V O T I N G R I G H T S in 2013 — Gov. McDonnell Caves In to Partisans

By Story of America Team

I recently wrote that “Rebranding the Republican party” and voter suppression are incompatible. Last year, Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell (R) seemed to agree. But this week he changed his mind about that to the surprise of many, including me.

gov-bob-mcdonnell.jpgIn 2012, McDonnell was hounded by members of his party to sign a bill restricting the right to vote in a crucial election year. He did, but he also issued an executive order to protect citizens’ right to vote by allowing other forms of identification, such as a utility bill, to be accepted. An estimated 870,000 Virginians do not have, and may not be able to afford the time and expense to acquire, a government-issued ID. McDonnell also ordered voter registration cards, which were also accepted at polling places in 2012, sent to every registered voter.

Republican lawmakers cried foul, and when the 2012 election produced zero cases of voter impersonation (success), but, a Barack Obama victory in the commonwealth (failure?), they passed a new bill to do away with the Governor’s voter-protection measures.

Many expected McDonnell to veto the bill in order to uphold his authority and his legacy as governor, and, to position himself as a mainstream candidate, viable for higher office. Unfortunately, McDonnell has backed down, and on the last day he could have done so, signed the more restrictive voter ID bill into law.

In the face of a very expensive media campaign about voter fraud — which aired mostly on Fox News and other Republican media outlets starting in 2009 — majorities of polling respondents say they support ID requirements to protect the integrity of our elections. But then we have the facts to deal with. For instance, the fact that there have been almost no documented cases of voter impersonation fraud, which is the only kind of fraud that voter ID laws could address. You are more likely to be struck by lightning than be a victim of voter-impersonation fraud. Meanwhile, the documented cases of actual voter fraud occur with absentee ballots, or in voter registration fraud such this case in Virginia in 2012. But bills that addressed real and actual problems with Virginia elections — such as long lines at the polls (see below) — could not make it through committees in the Republican-controlled General Assembly.

Reagan George, a Tea Party Republican and active proponent of voter ID laws in Virginia, acknowledged when we interviewed him that no actual cases of voter impersonation have been documented in Virginia. (If lawmakers asked for $2,000,000 of taxpayer money to address a problem, wouldn’t you want to see at least one documented case of that problem before that money was spent? And that’s just the price tag for the 2012 version of this law). But Mr. George said that voter-impersonation fraud might occur if we don’t pass laws to prevent it: “My bank has never been robbed… does that mean the bank shouldn’t have a vault?”

But that is assuming that stopping voter impersonation is the real intention. A more cynical intention might have to do with the fact that hundreds of thousands of American citizens and legal voters in Virginia, and millions across the United States, will have their voting rights systematically abridged by such restrictions, and, they are just the types of voters that Republicans would prefer to see discouraged enough that they might stay home. Consider this video about Augustine Carter, an 85-year-old woman who went through hell and high water in order to get a photo ID despite the fact that she had been voting in the United States for 60 years. 

If the estimate of 870,000 Virginians lacking government-issued IDs is accurate, I doubt that many of them possess the determination that this woman did, hiring a genealogist and pulling census records from 1940 to prove her citizenship. According to the Richmond Times-Dispatch, lawmakers expect less than 5,000 people to obtain voter ID’s in response to this law. Their expectation is my fear. Whatever the number is, most of these people will simply be removed from our democracy. Perhaps Ms. Carter’s story will inspire a higher percentage of them to reacquire their right to vote. But if even one American citizen is disenfranchised to suit the electoral goals of a major political party, that is one citizen too many.
Story of America‘s interest in voting rights increased when we witnessed and filmed the five-hour ordeal voters in Prince William County had to endure — as it happened, in the most heavily African American precinct in the most diverse district of one of Virginia’s most diverse counties.

It’s a shame that legislators in Virginia are so focused on fixing the non-existent, but thoroughly advertised “problem” of voter fraud, but not preventing real and actual flaws in Virginia elections, like long lines at the polls. On the one hand, their action abridges the People’s right to vote. On the other hand, their inaction abridges the People’s right to vote. And in both cases, it’s the same people who suffer, the same people who have always suffered when political outcome, not democratic principles, govern our approach to voting rights.

E tu, North Carolina?

On March 13, 2013, five experts in the field of voter ID legislation spoke in a hearing before North Carolina lawmakers, less than 24 hours after 70 people spoke out against upcoming legislation intended to require voters to show photo identification before voting (14 people spoke in favor of the law).

The House Elections Committee says it wants to collect as much input as possible before drafting a voter ID bill, which Republican lawmakers are eager to pass.

This video contains two of the five opening statements by Allison Riggs of the Southern Coalition for Social Justice, and Hans von Spakovsky of the Heritage Foundation. We’ll be posting more from this hearing soon.

Story of America Team