608,000 - 9
Keeping score with texas' voter id law
July 23, 2016 - We all remember cinema’s greatest villain, recorded for all time in the John Hughes’ classic, The Breakfast Club. Anthony Michael Hall’s character Brian is sent to detention for the odious crime of purchasing a fake id. He eventually confesses that he has run afoul of Johnny Law for the most devilish reason imaginable. He’s purchased a fake driver’s license that claims he is 68 so he can skirt the voter id laws of Illinois and illegally vote in the upcoming 1986 midterm elections. You may also remember this as the day America’s innocence was lost forever.
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No doubt it was this scene that later spurred legislators across America to strengthen voter id laws lest America’s youth follow the brash example of the teen heartthrobs in the Brat Pack. And for the past two decades, the Heritage Foundation has been keeping track of voter fraud and has found over 300 examples of fraudulent voting. Clearly something needs to be done here.
To combat this crime wave, Texas passed what many consider to be the most restrictive voter id law in the country—even if you are already registered to vote, you must bring one of the following identifications with you to the polling place: a driver’s license, passport, military ID card, or concealed-handgun license. On Wednesday, however, a federal appeals court put the kibosh on this law. Lawsuits from civil rights groups were able to show that as many as 608,000 registered voters in Texas did not have any of those 4 forms of identification, and that a disproportionate number of those 608,000 people were black or Hispanic. Texas Governor Jim Abbott was quick to rebuke the court’s ruling, and said in a statement that “voter fraud is real, and it undermines the integrity of the election process.” |
One of these people is a dirty rotten vote faker.
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To be clear, there have been instances of voter fraud in Texas, and across the country, and it’s not always as innocent as that time in The Breakfast Club. In 2015, for example, Francisco “Frankie” Garcia and three others were convicted of buying votes during the Donna School Board election. They bribed voters with cash, cigarettes, beer, and small bags of cocaine. Man, the junior prom at Donna North High School must be off the hook!
But the Governor's insistence that voter fraud exists ignores the fact that the voter id law is an incredible over reaction. That Heritage Foundation study found only 9 cases of voter fraud in Texas over the past 20 years, but the voter id law will prevent 608,000 voters from casting ballots this year alone. Even if you think there are many more cases of fraud that are going unnoticed or that the number of disenfranchised voters is exaggerated, we are still nowhere near the same ballpark.
If Texas is looking for guidance on how to proceed, they should look around the country to the 32 other states that have voter id laws. From red states like Idaho and Alabama to blue states like Washington and Connecticut, these states allow voters to use a wider range of identification so that minority and poor voters aren’t left in the lurch. Drawing a narrow list of acceptable identification cards comes dangerously close to imposing a poll tax on voters. When this is coupled with the obvious impact the law has had on minority and disadvantaged groups, we've left the world of John Hughes films and entered the realm of the Jim Crow south.
We were going to end with another Breakfast Club reference (i.e., it doesn’t take a brain, or a jock, or a basket case, or a princess, or a criminal to see that this voter id law is suppressing voter turnout) but the analogy’s kind of gotten away from us. Cue the music.
But the Governor's insistence that voter fraud exists ignores the fact that the voter id law is an incredible over reaction. That Heritage Foundation study found only 9 cases of voter fraud in Texas over the past 20 years, but the voter id law will prevent 608,000 voters from casting ballots this year alone. Even if you think there are many more cases of fraud that are going unnoticed or that the number of disenfranchised voters is exaggerated, we are still nowhere near the same ballpark.
If Texas is looking for guidance on how to proceed, they should look around the country to the 32 other states that have voter id laws. From red states like Idaho and Alabama to blue states like Washington and Connecticut, these states allow voters to use a wider range of identification so that minority and poor voters aren’t left in the lurch. Drawing a narrow list of acceptable identification cards comes dangerously close to imposing a poll tax on voters. When this is coupled with the obvious impact the law has had on minority and disadvantaged groups, we've left the world of John Hughes films and entered the realm of the Jim Crow south.
We were going to end with another Breakfast Club reference (i.e., it doesn’t take a brain, or a jock, or a basket case, or a princess, or a criminal to see that this voter id law is suppressing voter turnout) but the analogy’s kind of gotten away from us. Cue the music.