South Carolina and Texas have both recently tried to voting requirements that would ask all voters to present government-issued IDs at polling places. However, 25% of African-Americans and 19% of Latinos do not meet the requirement.
"Because these states for so long flaunted an obstinate refusal to allow African-Americans equal access to the voting booth, the Voting Rights Act requires they demonstrate that new changes will not have a discriminatory effect."
However, rather than adjusting the their voting requirements, they insisted that parts of the Voting Rights Act were unconstitutional.
In this CBS News article, it is stated that this voting requirement could reduce the number of votes from the minorities that support Obama.
"Most of the changes have been promoted and approved by Republicans, who argue they are needed to avert voter fraud. Democrats, citing studies suggesting there is little voter fraud, say the measures are actually aimed at reducing minority votes for their candidates."
Thoughts?
8 comments:
I don't think asking people for government issued IDs is too much to ask of voters. It makes sense that you should have proof that you are of legal age to vote, and most people should have IDs anyway. However, the Republicans are clearly trying to gain an advantage with this legislation because they know that the majority of the people this will affect are minorities who support the Democrats. Although this does favor Republicans, I don't think this is unreasonable.
If requiring an ID does restrict voting rights of citizens, it is constitutional unless ID's were provided completely for free (no fees and minimal paperwork), I would not really question the constitutionality. It would be like bringing some receipt from registering to vote.
Still, it takes time for the paperwork to be processed and for a law like this to be brought up as elections come seems like a Republican push for a greater part of the voters. Perhaps there should be some (informal or formal) amendment to the constitution law regarding voting laws and when they can be passed to allow for preparations like getting an ID.
I have to disagree with Colin on this one--I do think implementing an ID requirement at voting booths is "too much to ask". This being said, however, I do also think that requiring IDs is beneficial to decreasing voter fraud. This requirement ultimately questions whether fraudulent voting or a decrease in voting is more detrimental. I personally believe a decrease in voting is more important to consider than a few fraudulent voters. Not everyone has an ID, and if certain voters do not already have an ID, I don't think they will take the time to go out and get an ID just to vote. Plenty of people don't vote simply because it's tedious and time consuming. If they had to take an extra step (getting an ID) just to become eligible to vote, the percentage/amount of voters would probably decrease. I'm sure the Republicans support this requirement partly due to the fact that it will "reduce the number of votes from the minorities that support Obama." But in the grand scheme of things, I believe democracy is stronger without requirements such as this.
I think it's pretty clear at this point that this issue is presented as part of the GOP political agenda. However, I don't think this action is very wise on the part of the Republicans because it's quite obvious that this is an attack on the constituency supporting Obama - in particular, the African American and Latino minority groups. Even if they do follow through with it, it will be a low blow to the reputation of the GOP Party and doesn't guarantee a voter slant towards the Republicans. That being said, I agree with Keaton - I think asking for government-issued IDs at polling booths is not a good idea and won't, in my opinion, lead to positive outcomes in terms of fair political participation.
I also completely agree with what has been said. The timing of what the Republicans are doing, to me, gives an obvious sign that they are just trying to reduce the number of people who could potentially come out and vote for Obama. This being said, I think that this is an all new low for the GOP. Instead of "playing fair" they have to resort to under-handed tactics to win, which to me, shows that they do not have great confidence in their candidates (when Newt Gingrich is the front runner, you know it is all bad).
Anyway, to stay more on topic, this seems very unconstitutional to me. It is basically taking away a right given to everybody based on the 14th amendment (seeing as this is the party that most often talks about maintaining our rights and freedoms, this is actually pretty funny). There is no way to justify this. This amendment was added for a reason, to stop what is happening now from happening. I'm sure voter fraud can be protected against by another way that does not isolate those who have been voting already for the past few decades and not committing voter fraud by doing so. If we can truly call ourselves a democracy, than what the Republicans are doing should be stopped immediately. If the government is supposed to be influenced by the people, then the people kind of need to be able to vote, otherwise the process doesn't really work.
Yeah, I agree with basically all of what's been said above. I mean, given the timing of this these laws with regards to the election, the current strategy of alienating moderates, the fact that minorities are more likely to go democrat, and the fact that these laws were mainly passed in republican states, I don't think the lawpassers can really defend their decisions very well on this one.
The good news is that the conservatives feel they have to resort to these sorts of obviously risky shenanigans, which means they aren't doing very well overall. And maybe someone will find documented proof (like a tape) from some RNC backroom that proves beyond a doubt that they had bad intentions, and we can get some major leadership changes to happen in the republican party leadership. But that's probably wishful thinking, I'm sure they learned after the Nixon snafu.
Please note, when I say anything about republicans or imply they are the bad guys, I'm referring to the ones that cook up anti-minority voting laws like the ones passed, not the no-doubt reasonable ones that go to Aragon.
If voter fraud is not a very big problem to begin with, then asking people to show government-issued IDs should not be necessary. This does appear to be a move by the Republican party to increase their chances of winning the election , and they are probably aware of exactly who will be impacted by this voting requirement. I think this is an unfair restriction that discriminates against minorities and is not constitutional or just, especially considering Republican's motives.
This kind of voting requirements should be proposed in a timely manner. How about out of the presidential election range? Did Republicans and those in favor really think that anyone would not figure out that this requirement would be so heavily implying partisanship that they would actually pull such changes off? If the supporters of presenting IDs at polling places really wanted to avert voter fraud, then they should have not included obvious discriminatory effects. Otherwise, I would believe that the ID requirement is a constitutional way to check voter fraud if the circumstances suit the system. Of course, playing devil's advocate, the assumption here is that the ones without present government-issued IDs is not a citizen of the U.S. and their votes don't count. I'd personally like to hear what parts of the Voting Rights Act did South Carolina and Texas find that were unconstitutional, regardless of partisan association.
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