Justice Department letter to Texas objecting to voter ID law
 

What are your thoughts on this? Is it discriminatory against minorities? Do you think its on point or is it a frivolous debate that will go away?
Just for myself, when I have gone to vote in years past, I have always carried my voters card and simply because I had it on my person anyways, my drivers license, thus I had no issues going to the polls. But what about those who have no ID?

Does this law become problematic because it singles out those who can't properly ID themselves at the voting booth and therefore could bring up the real possibility that they are not in this country legally?


Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012...#ixzz1pBfIjm5s

The Obama administration has once more gone too far in its "overreach," Texas Gov. Rick Perry said Monday, after the Justice Department objected to the state's new voter photo ID law, saying Texas failed to demonstrate that the law is not discriminatory by design against Hispanic voters.

"Texas has a responsibility to ensure elections are fair, beyond reproach and accurately reflect the will of voters. The DOJ has no valid reason for rejecting this important law, which requires nothing more extensive than the type of photo identification necessary to receive a library card or board an airplane. Their denial is yet another example of the Obama administration's continuing and pervasive federal overreach," Perry said.

On Monday, the Justice Dpartment's head of the civil rights division, Tom Perez, sent a a six-page letter to Texas' director of elections saying that Texas has not "sustained its burden" under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act to show that the new law will not have a discriminatory effect on minority voters. About 11 percent of Hispanic voters reportedly lack state-issued identification.

Perez wrote that while the state says the new photo ID requirement is to "ensure electoral integrity and deter ineligible voters from voting" the state "did not include evidence of significant in-person voter impersonation not already addressed by the state's existing laws."

Perez added that the number of people lacking any personal ID or driver's license issued by
the state ranges from 603,892 to 795,955, but of that span, 29-38 percent of them are Hispanic.

"According to the state's own data, a Hispanic registered voter is at least 46.5 percent, and potentially 120.0 percent, more likely than a non-Hispanic registered voter to lack this identification," Perez wrote.

"Even using the data most favorable to the state ... that disparity is statistically significant," he said.

But the two data sets, compiled in September 2011 and January 2012 were not an apples-to-apples comparison, said Texas' secretary of state, who noted the department was warned that the two data sets it used to lodge its objection were inconsistent.

"The data they demanded came from matching two separate data sets never designed to be matched, and their agency was warned that matches from these data sets would be misleading," Texas Secretary of State Hope Andrade said in a statement.

Andrade said that as a result of the objection, which she called "extremely disappointing," existing law will apply in the May 29 primary election.

"My office will continue working with the Texas Attorney General's Office in seeking to implement the will of the citizens of Texas, as enacted by our duly elected representatives in the Texas Legislature," Andrade said.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith, a Texas Republican, said in a separate statement the Texas law was based on an Indiana law upheld by the Supreme Court. He also questioned what the real objection is to requiring photo ID.

I honestly think that it may be an unintended consequence of requiring someone to show valid ID... but what gets me is that it is a legal requirement to show ID and to be registered to vote to actually go and vote. Same as it is technically a legal requirement to have your driver's license on you when you're operating a motor vehicle. So unless they change that law, they can't pick and choose what jurisdictions actually enforce the law.

An interesting thread where we tackled some issues:

http://www.greekchat.com/gcforums/sh...ighlight=voter

...or buy cigarettes, purchase liquor...and so on.

:D

But on a more serious note this law is almost like a poll tax in which people much 'purchase' an ID in order to vote.

I thought the comparison to boarding an airplane or getting a library card was dumb.

I don't understand what the big deal is here. In Oklahoma, your voter registration card works in lieu of a photo ID. If you don't have one of those, you never registered to vote or you lost it. Either way, your bad.

As far as Texas goes, $16 to get a state ID card, even if you don't drive or $5 if you're >60 is no big deal. You should have an ID anyhow for a variety of reasons.

I believe I discussed this in the thread that Doc referenced but:

Michigan has a similar law. If you don't have a picture ID with you when you go to vote, you have to sign an attestation that you are really you. The glitch though, is that you have to show photo ID the first time you vote after you register for the first time. Your other option is that you must register to vote at the city clerk's office, not through other means that are available because other means don't allow you to show photo ID to someone for verification.

What's the big deal? I thought that, until we realized, hypoallergenic can't register to vote unless she goes to the City Clerk's office because her first voting experience has to be by absentee ballot, and you can't show photo ID when you are voting absentee. This seems to be the biggest problem for new voters who are often away at college the first time they vote. I'm glad I came across that rule before she registered to vote using another method though.

It's still effectively a poll tax - it's not so much that the amount itself is overly burdensome, but it does create awkward precedent.

Unrelated to your point, but more for the folks upstream ... comparing voting to driving or buying liquor is somewhere between silly and insane.

Okay, then what about comparing it to the rule now where people must show ID to take the SAT or ACT (which, incidentally, I thought was already a requirement). It is to cut down on fraud and to make the results more reliable. Which should be the reasons for requiring ID to vote.

That's a tenuous argument. I'm not sure there's law going strongly either way. The fee isn't to vote, it's a negligible fee in Texas (not more than $25.00) to get a state-issued ID.

Even if they can't get that, they can still present any of the following:

a driver's license or personal identification card issued to the person by the Department of Public Safety or a similar document issued to the person by an agency of another state, regardless of whether the license or card has expired;

a form of identification containing the person's photograph that establishes the person's identity;

a birth certificate or other document confirming birth that is admissible in a court of law and establishes the person's identity;
United States citizenship papers issued to the person;

a United States passport issued to the person;
official mail addressed to the person by name from a governmental entity;

a copy of a current utility bill, bank statement, government check, paycheck, or other government document that shows the name and address of the voter; or

any other form of identification prescribed by the Secretary of State.

So no, there is not necessarily going to be a fee associated with voting. I'm not sure if it's already been mentioned before in this thread, but Crawford v. Marion County Election Board, 553 U.S. 181 (2008) dealt with this issue and is on-point since voting in Texas is possible by just presenting a utility bill or a government issued check or various other forms of free ID.

Justice Stevens wrote:

So no, it's not a "poll tax" and it's perfectly permissible. The outrage at this issue is just phony. I can't see any rational reason to be upset about this unless you believe your party will be materially disadvantaged by not being able to commit as much voter fraud.

I don't think it's tenuous to at least nod toward the connection, say:

Fee for ID -> ID needed to vote = Fee needed to vote.

There are obviously other considerations, such as:

These neatly sidestep the connection with fees, assuming the documents still exist and are in the person's possession, so there's that. Should "hang onto your shit" be a requirement for voting? I guess I'm not in a position to really say, since it doesn't affect me at all, but I don't really understand this push toward making voting more exclusive, particularly since evidence of voter fraud is mostly anecdotal.

Every time I've voted (granted, only across two states), pretty strict steps have been taken to ensure only one vote per registered voter. So that means any potential fraud happens either in the registration process (this requirement does nothing to stop that), or in somebody claiming to be somebody they are not. It is 100% questionable whether these types of laws do ANYTHING to stop the latter - so why impose further burdens on (legitimate) voters?

Anything that sidesteps the need for fees almost invariably allows potential fraud just as easily as the current system.

Since Indiana's IDs were free (per the decision), I don't think this is comparable or really even relevant, given the tighter focus above.

Pardon the super-douchey "quoting myself" bit ...

To explain a little further: if our claim is that there is no connection between ID fees and voting because you can provide non-ID documentation (that is free), then you've also just:

-Allowed somebody to steal a utility bill and use that to vote in the place of another.
-Created a cottage industry for anything reasonably resembling a birth certificate (I have two copies of mine, and one is so worn that there is no longer any sort of embossing/notarization).
-Check stubs? Anybody with a laptop and perforated paper can go to town.

So what on Earth does this sort of law actually DO? What is the purpose, other than weeding out lazy voters?

Are people really ready to argue that those who commit voter fraud are somehow even more lazy, and thus will be turned away in even bigger numbers? That seems insane on its face...

I am. It's one thing to get a voter registration card with the name of Donald Duck on it and be able to cast your ballot no questions asked, but if "Don Duck" has to somehow obtain a photo ID to match his registration card it may provide quite a deterrence to voter fraud. It's common sense man, if you make fraudulent voting harder to do less people will do it.

You also make LEGIT voting harder, and thus less people will do it - and if the effect on legitimate voting is greater than the effect on fraudulent voting, you could very easily see a net increase in the effect of the fraudulent votes.

Especially if you have to do things like allow paper documents, as is apparently the case in the Texas law above.

"Common sense" is still subject to math.

ETA: Also this "may provide" stuff is exactly the problem (and why I agree w/ MC below).

But the government doesn't administer the SAT or the ACT, so it's not the government requiring something in order to exercise a fundamental right.

I still say that those who advocate for photo IDs bear the burden of (1) showing that voter fraud is currently a real problem, and (2) that photo IDs will fight that problem.

I would argue that the salient point is if it is a reasonable (Constitutional?) requirement to insure the validity of the vote - whether or not known fraud is a perceived problem. The problem with fraud is that if it is successful you will never know.

If the issue is cost/convenience of getting id then let's address THAT - it should not be cost prohibitive for the poor to be able to procure an id, which would have the added benefit of enabling them to more fully participate in society.

If the issue is the problems facing the elderly in need of id, perhaps they can be grandfathered in.

FYI - TX Id for those under 60 is $16 for 6 years; over 60 is $6 with an indefinite (in other words, no) expiration date. Fee waived for disabled veterans.

But if you have, for example, registered a bunch of fake names or the Dallas Cowboys offensive line as voters and intend to vote in their place, obtaining these documents is going to not be impossible, but it's going to be a lot more trouble than it's worth. Your objections more prove my point that not only could you probably falsify the documents you want to use (for free), the ID requirements do not make free identification very hard to get at all.

Having all of these other documents work to satisfy the requirement of ID does sidestep the cost argument. Those documents either have been issued to you at one point for free or are being issued to you every month.

If you can't get something on that list, you have bigger problems than voting. Ensuring the validity of the vote exceeds the nominal trouble some nominal minority of voters will have to go through in order to vote.

I doubt the Justice Dept. is successful here.

As for Mysticat's argument that those advocating for this have the burden, isn't it true that we presume things flowing from the legislative process to be constitutional? Isn't it then the other way around--that either the opponents have to show that this requirement conflicts with the 24th Amendment or is in somehow in violation of equal protection?

This is exactly my issue though - "more trouble than it's worth"? We don't even have any idea of whether voter fraud of the type you've noted is widespread - how can we have any idea of how much "trouble" those willing to defraud the vote will go through?

Beyond that, I love how the number potentially disenfranchised is "nominal" but we have a tight handle on how much trouble people will or won't go through to commit fraud.

Either way though, you're vastly overstating the difficulty of coming up with a reasonable-looking utility bill or pay stub. I just checked, and Word2010 has templates that would allow me to print my own, right now. There's no "deterrent" effect if you allow those other forms of (free) identification, and clearly those are included to attempt to remain Constitutional. Nobody at a polling place will be able to say "wait, that's not a valid paystub!" or "that water bill looks Photoshopped!"

Even if you stick to state IDs, you can show out of state ID, or college ID! You could fake those from the public library. Literally, you.

So again, quite simply: what exactly is this law doing? Those who wish to vote fraudulently still can, easily (and that's assuming there is even widespread fraud to begin with). Some people, though, just don't get to vote.

Saying "well, too bad for them, they should have ____" is pretty poor - it's kind of a fundamental right.

So applying Crawford v. Marion County Election Board, 553 U.S. 181 (2008), the distinguishing factor between the two cases is that Indiana's driver's license is free. However, Texas has a number of ways you can get a voting certificate or even vote without one by signing an affidavit at the polling place and providing some form of ID, many of which are free.

Do you think to be constitutional, Texas must provide free state-issued IDs when a number of others work and when the cost isn't great enough in any cased to really put anyone out?

I don't buy that it's a poll tax. It can't be if there are so many ways to circumvent having to pay for an ID or anything else.

Well, in the same token how can you or anyone say that there are so many legit voters that are so down-trodden that they don't have any form of ID or utility bill or pay stub YET they conveniently have a voter registration card?

FYI- in TX you need to bring your voter registration card to the polls in order to vote and if you forget to bring it or don't have it you have to show your....yup, ID or pay stub or utility bill in order to establish identity to vote.

As a side note, the local nightly news last week was showing clips of groups that oppose and support this measure doing their thing in Austin and the group featured opposing this law was an (illegal) immigrant advocacy group. Why this would even be an issue for them since immigrants can't vote (i'm sure they do though) made me go hmmmmmm....

I agree - we can't know for certain how many would be disenfranchised. When there is massive uncertainty on both sides, though, I feel it's best to err on the side of protecting rights, rather than limiting them.

In the specific instance of Texas, I think the alternative use of freely-available ID methods circumvents the poll tax issue.

I also think it makes the entire law superfluous (at best), at least with regard to its stated intent, because the use of those specific documents as freely-available ID makes it essentially impossible that the law would actually prevent any significant amount of fraud.

The best-case scenario is, essentially, another garbage law cluttering the books. How "small-government" of us.

The worse, of course, is semi-targeted barriers to voting.

The law is seemingly either unnecessary or unconstitutional, depending on intent and implementation.

It's quite a leap to go from saying that these documents are possibly falsifiable to saying that the law doesn't help alleviate potential voter fraud or that there is absolutely no effect on the integrity of the vote either way.

I acknowledge it's not hard to falsify a utility bill. However, to do it for the entire Dallas Cowboys offensive line (a famous example of false voter registrations by ACORN), is going to be at least something of a barrier.

That isn't to say it wouldn't be all that difficult to falsify lots of utility bills and such in order to commit voting fraud, it's just that in this case, there'd be a lot more evidence of the wrongdoing and authorities might therefore actually have some success in investigation.

The Crawford case, if you're passing on the poll tax issue as being successfully circumvented, goes right to the constitutionality of the statute. Whether it's a good idea or not, I dunno. As strongly as the left has come out against this, I have yet to see any Americans who have really been disenfranchised. It almost seems that the left is trying to protect the ability to commit voting fraud.

So it's easy to falsify a utility bill, but hard to falsify five such bills? I just don't see how there is anything other than an economy of scale here - there's really no substantial difference in falsifying any number once you have the first, given the technology (a laptop computer, a printer) in use.

I disagree entirely that this even marginally increases evidence of any sort - nobody at the polling place is keeping the utility bill (just as they aren't keeping the ID shown) or whatever document is shown.

It would be the same situation you have now - those who organize and perpetrate the fraud slink back into the shadows.

I'd be all for a law that could unilaterally prevent voter fraud - but I have yet to see a law that has real "teeth" that doesn't simultaneously step on the toes of legitimate voters, and I don't think the trade-off is anything near worth it, given what we know (or rather, don't) about voter fraud.

As a general rule, yes. Statutes are generally presumed to be constitutional. But any legislature considering a law like this should surely think ahead to the lawsuit that will come.

If a law burdens a "fundamental" or "core" right -- and the right to vote typically is found to fit that bill, so it seems at least reasonable to predict that a court might find that it does so here -- then the presumption of constitutionality is lost, and the statute will only be upheld if the government can show that it is narrowly tailored to serve a compelling governmental interest. That's where the rubber would hit the road on needing to show that there actually is a problem and that voter ID will address that problem and goes no further than necessary to address that problem.

See Crawford v. Marion County Election Board, 553 U.S. 181 (2008).

The only distinguishing factor is that Texas drivers licenses cost money. The only question is whether that fact, when taking into account that there are many other ways a citizen can prove their identity which don't cost money, is enough to distinguish from Crawford.

The SCOTUS has already upheld these sorts of laws in principle. It's hard to imagine that the Texas case will come out differently.

I just posted to say:

"ATTORNEY SPEAK" ALERT
"ATTORNEY SPEAK" ALERT

I wouldn't say that was the only distinguising principle. A significant (I think, and based on my memory of Marion) issue in Marion was the lack of facts from either side. What you say about "in principle" is important. While Marion might stand for the proposition that ID laws would likely be found to be facially constitutional by SCOTUS, different facts could certainly lead to a finding that it is unconstitutional as applied* to specific plaintiffs. I think the Court left that door open.

Another thing that I think needs to be considered, at least in some instances, is that just because SCOTUS might find no violation of the federal constitution doesn't mean that state supreme courts couldn't or wouldn't find violations of state constitutions. I think there has been a trend toward state constiutional claims, and in my state at least, the Supreme Court has recently seemed willing to go further on equal protection-type claims under the state constitution than SCOTUS has gone. (Granted, maybe not in Texas.)

But beyond that, when I say that those who want to change the law "bear the burden" of showing the need for it, I don't just mean that in legal standard-type sense. I also mean it in a practical/legislative policy sense. I think as a general rule, those who advocate a change in the law bear the burden of showing why that change is needed and how the change will work.

As I've said upthread, I'm in a state that (currently) does not require IDs of any kind to vote, and there is no evidence of anything approaching widespread voter fraud. The use of regularly-updated computerized databases makes things like "dead people" voting much more difficult. To the extent there is fraud, it is primarily people attempting to vote twice, which no ID requirement would catch. So I need to be convinced as to why we would should to add an extra step at the polls, especially if it could work a hardship for some voters.


* The "as applied" is for DrPhil. ;)