JACKSON — A study finds that more than 75 percent of non-white voters in Mississippi voted against a measure to require photo identification before someone may vote.
Initiative 27, a state constitutional amendment, passed in November with approval from 62 percent of nearly 870,000 voters.
But there was a wide split between black and white voters, according to an analysis released by the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights, a Washington, D.C., group.
The committee’s statistical analysis estimated that 82.6 percent of white voters were in favor of voter ID, while 75 percent of non-white voters were against it. While 97 percent of precincts with a majority-white voting-age population statewide approved Initiative 27, it passed in only 22 percent of precincts where eligible white voters are in a minority.
The finding could be significant as Mississippi seeks required federal approval to implement the measure. The U.S. Justice Department recently turned down South Carolina’s voter ID law, ratcheting up scrutiny on similar laws nationwide.
“It gives you some sense of whether there is going to be a differential impact or not,” said Bob Kengle, co-director of the committee’s Voting Rights Project. Kengle noted that the burden of proof is on the state to show that the amendment has no discriminatory intent against black voters and that impact on black voters is the same as on white voters.
Before Mississippi can seek Justice Department approval, it needs to pass an enabling law detailing how its system would work, said Pamela Weaver, spokeswoman for Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann. Weaver said Hosemann’s staff is drafting such a bill, but hasn’t finished it.
Opponents say South Carolina’s filing before the Justice Department failed in part because state numbers showed voters without required identification were more likely to be black than the whole electorate. Tuesday, South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley said her state would appeal the rejection in federal court in Washington, D.C.
Kengle also said the study is also contrary to public opinion polls that show widespread support for Voter ID across party and racial lines. For example, a 2009 Fox News poll showed 83 percent of all voters and 77 percent of black voters favored photo identification. Kengle said the vote is a truer measure of sentiment, instead of an isolated poll question.
Voter ID measures had died repeatedly in the Mississippi Legislature before state Sen. Joey Fillingane, R-Sumrall, succeeded in placing Initiative 27 on the ballot by petition. He has pointed to a 2007 Democratic primary election for circuit clerk in Jefferson Davis County that was thrown out because of voting irregularities as proof that the measure is needed.
Problems discovered by a judge include someone who voted in the name of a dead person and someone else who voted in the name of a person then was hospitalized in Hattiesburg.
Fillingane did not question the study, but said it didn’t square with his experience.
“I witnessed numerous African-American Mississippians signing the petition,” he said.
He noted that the initiative was passed by voters and not by legislators, saying that should carry special weight in any review.
“I would have preferred that 100 percent of all Mississippians support it,” Fillingane said. “But an overwhelming number of Mississippians voted for this.”
Kengle said voter approval won’t prevent the amendment from being scrutinized. Fillingane has said he modeled the amendment after an Indiana voter ID measure, but Kengle said review in Mississippi would be different than in Indiana because it would focus on whether it will harm black people.
Opponents say there are relatively few cases of people pretending to be other voters at the polls, the problem that voter ID laws are meant to prevent. Plus, they say that the laws erect hurdles to voting for the poor, the elderly and students. The lawyers committee study was unable to estimate how many minority residents don’t have a driver’s license, but did note Census data that showed 11.4 percent of non-white households lack access to a car, compared to 2.1 percent of white households.
There’s also the issue of the cost and time needed to obtain a birth certificate, which is usually needed to get a driver’s license. It costs $15 to apply by mail for a birth certificate in Mississippi, more to do it online or by phone.
Though Kengle said that may seem like a “trivial” barrier to supporters, it could be a significant hurdle for many residents. He said that in some states, no birth certificates exist for older people who weren’t born in hospitals.
For example, state Rep. George Flaggs, D-Vicksburg, supports a looser form of voter ID with exemptions for those over 65: “What we need to do is try to lessen the impact.”
