The Pope Civitas Institute is trumpeting a poll designed to help Republican lawmakers who want NC voters to show a government-issued photo ID each time they vote (except, oddly, for when they vote through the mail). The Pope Civitas poll says 83% of voters would approve a government ID requirement. And it claims that 99% of the respondents say they have “an official photo ID, such as a driver’s license, an ID card from the DMV, a military ID or a U.S. passport.” This last number may indicate the misleading nature of this poll or who it polls: We suggest you ask the people at your workplace (especially the younger ones) if their driver’s license has an old address; we bet you’ll discover that more than 1% don’t have a valid photo ID with current address.
Requiring a photo ID may sound like a common-sense protection against voter fraud, but it’s already a felony to illegally vote or to lie when you sign in to vote, a NC requirement. Partisan poll observers and others can challenge voters, and an ID is required to register in the first place. These and other provisions are effective. Cases of fraud that a photo ID would prevent are extremely rare – about two dozen cases out of 4.3 million ballots cast in NC in 2008, says State Board of Elections director Gary Bartlett. Adding more barriers will reduce the pitiful participation we now have in a typical election. (Only 44% of registered voters cast ballots in 2010, or 37% of eligible citizens; that means the Republican majority in Raleigh won with support from barely 1 in 5 voting-age citizens, hardly a mandate.)
So why do Republican leaders and Pope Civitas want to add a new barrier to voting? Because it would mostly affect voters they don’t like, including thousands of people of color, students, people with disabilities and poor voters who don’t have a current photo ID. It’s about political power, tinged with racism. It’s very similar to what the Democrats did 100 years ago when they used the poll tax to disenfranchise black voters who were siding with Abe Lincoln’s Republican Party. Now the tables are turned and the GOP is eager to erect new barriers in state after state. Even observers who think a voter ID may be okay echo The Fort Worth Star-Telegram editorial that questions why Republicans lawmakers would devote so much energy to this crusade rather than focus on balancing the budget, stimulating new jobs, and tackling other urgent priorities.
Neither their website, as of the time I read it, nor their press release mentions the most important elements of any survey — the text of the questions and how they selected their participants. Couple that with the subtly pushy prose of their press release, and I am suspicious of their results. They don’t meet an especially high standard.
Here’s a question: How would a passport qualify as acceptable photo ID anyway? As far as I know passports do not have an address on them.
Excellent piece Bob
Excuse me, I thought this organization was called Democracy NC. Maybe I’m in the wrong group but it certainly puzzles me that a group purporting to advance democracy in NC would be against voter fraud prevention measures. Where’s the beef? We don’t illegal aliens to vote or convicted felons, right? If you have to show an id to cash a check, certainly there is no inconveniece to show an ID when you vote. Please get real here.
It is my opinion that having an ID check to vote, advances the cause of Democracy. It shouldn’t pose a problem as all citizens must show an ID to cash a check. Surely showing an ID to verify that a voter is legitamate should not be a problem. I for one would like to ensure that all votes cast are valid.
I understand your position but I wonder how you can justify a bill to make voter id mandatory when it will costs millions to implement and our state faces a massive budget shortfall — all that money spent when there were only 18 cases of voter id fraud in 2008, the busiest election in NC history? That means there were probably only one or two in 2009! That’s just irresponsible to spend state money that way when we need so many other things right now. It’s just not big enough of a problem to warrant spending money, all other considerations aside. And it makes me seriously question the judgment of leaders who are calling for it. It also calls their real motives into question: they say it’s to stop massive voter id fraud, but there is no massive voter id fraud, not even close. So why are they really doing it?
By the way, did you complain about dem nc being partisan back whern they were raking the nc dem party over the coals for corruption? Probably not.
Alan,
You are going to have to explain that comment about costing millions of dollars to insist that voter show a photo id. It doesn’t cost anything. People already use photo ids to cash a check. Surely voting is more important than cashing a check.
How do you know that there have only been 18 cases of voter fraud in NC? Maybe there have only been 18 caught.
Are you an employee of Democracy NC? These postings of mine were hung up in the approval process and now I have instant comments from you.
Admin here — everyone, please confine your comments to the issues and refrain from accusations and speculations about other posters.
Frank: people subscribe to various feeds on our blog and can be instantly notified when someone comments here. If you continue to post here with views opposing ours, you should expect others who support our positions to weigh in. All are welcome so long as they keep it civil.
Per your questions: the 18 number comes from the North Carolina State Board of Elections. It is explained in the very post you are replying to here. Please give us the courtesy of fully reading our posts before you reply to them.
In regards to your questions re costs, you may be interested in the following, particularly since you seem interested in preventing all types of voter fraud. This link was originally posted in a Link of the Day and it takes you to an article about the national perspective on voter id that includes some cost analysis. I’ll quote the paragraph about Missouri’s experience below and include the link to their legislative oversight committee’s findings ($6 million the first year; $4 million a year for the next two years).
Keep in mind that there is more involved than just the cost of proving ID’s to those who cannot afford them — something the Supreme Court mandated. On top of that, you have to include the cost of training poll workers in the new rules, more poll workers to deal with the longer lines that result and more administrative staff to deal with the paperwork (for example, provisional ballots go up and since absentee ballots are typically exempted from the ID requirements, the number of people using that option goes up).
In contrast, if you were concerned about voter fraud of all kinds, not just voter ID, you could hire three more investigators for the State Board of Elections at a cost of about $160k to $200K a year and send them out into the field to investigate and help prosecute fraud. Way more efficient and addresses more types of fraud.
Entire article here:
http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=misidentified_priorities
Pertinent paragraph here:
“….the Supreme Court’s 2008 decision in Crawford v. Marion County upheld a voter-ID law in Indiana but required states to provide IDs to those who could not afford them. By the time a state has provided free identification for anyone who needs it, educated voters, and trained poll workers on the new requirement, a voter-ID program will have cost millions of dollars, much of that a recurring expense each year. For example, Missouri’s Committee on Legislative Research found that implementing a photo-ID law would cost Missouri close to $6 million in the first year and around $4 million in its second and third years.”
Link to Missouri oversight committee findings:
http://www.moga.mo.gov/Oversight/OVER06/fishtm/4947-25T.ORG.htm
Katy,
I’m not questioning the fact that 18 cases of voter fraud were caught in 2008. My comment was referring to the fact that many others may not have been caught. The Board of Elections does not know how many they missed do they? Can you also give me the same courtesy of those who agree with your point of view?
Here is some more information that I found:
http://ballotpedia.org/wiki/index.php/Vote_fraud_in_North_Carolina
2008
In 2008, elections officials in Wake and Durham counties stumbled across 135 voter registration forms with bogus mailing addresses.
“We kept monitoring the elections rolls, if you will, and I think by monitoring them, it led to getting some monies from the legislature and cleaning up the rolls somewhat,” said Merritt, who is now executive director of the Foundation for Ethics in Public Service. The State Board of Elections received a $1 million-plus appropriation for that project. “But the controls are no better,” he said.[1]
2007
Auditor Les Merritt’s office uncovered 24,821 invalid driver’s license numbers and 700 invalid Social Security numbers in the voter registration database. There were 380 people who appeared to have voted after their deaths and a handful of votes cast by 17-year-olds in previous election cycles.[1]
Certainly these figures show the problem is much bigger than you portray it. We’ve all seen the stories of fraudulent voter registrations by the group called ACORN.
I have a difficult time understanding that costs would go up by requiring voters to show ID. According to the following article http://www.rrdailyherald.com/articles/2011/01/20/opinion/doc4d36ffcdd6560366994844.txt
99% of voters have a photo id. So the cost to provide that 1% ID would be neglible. If I was governor, I would mandate the DMV to provide those 1% an ID similar to a drivers license at no additional cost to the taxpayers. How much training does it take to show the volunteers how to ask for a photo id from each voter? I would be glad to volunteer for that duty at no cost.
Your statement, “So why do Republican leaders and Pope Civitas want to add a new barrier to voting? Because it would mostly affect voters they don’t like, including thousands of people of color, students, people with disabilities and poor voters who don’t have a current photo ID. It’s about political power, tinged with racism.” is highly partisan and without basis. How do you know what the motivation of Republican leaders? Maybe they just want to ensure the voting process remains Democratic and is not tainted with fraud.
Probably because various GOP operatives and committees have been caught on record numerous times as advocating for a national Voter ID push as an election strategy. A google search based on GOP, national Voter ID and strategy will bring up plenty of public evidence that this is so.
Any web browser other than Google will work, but that doesn’t provide any proof on the Republican strategies. I believe the motivation is for the most sacred duty that we as citizens can do is to be completely honest and fraud free. Why would the Democrats want anything different?