New Texas Voter Photo ID Requirements Take Effect
RANDI NULL
THE SIGNAL
Two years ago, the Texas Legislature passed a law requiring voters to bring photo identification to the polls; two months ago the law went into effect.
As of September 2013, voters in Texas are required to show one of seven types of photo identification in order to prove that they are the same person listed on the official list of registered voters.
The Texas voter ID requirements are not new. The laws regarding voter identification were originally tightened in 2011, but the U.S. Department of Justice rejected the law on the basis that it placed an undue burden disproportionately on minority voters.
The 2013 Supreme Court case Shelby County v. Holder struck down the Justice Department’s ability to reject the Texas law, and upon the ruling Republican Texas Attorney General Greg Abbot said that the new photo ID requirements were to “immediately take effect.”
In the past, Texas required voters to show a state-issued voter registration card at the polls or provide any of various forms of identification including, but not limited to, a valid driver’s license, photo employee ID, utility bill or paycheck. Now voters must present one of seven official government photo IDs in order to cast their ballot:
- Texas driver’s license
- Texas Election Identification Certificate
- Texas personal identification card Texas concealed handgun license U.S. passport
- U.S. Military identification
- U.S. Citizenship Certificate or Certificate of Naturalization
Public opinion polls have shown strong support for voter ID laws amongst voters in the United States.
A 2011 Rasmussen poll found that 75 percent of likely voters believe voters should be required to show photo ID, such as a driver’s license, before being allowed to vote.
“Voter ID will help stamp out voter fraud and increase public confidence in our election process by defending our Constitution and up- holding the sanctity of one person, one vote,” Lieutenant Governor of Texas David Dewhurst, who assisted in the passing of the bill in 2011, said in a public statement.
The Democratic Party, as well as voters’ rights organizations, have publicly criticized the new voter ID laws, voicing concerns that the laws could lead to the disenfranchisement of poor, minority and elderly voters in order to battle an almost non-existent problem.
“It seems to me that there are very few instances of voter fraud,” said Carolyn Mata, president of the League of Women Voters of the Houston Area. “There was really no evidence to back up the need for this bill. Texas has one of the lowest percentages of people who vote in the country, so they make another impediment?”
Those who oppose the new law claim that citizens may be turned away from voting because they lack knowledge of the new requirements.
“We’re seeing already a lot of the unintended consequences,” said Sondra Haltom, president of Empower the Vote Texas. “People are going to the polls who don’t understand the law. There has been a severe lack of education done about this new requirement.”
A 2012 report from the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University Law School showed that 11 percent of the population that is of voting age lacks government-issued identification.
This is something the Legislature took into consideration, and with the law came the Election Identification Certificate (EIC): a free state-issued ID obtained through the Texas Department of Public Safety. Individuals must be able to prove citizenship in order to obtain an EIC.
Women who changed their name when they married or divorced require documentation in order to prove their legal name and ensure that the name on their voter registration and their ID match.
Although the names on the official list of registered voters should be identical to that on the voters’ ID cards, the state acknowledges that this is not always the case. Alicia Pierce, the spokesperson for the office of the Texas Secretary of State, said that as long as the names are determined to be “substantially similar” by officials at the polls, the voter will be permitted to vote as long as he or she signs an affidavit stating that he or she is the same person as the one on the list of registered voters.
“That’s one of the problems with the voter ID,” Haltom argued. “There’s so much subjectivity to it in determining whether or not a person has in fact presented enough evidence to verify their identity. There’s a lot of subjectivity to it, and subjectivity always causes problems. Poll workers are human beings and they make human errors.”
If the name on the voter’s ID is not considered to be “substantially similar,” he or she will be allowed to fill out a ballot on a provisional basis. In order for the provisional ballot to count, the individual must return to the county’s voter registrar within six days after the election with a valid identification.
Although the requirements were in place for the Nov. 5 election, the constitutionality of the restrictive voter photo ID law continues to be challenged.
“There is litigation pending as we speak in federal court in Nueces County,” Haltom said. “There are several different groups who have either filed their own law suits or intervened in one of the existing law suits, including the Department of Justice.”
The Department of Justice suit argues that the Voter ID law violates the 14th and 15th amendments to the U.S. Constitution and Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, claiming it was enacted to specifically exclude people of color from voting in the state.
“I think the true intention of this legislation was to make it more difficult for certain segments of the population to vote who happen to vote for candidates in political parties that those in power would prefer not to get those votes,” Haltom said.
While a Reuters investigation of the effects of similar laws in Georgia and Indiana shows that there was a 4 percent increase in voter turnout in those states following the passing of the laws, Texas will not know the effects of its new law until at least a week after the Nov. 5 election.
“It’s hard to tell at this point how many people are disenfranchised and who they are as a percentage,” Haltom said. “We won’t really know that until at least a week after the election because people have that time frame to fix [their provisional ballots].” Supporters of the new regulation are confident in its success. Abbott, who defended the voter ID law in court, said critics had “run out of claims” about the issues the regulation would cause.
“I haven’t ever seen anything that was over hyped as much as some partisan efforts to over hype concerns about this when, in reality, there has been no problems whatsoever,” Abbott said in a public statement.
Opponents to the voter ID law are looking past this election and preparing for 2014.
“The important question is, ‘is this going to affect the primaries next year?’” Mata said. “This is kind of a practice run. We’re practicing now; we’re seeing how it goes because next spring we’ll have all of those statewide elections. This is just one big day; we’ll see how that goes. Then there will be lessons learned for the next time.”
