Framing the Discussion about Voter ID -- An Analysis of the House Debate about HR 4844

Voter ID in the House: Arguments and Attitude
Posted: 9/21/06

By Bob Bauer

http://www.moresoftmoneyhardlaw.com/updates/election_administration.html?AID=821

Supporters of the ID requirement approved yesterday by the House did put much effort into the task of making their case. They assumed that this was not necessary: the proposal was “common sense”, and both the people and the elites stood behind it. Polls showed some 81% public support; ID had been included among the recommendations of the Carter-Baker Commission. And anyone still unconvinced could be offered the analogy to identification required for the purchase of liquor and the operation of a car. Only one seemingly novel argument, tried out by Vern Ehlers, was introduced in the debate, and this was the suggestion, counter-intuitive but surely reassuring to some, that the imposition of the ID requirement would improve turnout, motivating voters discouraged by the prospect of fraud to confidently head for their polling place.

That these arguments are not serious does not mean that they should not be taken seriously. Each one was chosen for a reason, and each is revealing in some way; and it is also useful to consider why other reasons which might have really moved the sponsors were carefully omitted. The explanations tendered were the public ones, meant for polite society.

The public supports it. Putting to one side the question of which polls, using which questions, will produce particular results, this argument is always popular with the ranks of the elected. In voting rights, it is surely odious to claim that the voting rights of some should depend on the polled preferences of the majority.

The elites support it. In firm agreement with the general public are experts and leaders, Carter and Baker and those convened to advise them, who are said to have endorsed this ID proposal. This is in part—in material part—misrepresentation, to the extent that it is wrong to suggest these experts have endorsed this legislation, constructed in this way and introduced separate and apart from the other, mutually interdependent components of electoral reform of which ID is only one.

But there is only so much room here to reproach Congressional ID supporters: Commission reports are regularly picked through for this piece and that that can be removed from the clutter and used. It is a cost of Commission work (and of a lot of policy work); and the political use made here of Carter-Baker is one of the foreseeable risks of its choice of recommendations. Carter-Baker chose a political path, and its politics have caught up with it.

It’s just like other requirements of daily life. Like getting a license and driving a car: but it is not like either. This is a sharp move in the argument, one that can slip quickly by before its meaning—and fundamental honesty—is fully appreciated. Voting here is reduced in stature from a right to a regulated activity like many others, made available under strict terms and conditions set within the broad discretion of the state. It becomes a “privilege”, not a right, as observers yesterday on the election law listserv astutely noted and as ID supporters are careful never to admit explicitly. Taken together with the expectation that “public support” also decisively favors it, it should be clear what a dangerous argument this is.

These are the principal arguments as stated by the leading supporters of the requirement, the Republican leadership in particular. The Ehlers forecast of improved turnout, looney on its face, adds little more than a touch of bleak humor. There remains the unsaid, which may matter the most.

The expected political gain will go publicly unmentioned, but the (mostly) party-line vote says it all. ID advocates anticipate that the law will have an effect on electoral outcomes, to their advantage, and the minority rightly assumes the same. Advocates won’t say much, either, about the value to them of this argument now, at the time that other “security” measures are paraded across the House and Senate floors in the closing weeks of an election year session.

And then, running deep beneath all this but also unmentionable, are the beliefs about who will prove worthy of voting. As noted here yesterday, many advocates of ID hold that the requirement of maintaining or arranging for identification—and of having it at hand when voting—helps to separate the responsible from the irresponsible citizens, which divides the responsible from the irresponsible, and therefore the undesirable, vote.

Some of this thinking invades other current arguments about election law reform, including felon disenfranchisement, but it also shows up in the case made against devices, such as the proposed lottery in Arizona, to increase turnout. Jonah Goldberg has written about the undesirability of encouraging “Beavis and Butt-head” voters eligible in theory but ignorant and irresponsible and not to be entrusted with a share in our collective decision-making. (Thanks to Rick Hasen for connecting me to this reference). By much the same reasoning, voter ID requirements are expected to pose organizational and other problems for some otherwise qualified voters, and this is thought fair enough: if these voters are unable to manage this requirement, it is believed, we are better off without their vote.

This is how far we have traveled along the road to election law reform: electoral breakdown, in a system controlled by partisans for their own advantage but without serious accountability, and the House now answers with some fresh burdens on voters least able to bear them, treating them with contempt.