By Aaron Chelliah
Opinion Editor
Voter identification laws are an essentially pointless complication to the electoral process and provide no real value to officials hoping to cut down on rare cases of voter fraud.
As of 2013, there are 30 states that have individual voter ID laws, which primarily prevent voters without a form of photo identification from voting. These laws were upheld by a Supreme Court decision in 2008 and began in Indiana with the ruling of Judge Richard Posner, who stated these laws did not discriminate against different ethnic groups and would help with fraud prevention.
These laws, all in the name of reducing voter fraud, pose a large problem to many of America’s minorities. In Philadelphia, hundreds of thousands of citizens cannot vote due to their inability to obtain a photo ID. Many senior citizens do not have drivers licenses or alternative forms of photo identification, so requiring them to get one would discriminate against a specific age bracket.
It also happens that the citizens who are hindered by this law are composed primarily of minorities and impoverished individuals, typically leaning democratic, according to Pew Research Center’s opinion polling. Conversely, the Republican demographics remain relatively unaffected by the new law, besides having to explain why their name changed or how they prefer their shortened name. This disparity, one of not only political party lines but political ideologies, should not be so clearly favored by supposedly unbiased laws.
This phenomenon can also be seen clearly with the nation’s impoverished, who do not have the $20 payment to acquire a birth certificate or get a driver’s license at the Department of Motor Vehicles. By requiring these citizens to use their limited funds on something that does not immediately affect their livelihood, states that do not provide free identification services are discriminating against an entire socioeconomic class.
Even though voter ID laws have been put into effect to cut down on voter fraud, they have not dramatically changed the number of voter frauds or people convicted of the crime. Attorney-General of Texas Greg Abbott stated that he had only convicted 50 people of fraud from 2002-12. This number, infinitesimal when compared to the 13 million registered voters in Texas, clearly illustrates the extraneous nature of these laws.
Additionally, the truly troublesome nature of the voter ID laws was exemplified at the polls. Due to marriage, most women change their name at some point during their lives. Additionally, some people use nicknames, both of which conflict with federal records. Among those troubled by this issue was Abbott, who, strangely enough, goes by his nickname rather than his birth name. This pointless trouble for little additional security demonstrates how essentially pointless these voter ID laws are.
To deal with the problem of differences between federal records and an individual’s identification, the states made voters sign affidavits to acknowledge that they were who they said they were. This step in the electoral process renders the entire voter ID law ineffective because there is no hard proof that people are who they say they are.
In summation, these voter ID laws do nothing but increase the inefficiencies and unnecessary complexities of the electoral process. The 30 states that have adopted these laws should reconsider their necessity and cost, and the true merit of the program should be reevaluated as a whole.
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