Justice Department letter to Texas objecting to voter ID law

[DaemonSeid]

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.

[AnotherKD]

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.

[DrPhil]

An interesting thread where we tackled some issues:

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

[DaemonSeid]

Originally Posted by AnotherKD

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.

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



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.

[Psi U MC Vito]

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

[Kevin]

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.

[AGDee]

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.

[KSig RC]

Originally Posted by Kevin

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.

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.

[AnotherKD]

Originally Posted by KSig RC

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.

[Kevin]

Originally Posted by KSig RC

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.

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:

The relevant burdens here are those imposed on eligible voters who lack photo identification cards that comply with SEA 483. Because Indiana’s cards are free, the inconvenience of going to the Bureau of Motor Vehicles, gathering required documents, and posing for a photograph does not qualify as a substantial burden on most voters’ right to vote, or represent a significant increase over the usual burdens of voting. The severity of the somewhat heavier burden that may be placed on a limited number of persons—e.g., elderly persons born out-of-state, who may have difficulty obtaining a birth certificate—is mitigated by the fact that eligible voters without photo identification may cast provisional ballots that will be counted if they execute the required affidavit at the circuit court clerk’s office. Even assuming that the burden may not be justified as to a few voters, that conclusion is by no means sufficient to establish petitioners’ right to the relief they seek.

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.

[KSig RC]

Originally Posted by Kevin

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.

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:

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.

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.

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.

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.

[KSig RC]

Originally Posted by KSig RC

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

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...

[PiKA2001]

Originally Posted by KSig RC

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.

[KSig RC]

Originally Posted by PiKA2001

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).

[MysticCat]

Originally Posted by AnotherKD

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).

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.