year in Missouri | St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Missouri House Republicans voted Thursday to put a proposed constitutional amendment on the ballot later this year requiring photo ID at the polls, but not before Democrats bashed the proposal one last time. The plan has drawn some of the most heated debate of the legislative session. Opponents say the proposed requirement is a ploy to decrease turnout among Democratic-leaning voters. Supporters say it’s needed to ensure in-person voter impersonation fraud doesn’t take place. “The sad part of this is that people in this body think it’s a joke,” said state Rep. Brandon Ellington, D-Kansas City. “They think that when we push these buttons in front of us — the red and green buttons — it has no implications.

Wisconsin: Voters awaiting photo ID would receive a receipt to vote | Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Voters who are seeking a photo ID card but not yet received it will be able to use a Division of Motor Vehicles receipt to vote in more cases, under a new rule Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker approved Wednesday just ahead of Monday’s federal trial on the state’s voting laws. The Republican governor didn’t say in his statement whether the rule change is aimed at making the law easier to defend in court. “This action ensures an individual is still able to vote while they work to obtain documentation needed for a free voter ID card,” Walker said in a statement. The DMV is changing the process used to issue receipts to residents who are seeking a photo ID to vote but can’t produce birth certificates or other documents needed to get one in time for an election.

Missouri: Will Missouri Be the Next State with a Voter ID Law? | PBS

Missouri is poised to become the latest state in the nation to move towards requiring a photo ID at the polls. On Wednesday night, the state Senate voted 24-8 to approve a measure that will effectively let voters determine whether to require voter ID at the polls. It’s expected to pass the House today. Should it do so, Republican lawmakers say they have enough votes to override a veto by Democratic Gov. Jay Nixon. Missouri lawmakers have tried to pass a voter ID law for 10 years, arguing that it is necessary to prevent voter fraud. In 2006, the state’s Supreme Court declared a previous voter ID law unconstitutional. The bill is paired with a separate measure that, if approved by voters this fall, would amend the state constitution to allow for a photo ID requirement at the polls. Missouri’s initiative comes as voters in 10 other states will face stricter ID requirements for the first time in a presidential election. In April, a federal court upheld a law in North Carolina requiring voter ID at the polls, although civil-rights groups said they will appeal the ruling. A few days later, the U.S. Supreme Court allowed a similar law in Texas to remain in place while the case is argued before a federal appeals court.

Wisconsin: Report: Voter ID caused some problems, mostly in student areas, on election day | Wisconsin State Journal

May 11, 2016

Wisconsin’s new voter ID law caused few problems for most voters, though it had “significant impact” in student-heavy areas, according to a new report. The report from the League of Women Voters of Wisconsin also found confusion among poll workers and voters about acceptable documents for same-day voter registration. “The new laws at least cause confusion, and at worst are misapplied by election officials and prevent eligible citizens from voting,” the report states. It recommends additional voter education, more poll workers to handle slow downs caused by the voter ID law and better training of elected officials.

Wisconsin: League Of Women Voters Pushes For Voter ID Education Campaign | Wisconsin Public Radio

May 10, 2016

More than 2 million Wisconsinites voted in the presidential primary election last month, but officials with the League of Women Voters of Wisconsin said the turnout could have been even greater if it weren’t for a lack of knowledge on the state’s voter ID law. Therefore, the nonpartisan organization is advising the Government Accountability Board to request for funding to educate people on Wisconsin’s new voter ID requirements. While Assembly Speaker Robin Vos recently said he wants to review the Government Accountability Board’s request for funding, another Republican state lawmaker has defended the measure and said the high turnout in the April presidential primary is verification that the law works and a voter ID education campaign is a waste of taxpayer dollars.

Editorials: The fraud of voter ID | News & Observer

May 9, 2016

A week after a federal judge upheld sweeping changes in North Carolina voting laws, The New York Times reported that studies focused on the centerpiece of the changes – the requirement of a photo ID to vote – have found that more than 1 in 10 adult Americans lack a government-issued ID and “compared with whites, the share of minorities without photo IDs is far higher.” The Times story focused on elections in Texas where a voter ID law adopted in 2013 continues in effect pending appeal despite being struck down by courts three times. The story cites the campaign of former U.S. Rep. Pete Gallego, who lost his seat by a narrow margin that may well have reflected the effects of the photo ID law. “It’s tremendously undemocratic in a democratic society when you deliberately disenfranchise thousands of people,” he said. “Turnout is good for the system.”

Texas: Voter ID lawsuit abruptly withdrawn in state court | Austin American-Statesman

May 9, 2016

A lawsuit challenging Texas’ voter ID law, filed by a judge on the state’s highest criminal court, was abruptly withdrawn Wednesday, only one day after a Dallas appeals court heard oral arguments on whether the lawsuit should be allowed to continue. Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Judge Larry Meyers, the only Democrat in statewide office after switching parties in 2013, was seeking to have the voter ID law thrown out, arguing that it exceeded the power granted to the Legislature by the Texas Constitution.

Missouri: Voter ID requirement gets final go-ahead in the Missouri Legislature | St. Louis Post-Dispatch

May 6, 2016

A measure laying out photo ID requirements at the ballot box won final passage in the Missouri Legislature on Wednesday. The bill still needs either Gov. Jay Nixon’s signature or, if he vetoes the bill, a successful veto override in the Legislature. It would take effect only if voters approve to a change to the state constitution. A separate resolution putting the proposed constitutional change on the ballot this year is awaiting approval in the Senate. Both pieces of legislation advanced out of the House early in the legislative session, but they had been stalled in the Senate until this week.

Editorials: Voter ID laws are reaction to nonexistent problem | Greg Williams/The Tennessean

May 6, 2016

The usual “voter identification law” proponents merely cherry-pick others’ empirical data that specifically lend credibility to their arguments, and often they reject even the proper context. For years, Hans von Spakovsky (a former federal election commissioner and U.S. Justice Department official, currently a Heritage Foundation senior legal fellow) has juxtaposed the Pew Center’s numbers with a 2000 Atlanta Journal-Constitution investigation of Georgia voting records. That newspaper reported initially having exposed 5,400 instances of the deceased being recorded as having voted. Von Spakovsky has used this source repeatedly to support his argument and has proffered that this article’s findings are “substantial to me.” Consistent with von Spakovsky’s routine, Jane Mayer, a New Yorker investigative journalist, noted he did not mention in their interview that the article’s findings were revised. Mayer’s investigation found that the Journal-Constitution ran a follow-up article after Georgia’s secretary of state’s office indicated the vast majority of those cases appeared to reflect clerical errors. The newspaper admitted that even its lone specific example of a deceased voter casting a ballot did not prevail. A living voter’s ballot was credited to a dead man whose name was almost identical.

Texas: Got ID?: A Texas law could disenfranchise 600,000 voters | The Economist

May 6, 2016

Fig leaves are often draped over controversial laws coming out of the Republican-dominated legislature in Texas. But when a judge takes a closer look, the reality of the legislation tends to be laid bare fairly quickly. In March, Texas’s solicitor general struggled, during a hearing at the Supreme Court, to explain how onerous regulations that have closed three-quarters of the state’s abortion clinics are actually a boon to women’s reproductive health. And despite repeated losses in federal courts, the Lone Star state’s attorney general, Ken Paxton, stands resolutely by a 2011 voter-identification law that could keep 600,000 minority and young Texans away from the polls in November. The law, Mr Paxton says, is necessary to protect the integrity of elections. On May 2nd, the Supreme Court signalled it may step in to evaluate that counterintuitive proposition if a lower court does not resolve the matter by July 20th.

Missouri: Photo voter ID law passes General Assembly | The Missouri Times

May 5, 2016

By a 112-38 vote, the House truly agreed to and finally passed HB 1631, which would provide the framework to implement photo voter ID. The Senate amended the legislation earlier this week as part of a compromise to allow it to come to a vote after several attempts to pass the legislation were filibustered. The compromise allows voters who do not have photo voter ID to sign an affidavit saying that they do not possess an ID as required by the law. They would then be able to vote using a regular ballot. If they do not sign the affidavit, they would cast a provisional ballot. “What this bill is, is actually the most generous photo voter id bill that this country has seen, especially the way this bill has been amended by the Senate,” said Rep. Shamed Dogan, R-Ballwin. “We are helping people who are marginalized, people who are not able to do things right now, by giving them a free ID.”

National: Voter ID Laws May Have Actually Increased The Likelihood Of Voter Fraud—By Hackers | Fast Company

Over the past 16 years, only 10 cases of voter impersonation—out of 146 million registered voters—have ever been identified. And yet each election, a vocal political contingent made up primarily of Republicans complains about an alleged epidemic of voter fraud and impersonation. To combat it, they propose—and in many cases successfully pass—laws requiring voters to provide verification of their identity with an ID card, along with verbal confirmation of various pieces of personal data, before they are permitted to vote. As election officials become more reliant on electronic databases, the potential for hackers to commit voter manipulation and election fraud has gone way up. But it’s these very voter ID laws that are partly to blame, despite legislators’ claims that they would make elections safer, according to Joseph Kiniry, CEO of Free and Fair, a provider of secure election services and systems. “The best thing [hackers] could do is to screw up that data prior to the election,” says Kiniry.

National: 15 States Wielding New or Stricter Voter ID Laws in Run-Up to Presidential Election | AllGov

In a state where everything is big, the 23rd Congressional District that hugs the border with Mexico is a monster: 8 1/2 hours by car across a stretch of land bigger than any state east of the Mississippi. In 2014, Rep. Pete Gallego logged more than 70,000 miles there in his white Chevy Tahoe, campaigning for re-election to the House — and lost by a bare 2,422 votes. So in his bid this year to retake the seat, Gallego, a Democrat, has made a crucial adjustment to his strategy. “We’re asking people if they have a driver’s license,” he said. “We’re having those basic conversations about IDs at the front end, right at our first meeting with voters.” Since their inception a decade ago, voter identification laws have been the focus of fierce political and social debate. Proponents, largely Republican, argue that the regulations are essential tools to combat election fraud, while critics contend that they are mainly intended to suppress turnout of Democratic-leaning constituencies like minorities and students.

Missouri: Voter ID law wins Missouri Senate approval | The Kansas City Star

Missouri Republicans have been trying to enact a voter ID law for more than a decade. Tuesday they overcame a major hurdle, striking a deal with Senate Democrats that ended a filibuster and paved the way for voters to decide whether to amend Missouri’s constitution to allow the state to require a photo ID before casting a ballot. The Missouri Senate voted 24-8 to approve voter ID legislation. A second voter ID bill amending the state’s constitution is expected to be approved later this week. “For 10 years we’ve gotten nothing,” said Sen. Will Kraus, a Lee’s Summit Republican who has sponsored the voter ID bills for several years. “This is an historic step forward.” The voter ID issue has threatened to derail the legislative session for months. Democrats had vowed to block the measure, which they argued could disenfranchise thousands of Missouri voters. Until this week, they had made good on that promise.

Missouri: Despite deal, lawmakers predict voter ID fight to keep going | Associated Press

Missouri lawmakers from both parties see the voter ID issue as far from settled, even as the Republican-controlled Legislature is poised to tighten the state’s requirements after Democrats managed to stall a pair of proposals for about a month. Senate Republicans passed a bill on a 24-8 party-line vote Tuesday that would require voters to show photo identification at the polls. A constitutional amendment that would allow that measure to be enacted is still awaiting a vote. Both proposals would go into effect only with voter approval. Missouri Republicans have sought to establish a photo ID requirement to vote for a decade. The state Supreme Court struck down one measure in 2006, saying the cost to obtain the identification was an unconstitutional burden on voters. So this year, Republicans proposed that the state would pay for voters’ IDs. They also proposed changing the state constitution to allow lawmakers to set photo ID requirements for voting.

National: What’s the Goal of Voter-ID Laws? | The Atlantic

As states around the country enact or consider voter-ID laws, the battle formations are well-rehearsed. Conservatives who back the laws say that there’s a danger of fraudulent votes, which pollute the democratic process at best and swing elections at worst. Liberals who oppose them counter that there’s next to no evidence of actual voting fraud; that voter-ID laws wouldn’t stop that fraud anyway; and that the laws are actually intended to depress voter-turnout among the populations that are least likely to hold state-issued photo ID—students, the poor, minorities, and the elderly who are most likely to vote Democratic—and improve conservative prospects in elections, despite demographic changes that favor liberal candidates. The pro-voter-ID side has two big problems. First, they’ve been unable to produce proof of the widespread voter fraud they believe exists. Second, people who agree with them—and in some cases the proponents themselves—keep slipping up and saying the point is to help conservative candidates. Last week, Jim DeMint, the president of the Heritage Foundation and former senator from South Carolina, spoke on St. Louis-area talk radio. Legislators in Missouri are trying to place a constitutional amendment on the ballot that would mandate that voters show voter ID. (I explained why they’re using that path last week.) Host Jamie Allman asked DeMint about Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe’s move to re-enfranchise former felons.

Alabama: Merrill can’t come up with proof of fraud in documentary on voter ID law | AL.com

In a newly released short documentary on Alabama’s controversial voter ID law, Secretary of State John Merrill could not provide documented proof of voter fraud while explaining the rationale for the provision. “In Alabama, we want to make it real easy to vote and real hard to cheat,” Merrill says in the 11-minute documentary produced by First Look Media, titled “The Black Belt.” “People who have come into our state and said that Alabama’s a backward state and this is a racial issue on closing the DMVs — that’s certainly not the case at all.” Gov. Robert Bentley’s decision to close 31 driver’s licenses offices last year, which opponents said disproportionately affected minorities, the disabled and the poor, was made as the state faced a budget crunch. Driver’s licenses are the most commonly used form of identification used at polling places, and only an accepted photo ID can be used to cast a ballot in Alabama. Democratic presidential frontrunner Hillary Clinton weighed in on the controversy during a visit to Hoover in October, calling the closures “a blast from the Jim Crow past.”

Missouri: Agreement reached in Missouri Senate over contentious voter ID proposal | St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Missouri Senate Democrats and Republicans have reached an agreement over a proposal that would require voters to show ID at the ballot box. Under a version of the legislation adopted Monday, if voters don’t present a photo ID, they would sign a statement under penalty of perjury attesting that they are who they say they are. The voter would then have to present some form of ID, such as a university-issued ID or a utility bill. “The bill is requirement of photo ID, and the statement is a way for them to be able to cast a normal ballot,” said state Sen. Will Kraus, R-Lee’s Summit. “But we want to make sure that they know it’s the law of the land that they have to get an ID.”

Texas: Analysis: A Texas Judge Takes Voter ID to Court | The Texas Tribune

The only Democrat in elected statewide office in Texas is suing to upend the state’s photo voter ID law, saying it’s an unconstitutional obstacle to a legal activity: voting. The rogue in question is Larry Meyers, who was elected to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals as a Republican in 1992 and re-elected in 1998, 2004 and 2010. At the end of 2013, he changed parties, irritated with the direction of his party and wanting to make a statement on his way out of office — if that’s where the switch takes him. Meyers says he left the Republican Party “after the Tea Party takeover” and says the infighting within the GOP has only confirmed his decision. He refers to his former political home as “the Donner Party,” after an infamous case of cannibalism among settlers in the 1840s. “They’re eating each other up,” he says.

Wisconsin: Democrats urge Justice Department to challenge voter ID law | Milwaukee Journal Sentinel