(Via ElectionLaw
Blog) The Georgia Secretary of State’s office a few days ago released
stats on the number of voters who do not posess state-issued ID cards in
Georgia. The key stats from their press
release:
- Number of registered voters who lack ID cards: 675,684
- Percent of all voters lacking an ID card: 13.6%
- Percent of African-American voters lacking an ID card: 17.3%
- Percent of White voters lacking an ID card: 12.1%
- Percent of Hispanic voters lacking an ID card: 13.8%
- Percent of Asian voters lacking an ID card: 11.5%
- Percent of senior citizen voters lacking an ID card: 22.8%
- Percent of African-American senior citizen voters lacking an ID card:
33.2%
Why do these stats matter? Georgia recently adopted a law requiring voters
to show state-issued ID before voting. There is a concern that this law
unfairly affects certain voting blocks…particularly Dem-leaning groups,
since some folks can’t or won’t get a driver’s license or ID card.
Proponents of the law, of course, support the law in the name of
discouraging voter fraud.
I have a few thoughts on the matter:
- Is there really a problem of this sort of vote fraud? Most of the
fraud I’ve heard alleged is on the part of shady elections officials seeking
to influence outcomes, rather than individuals adopting the “vote early,
vote often” philosophy. - If you’re going to disenfranchise ID-less individuals, shouldn’t you go
ahead and just make state-issued identicards mandatory? I find the idea
offensive, but this sort of a half-measure that could bias an election
annoys me. - In Iraq, a pot of indelible ink was viewed as the way to prevent folks
from casting multiple votes. If political leaders are sincerely concerned
about this problem, why not introduce the inkbottle to the U.S. elections
process?