Voter ID – what’s going on?
Tomorrow it looks like the Texas Senate will take up the infamous Voter ID bill (SB 362) on the floor of the Senate in a move called Committee of the Whole Senate. This is happening after the Senate voted at the beginning of the session to bypass normal process of a 2/3 vote for passage for a simple majority. The real question on this bill centers on what problem is it really trying to solve and why is it so important that it trumps all other business of the Senate such as tuition reform and other issues facing Texans. Interested parties can sign up and provide testimony to the Senate according to process.
One of the key issues the bill is supposed to address revolves around voter fraud. However, when asked to provide evidence of this fraud AG Greg Abbott failed to pass along any known evidence of the fraud citing a clerical error on the request. Whatever the outcome it is apparent that Voter ID will be voted on by a Committee of the Whole Senate tomorrow and will most likely pass with the simple majority necessary and move on to the House.
So what is the real issue with Voter ID and why do we have partisan fights over this bill? From the Democrat side it could possible place additional barriers to voting on the poor and elderly who typically do not have drivers license or cannot afford to obtain an official ID. From that perspective Voter ID disenfranchises a class of individual from the election process. From the Republican side it puts in place controls to prevent voter fraud where individuals obtained a voter registration card through false pretenses.
The real question is whether the amount of fraud that is prevented supercedes the amount of disenfranchised voters inconvenienced by the bill. Most likely that is not the case and this bill seeks to put additional barriers to voting. Whatever might be the case this is sure to become a very contentious bill in either side of the legislature this year.
While I respect your concerns about voters being unable to vote, there are sufficent reports in news media from the last several nationwide elections to demonstrate that voter integrity is a serious issue – I would assert that whether or not voter frauds has demonstrably happened here is irrelevant. Of course, as you said, the question is really “whether the amount of fraud that is prevented supercedes the amount of disenfranchised voters inconvenienced by the bill.” You think the fraud is not greater than the inconvenience, I think it is. Lacking a full formal and credible study acknowledged by all parties, this will continue to be a personality-driven debate. Respect during discussion is of course essential.
@Hyrum I agree we need a study to really tell what the issue is. One of the figures I heard come from the Senate floor is that 37% of adult Texans do not have a valid Texas ID. If the bill will address getting these citizens photo IDs then maybe we can come to a workable solution but I think there are a lot of issues to be dealt with first. I hate to have Texans disenfranchised from voting. I’m at the Castro Blogger Summit so I won’t have a chance to review the debate but I want to see what happened. Thanks for the respectful debate on this issue.