VOTING IS A FUNDAMENTAL RIGHT, NOT A PRIVILEGE
Nothing is more fundamental to our democracy than the right to vote.
The right to vote is protected by more constitutional amendments - the 1st, 14th, 15th, 19th, 24th and 26th - than any other right we enjoy as Americans.
There are additional federal and state statutes which guarantee and protect voting rights, as well as declarations by the Supreme Court that the right to vote is fundamental because it is protective of all our other rights.
NO ELIGIBLE CITIZEN SHOULD HAVE TO PAY TO VOTE
Requiring voters to obtain an ID in order to vote is tantamount to a poll tax. Although some states issue IDs for free, the birth certificates, passports, or other documents required to obtain a government-issued ID cost money, and many Americans simply cannot afford to pay for them.
In addition, states incur sizable costs when providing IDs to voters who do not have them. Given the financial strain many states already are experiencing, this is an unnecessary allocation of taxpayer dollars.
VOTER ID LAWS ARE DISCRIMINATORY
Voter ID laws have a disproportionate and unfair impact on low-income individuals, racial and ethnic minority voters, students, senior citizens, voters with disabilities and others who do not have a government-issued ID or the money to acquire one.
The Supreme Court has held that a state cannot value one person’s vote over another and that is exactly what these laws do.
Research shows that 11% of US citizens – or more than 21 million Americans -- do not have government-issued photo identification.
As many as 25% of African American citizens of voting age do not have a government-issued photo ID, compared to only 8% of their white counterparts.
18% of Americans over the age of 65 (or 6 million senior citizens) do not have a government-issued photo ID.
In 2008, it was widely reported that Indiana’s voter ID law disfranchised 12 nuns who were trying to vote in the primary election. The nuns were all over 80 years old, all had a history of voting in past elections, and none of them drove. Their limited mobility made it difficult for them to get an ID.
VOTER ID REQUIREMENTS ARE A SOLUTION IN SEARCH OF A PROBLEM
- In-person fraud is vanishingly rare. A recent study found that, since 2000, there were only 31 credible allegations of voter impersonation – the only type of fraud that photo IDs could prevent – during a period of time in which over 1 billion ballots were cast.9
- Identified instances of “fraud” are honest mistakes. So-called cases of in-person impersonation voter “fraud” are almost always the product of an elections worker or a voter making an honest mistake, and that even these mistakes are extremely infrequent.10
- Voter ID laws are a waste of taxpayer dollars. States incur sizeable costs when implementing voter ID laws, including the cost of educating the public, training poll workers, and providing IDs to voters.
- Texas spent nearly $2 million on voter education and outreach efforts following passage of its Voter ID law.11
- Indiana spent over $10 million to produce free ID cards between 2007 and 2010.12
There is only one motivation for imposing burdens on voting that are ostensibly designed to discourage voter-impersonation fraud, if there is no actual danger of such fraud, and that is to discourage voting by persons likely to vote against the party responsible for imposing the burden.
~ Reagan-appointed Judge Richard Posner
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