STARKVILLE — A new Brennan Center for Justice study claims that state voting law changes that implement voter identification requirements make it harder for eligible voters to cast their ballots. It bases that claim on the contention that more than 10 percent of potential voters don’t have government-issued photo ID.
At face value, the supposed alarm bells being rung by the study ring hollow. Mississippi’s Voter ID initiative “provides that any voter lacking government-issued photo identification may obtain photo identification without charge from the Mississippi Department of Public Safety; and exempts certain residents of state-licensed care facilities and religious objectors from being required to show photo identification in order to vote.”
The state’s Legislative Budget Office even put a price tag on the financial impact of the measure. If adopted, the state will lose $1.5 million in revenue it made in fiscal year 2010 by providing more than 107,000 photo IDs to U.S. citizens of voting age at $14 per card to offset the actual $17.92-per-card cost.
How controversial is voter ID nationwide? Some 30 states already require some form of photo or non-photo identification for voters at the polls. There are 10 states — Alabama, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Ohio, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Wisconsin — that presently require government-issued photo ID.
So the arguments that voter ID will be some major shock to the body politic in Mississippi, that it will unfairly target the poor or minorities, or that government-issued photo IDs are difficult or expensive to acquire are bogus arguments. While the Brennan study does not draw partisan distinctions, some leading liberal newspapers in the country argue that voter ID is a Republican plot to disenfranchise Democrats.
That argument likewise is suspect and is often followed by assertions that instances of voter fraud that would be solved by voter ID represent an infinitesimal percentage of the vote. It’s on that point that critics of voter ID have a peg on which to hang their hats. The implication is that a little bit of voter fraud is OK so long as people aren’t “intimidated” by being asked for identification.
As I’ve written before, voter ID requirements are long overdue in Mississippi and have reached the ballot over the most specious and manufactured objections. But as critics suggest, voter ID won’t solve Mississippi’s most prevalent voter fraud issues — absentee ballot fraud and affidavit ballot fraud.
In 20 of the state’s 82 counties in the Aug. 3 primary election, absentee ballots made up 10 percent or more of total votes cast. Quitman County — where 29 percent, or 1,040 of 3,580 votes, were cast with absentee ballots — set the pace.
The voter ID initiative will pass by a significant majority. But if ballot security and integrity is the real goal, that will only complete a portion of the task at hand. Next must follow a substantial package of absentee- and affidavit-ballot reforms to finish the job.
Despite institutional Republican opposition — which has mirrored institutional Democratic opposition to voter ID — the most important election modernization tool that’s missing in Mississippi is early voting, something working successfully in other Southern states.
• Sid Salter is journalist-in-residence at Mississippi State University. Contact him at ssalter@library.msstate.edu.
