GOP push vs. voter fraud based in rumor, not reality

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From left, precinct worker Pat Bartels helps Julie Jacobs sign in to vote as she balances her daughter Brooklyn, 1, on Tuesday, May 6, 2008, at the YMCA in Garrett, Ind. Voters in Indiana and North Carolina crowded polling places Tuesday as they sought to settle the largest remaining contests in the Democratic presidential nomination struggle between Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton. (AP Photo, The Journal Gazette/Samuel Hoffman) ** NEWS-SENTINEL OUT **

Updated: November 10, 2011 10:49AM

This summer, Ohio’s Republican Secretary of State Jon Husted did something remarkable: He spoke out against his own party’s legislative proposal requiring voters to present photo IDs at polling places.

Husted said he would “rather have no bill than one with a rigid photo identification provision that does little to protect against fraud and excludes legally registered voters’ ballots from counting.”

Husted’s position is a stark contrast to a national Republican drive to pass voter ID requirements. According to the Brennan Center for Justice, 38 states considered some type of voter ID and/or citizenship requirement in their last legislative session. Seven passed them, bringing the total with such laws to 15.

Whether supported by either party, this unprecedented push relies on two falsehoods: that voter fraud is rampant and that every honest voter has a driver’s license. The first premise, that voter fraud is rampant, draws attention after rumors and accusations each Election Day. But how many accusations produce actual evidence? Incredibly few. This is because states already establish identity during the registration process through requiring identification or cross-referencing driving records.

In Illinois, when someone’s identity is not established before Election Day, that particular voter must show a form of ID at the polling place. But there is no need to slow down voting and place an unnecessary burden on an entire polling place when most voters established their identity long ago, often voting in the same place for decades.

The process works, which today’s debate ignores. That is why Georgia could pass voter ID requirements despite their former secretary of state’s inability to recount a single case of voter impersonation during her time in office. According to the Coalition on Homelessness and Housing in Ohio and the League of Women Voters, out of more than 9 million ballots cast in Ohio during the 2002 and 2004 elections only four ineligible people cast, or tried to cast a ballot.

Weigh that against the millions of Americans who will lose the right to vote because they do not have the requisite photo ID. Estimates vary, but the League of Women Voters projects that 11 percent — 21 million Americans — do not have photo identification. That is more than the entire populations of Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Kentucky combined. On a state level, there are more than 558,000 potential voters in Wisconsin who do not have the required ID. In Georgia, 650,000 registered voters do not have photos IDs.

Common sense says that there is likely someone in every extended family who fails to meet photo ID requirements. Ask yourself how many senior citizens stop driving and let their licenses expire? How many college students move every year without updating their driver’s licenses? How many impoverished Americans or city dwellers have never had a car or a license?

In 2008, 12 elderly nuns were denied ballots in Indiana because none possessed a driver’s license or state ID.

How many will be denied? Far too many. There is a balance between security and accessibility, which photo ID proponents flagrantly disregard.

Our goal is not to prevent democracy, but to protect it. We must not allow their misguided efforts to prevail. Otherwise, for the first time in generations, voting rights in America will diminish.

David Orr is the Cook County clerk.