idaho legislature:column

Republicans Attempt to Disenfranchise Idaho Voters

By Sharon Fisher, 4-03-09

	Speaker of the House Lawerence Denney, R-Midvale

Idaho Republican leadership is reportedly putting forth a bill modeled after similar laws in Georgia and Indiana said to be “the most stringent in the nation,” intended to make it more difficult for Idahoans to vote – particularly the sort of Idahoans who might vote against Republicans.

The bill, sponsored by House Speaker Lawerence Denney, R-Midvale, and Senate President Bob Geddes, R-Soda Springs, eliminates the ability of Idahoans to register to vote by mail, and requires the use of a government-issued photo ID to register and to vote.

Voter ID laws had been passed in 2005 in Georgia and Indiana, and the Indiana law was taken to the Supreme Court, with opponents arguing that requiring particular government documents – which, though free in Indiana, required supporting documents that were not free, as well as the time required to obtain them – constituted a “poll tax,” which had been ruled unconstitutional in 1966.

But the Supreme Court ruled that the Indiana law was constitutional about a year ago. “In upholding Indiana’s law – considered the most stringent in the nation—the Court effectively blessed the statutes of the few dozen or so other states that insist on some form of photo ID, and emboldened still more states to proceed down this path,” said Vikram David Amar, a professor of law at the University of California, Davis School of Law.

Obviously, Idaho was one of the states so emboldened.

Without mail-in voter registration, citizens – including those not be able to drive—would presumably be required to go to the county courthouse to register, go to one of the early-voting areas and register and vote there, or register and vote on election days. People would not, presumably, be able to register to vote ahead of time and then request an absentee ballot.

Political parties would not be able to register people.

Two other developments underway make this even more of an issue. First is the attempt by some Republicans to close their primary to only registered Republicans. Second is the fact that, by the 2012 elections, Idaho will be redistricted in response to the results from the 2010 Census, which is widely believed will result in more districts in the urban areas – which are more likely to vote Democratic – and fewer in the rural areas – which are more likely to vote Republican.

In the Indiana case, the Supreme Court disagreed that requiring a government-issued ID was overly burdensome, but that individual voters could come back to the Court to prove that it was. However, the likelihood of that happening was low, Amar said. “[H]ow likely is that a would-be voter in Indiana who can’t afford the money it takes to get a birth certificate (which is necessary to get a government ID) or the money it takes to obtain transportation to the county seat (where she could explain her inability to get a birth certificate) is somehow going to have the money and knowledge to bring suit in federal court instead, to demonstrate the unfairness of the burdens created by the Indiana law as to her? And to do all that well in advance of the election in which she wants to vote?”

Ironically, part of the reason Idaho (as well as Montana) shot down the Federal government’s attempts to mandate a standard form for drivers’ licenses (the so-called REAL ID Act) in 2007 was because of the burden it would place on certain Idahoans – particularly the elderly – to produce the documents necessary to obtain such a license.

“[R]equiring voters to stand in one line at the [Bureau of Motor Vehicles] for the privilege of possibly standing in another line once they go to vote effectively imposes a tax on the voters’ time,” wrote Dan Tokaji in the Election Law blog at the Mortiz College of Law at Ohio State University, about the Indiana bill. “It’s a burden that many voters won’t bear, which is presumably why the bill was passed on a straight party-line vote: Republican legislators are banking that Democrats are more likely to lack ID and won’t go to the trouble of getting it… [T]he Indiana bill imposes a special burden on particular groups of voters—including seniors, people with disabilities, and those who are poor—with precious little evidence that its strict photo ID requirement is needed to curb fraud.”

Acceptable ID cards must include a person’s name, a photograph, an expiration date and be issued by the U.S. government, Idaho, or a federally recognized American Indian tribe. In addition to driver’s licenses, acceptable ID documents would also include identification cards issued for no charge by the Department of Motor Vehicles; a student card from an Idaho college or university accompanied by a fee statement showing the student’s address; or any document which contains the elector’s name and a valid address within the precinct where that individual is attempting to cast his or her ballot.

In Indiana, it was estimated that 10 to 13 percent of residents did not have such an ID, which would eliminate them from voting.

Idaho’s bill does allow students to use IDs issued by Idaho colleges and universities to vote – a change that was made to the Indiana law last year after protests by the universities themselves. Otherwise, numerous students – who typically are more likely to vote Democratic – would be unable to vote in Idaho as well.

Denney is reportedly bringing forth the bill to combat unspecified voter fraud, “even though proponents couldn’t cite specific examples of alleged voter fraud in this state, where the GOP holds all statewide elected positions and controls three quarters of the Legislature,” reported the AP’s John Miller.

“Denney told [Betsy Russell’s Spokane Spokesman-Review’s] Eye on Boise that he and Senate President Pro-Tem Bob Geddes mailed out nearly 200 first-class letters to registered voters in a single district after the last election as a test, and about 30 came back showing “no one at that address.” Some of the addresses were vacant lots, he said. The letters should have been forwarded if the people and addresses were real, he said.”

This technique, known as “caging,” has been criticized across the U.S., and thrown out by some courts in which it was attempted. “In the week before last November’s election, The Nation reported that in some states, “the Republican Party has made plans to challenge the legitimacy of thousands of voters using a notorious, legally dubious technique known as ‘caging,’ whereby the party sends out nonforwardable mail to low-income or minority households (the people likely to move frequently or be victims of subprime mortgage foreclosures) and uses returned envelopes to question the eligibility of the addressees."”

A similar effort is also underway in South Carolina. “Now state Republicans are striking back with legislation designed to limit early and absentee voting and to require voters to have a photo ID,” reported Will Moredock of the Charleston City Paper. “Of course, they are doing this in the name of preventing voter fraud, though no one has demonstrated any systematic voter fraud in this state. What this legislation will actually do is limit voting access for the poor, elderly, and minorities. That is why the state branches of AARP, Common Cause, NAACP, the League of Women Voters, and ACLU are rallying to stop House Bill 3418 and Senate Bill 334.”

While in South Carolina, the move is mainly against minorities, “this is not an exclusively Southern phenomenon,” Moredock said. “For some years the national Republican Party has been engaged in an insidious strategy to suppress the votes of minorities, students, the poor, and elderly around the nation. Republican-majority legislatures in Georgia, Indiana, and other states have passed voter ID laws, ostensibly to protect the democratic process from voter fraud. What they have failed to do is prove that there is any widespread or systematic voter fraud which would merit such a remedy.”

The only type of fraud that an ID would prevent is impersonation fraud, which “simply does not happen,” said Deborah Goldberg, director of the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law School, and who wrote an amicus brief in the Indiana case, who spoke at a panel on the Indiana law in January, 2008. Other types of fraud, such as vote buying, fraud on voter registration groups, ballot stuffing, and absentee ballot fraud, are not addressed by a voter ID, she said.

“Almost half the states have very minimal voter ID requirements that apply to a very small number of voters.  And these states actually report that they have no greater problems with voter fraud or any of these kinds of issues than any other states,” said Tova Wang, a nationally recognized expert on election law and currently a democracy fellow at the Century Foundation, who spoke at the same panel.

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