Almost three-quarters of all Americans support the idea that people should have to show photo identification to vote, even though they are nearly as concerned about voter suppression as they are about fraud in presidential elections, according to a new Washington Post poll.
A controversy over voter ID laws is a prominent backdrop to this year’s election, with courtroom showdowns in Pennsylvania, Texas and elsewhere over voting rights and otherwise mundane election procedures.
Overall, there is high, strong and cross-party support for such laws, even though a slim majority of Americans have heard “not much” or “nothing” about the issue. Support dips among those who say they have heard more about new photo identification requirements but remains the majority position.
About half of those polled see voter fraud — people voting who are not eligible to do so or voters casting multiple ballots — as a “major problem” in presidential elections. One in three see it as a “minor problem.” The numbers are nearly as high when it comes to concern about eligible voters being denied their rights.
Asked to trade off the two, slightly more Americans are concerned with fraud than with voter suppression, although stark partisan and racial differences emerge. Two-thirds of Republicans see voter fraud as a bigger problem; nearly as many Democrats are primarily concerned with denying eligible voters access to the ballot box.
In the poll, African Americans are the most likely to see voter suppression as a major problem and the most likely to see support for the laws as an effort to boost one party over the other. Nearly six in 10 African Americans sense that support for the laws stems from partisan politics.
While 44 percent of Americans perceive partisan politics at play in the support of such laws, far more, 57 percent, see a genuine interest in fair elections as a big motivator.
A challenge for opponents of the ID laws is that a slim majority of Americans see politics behind the opposition, with fewer sensing it is motivated by a real interest in clean vote counts.
Moreover, big majorities of those whom critics see as baring the brunt of the laws are supportive of them, including more about three-quarters of seniors and those with household incomes under $50,000 and two-thirds of non-whites.
No one has yet explained how it suppresses someone’s right to vote to demand a photo ID, but not his (also constitutionally-guaranteed) right to buy a gun – which the federal government unblushingly does. Or how getting an ID puts an overwhelming burden on whole classes of voters, for that matter, when IDs are already required for so many other things. The whole ‘suppression’ argument is absurd, and the fact that it’s being advanced almost entirely by one party’s activists ought to convince us of the need for voter ID.
When you register to vote you already have to have proof of residency in the town!
If I can walk into Cabelas today and get a line of credit for $5000.00 in ten minutes with just My Drivers license , I should be able to do the same thing at the Town Office to vote.
Besides, What do you suppose Thomas Jefferson had for a -photo ID?
And when you go to vote, you’ll discover that I – not needing to prove who I am – already voted in your name. Then I went back to my town and voted for myself, too.
Er… you might want to take a look at the front of your driver’s license.
Thats why they have people at the polls to watch what is going on! You can’t vote twice without being noticed, besides I have an ID just like the one that Thomas Jefferson used, it’s called my face!
Drivers License?
They only asked for the # and they New my credit history, where I lived, ect, ect, ect,
If there is only a single individual who cannot afford to pay for a photo ID when one is required to cast a ballot, then voter suppression is real. Unless photo ID is to be provided free of charge to everyone who is eligible to vote by the federal government, there can be no photo ID requirement to vote in any election.
In Mass., an ID is $25 and is easy for even a church mouse to save up for in the 2.5 months between now and election day! Its good forever so there is no additional charge in the future (certainly can’t be compared to a Poll tax) and makes it soooo much easier to just cash a check and other everyday uses. That excuse is absurd.
Obama’s uncle has had 2 deportation orders in the years he’s been here. He somehow got a SS card and driver’s license and has been voting for years (I wonder for who). Of course he can’t now since his recent DUI bust……
Perhaps you should discuss OUI’s with Dubya who would not have been able to cross the Canadian border before his minions stole Florida. While you are at it … why doesn’t Dubya travel to all the country’s he ravaged while he was POTUS. ???Might not want to stay at the “Jail Bar Hilton ” in The Hague, Netherlands( Crimes Against Humanity ). Just asking.
Just what does a drunk illegal have to do with Dubya. That is one weird stretch and many off the wall accusations! Besides, I was talking about illegal voting, not DUIs.
A $25 fee to get an ID somehow can’t be considered a poll tax? It most certainly is a poll tax. People who are trying to get by on minimum wage, elderly people trying to survive on Social Security, disabled people–plenty of people find $25 painful to come up with.
A one time fee for a multi purpose document can in no way be compared to the poll tax of the 60’s.
Like I said, in the time between now and election day, it would take about 31 stinkin cents a day to save up the lousy $25 bucks. Your ridiculous sob story doesn’t hold water with this SSDI recipient. No frickin’ way am I living on the edge of 31 cents!
Historically in the US, a poll tax was used as a de facto or implicit pre-condition of the exercise of the ability to vote. It is now being revived. Its purpose is to restrict voting by making it difficult and/or expensive to vote.
Poll tax laws were declared unconstitutional in the 1960s. Mississippi’s $2.00 poll tax (equal to $14.33 today) was the last to fall. Today’s poll tax that can average $25 + substantial time and effort for people in rural areas with limited or no transportation, is significantly more than that.
As a New York Times article from 2011 points out, “Despite decades of progress, this year’s Republican-backed wave of voting restrictions has demonstrated that the fundamental right to vote is still subject to partisan manipulation. The most common new requirement, that citizens obtain and display unexpired government-issued photo identification before entering the voting booth, was advanced in 35 states and passed by Republican legislatures in Alabama, Minnesota, Missouri and nine other states — despite the fact that as many as 25 percent of African-Americans lack acceptable identification.” The same problem pertains to many elderly people and students.
“While defending its photo ID law before the Supreme Court, Indiana was unable to cite a single instance of actual voter impersonation at any point in its history. Likewise, in Kansas, there were far more reports of U.F.O. sightings than allegations of voter fraud in the past decade. These theories of systematic fraud are really unfounded fears being exploited to threaten the franchise.”
Voter impersonation at the polls, the only incident that could be prevented by restrictive voter ID laws, is virtually nonexistent in the US. Most instances of improper voting involve registration and eligibility issues, none of which would be prevented by a state photo ID restriction. One academic study found photo ID restrictions would prevent less than one fraudulent vote for every 1,000 legitimate voters who would be excluded from voting by the requirement.
Also important to keep in mind is the cost of implementing the poll tax system. In Minnesota, state officials estimated the overall first-year costs to be $32.9 million statewide, the bulk of that, $29 million, going toward new poll books that would be available at polling places, according to a Humphrey Institute study. About 85 percent of the cost would be paid by local governments. The report suggests there may be hidden costs, too. For example, Indiana expected to spend about $700,000 for additional ID cards when it enacted its law but ended up spending $10 million.
All that, to make it HARDER for people to vote.
My father used to pay the YEARLY Poll tax.
People that have no transportation or stuck in the boonies are not likely to be voters, don’t have ONE person to give them a ride can’t make it to the polls anyway and are so few as to be laughable. You’re picking this bone clean because you adhere to a conspiracy (as shown by quoting the NYT, the most liberal,often wrong, will only print a retraction days later on page 13 newspaper on earth)!! So an irrelevant copy and paste diatribe about some tangent to my original comment is really desperate. I simply stated that a one time charge for a MULTI USE document Can in NO way be compared to a YEARLY fee designed for voting. Simple in it’s simplicity. Nothing more can be analyzed from it. Stop overthinking it. but if you must, then discuss it with spruce dweller, not me.
It’s not up to you to decide that, since you think rural people or people lacking transportation might not vote anyway, MORE obstacles ought to be placed between them and voting.
As a Supreme Court document attests, “To introduce wealth or payment of a fee as a measure of a voter’s qualifications is to introduce a capricious or irrelevant factor. The degree of the discrimination is irrelevant. In this context — that is, as a condition of obtaining a ballot — the requirement of fee paying causes an “invidious” discrimination (Skinner v. Oklahoma, 316 U. S. 535, 316 U. S. 541) that runs afoul of the Equal Protection Clause. ” [http://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/383/663/case.html]
Hmm. Maine is largely rural. It’s one of the oldest sates in the union. See a trend froming in the vindictive minds of the Rs?
Photo IDs are a national question presently left up to the states. I don’t think that R’s or D’s are particularly concerned about Maine’s tiny population’s affect on the National election. Mass has 3 times the number of licensed drivers than the total of Maine’s population. Maybe that’s why the states are left to battle it out at home. Every state has its own situation.
I think lizdavies and sprucy are one and the same!
sometimes a picture says it better than words can… http://imgur.com/oMZaS
When no ID is required how can fraud be detected?
The most egregious voter fraud in Maine was perpetrated when Democrat legiscritter for life John Martin’s two chief lackeys were caught hiding a box of uncounted ballots. Fortunately they were jailed for it THAT time. I’m sure that was the only instance of anything like that EVER happening, and in the intervening years there has been NO other vote fraud…or maybe they just got better at it.
You also posted this on the other, more realistic article and I’ll point out that was voter/voting fraud, not voter ID fraud. An ID card would have had no effect on this atrocity one way or another.
And I’ll point out again that if there is no ID requirement then how can voter ID fraud be detected?
That surely sums up the situation, people are seeing what isn’t there by statistics!
Isn’t propaganda surely a mysterious force!
There is no voter fraud, only mistakes. So says the other article.
Wow. The Rs/TPers have managed to snow John/Jane Q. Citizen with their false propaganda. Check out the cited related article, “Voter Fraud Nearly Nonexistent.”