Yes, it does, in the same sense that any enforceable law prevents behavior better than a non-enforceable one.
Voter ID makes it easier to prosecute non-citizens that vote.
What would be better still is using that ink-stained thumb to affix a thumbprint to the registration book, a plan I have supported here since at least 2012.
Nobody is denying that Voter ID laws have some very small effect on voter fraud. The argument is that that very small benefit is outweighed by the burden it places on certain members of the electorate, and that many in charge of such laws see that burden as a benefit to the laws. Whether or not you think it is intentional, it’s indisputable that there’s a disparate impact, and that can’t be tolerated.
@ Anti voter id people
Assuming it’s true that requiring voter ids affects some groups more than others, do you believe that no matter what we do we can’t minimize those differentials to near zero?
I am fine with requiring voter id, but if cost is an issue, we can make the ids free, if access is the issue, we can issue state ids to kids in school that are still valid for voting when they turn of age. If they lose an id but have registered before, we can have finger print scanners to match up as a conformation of who you are. I don’t see why the issues and discrepancies can’t be minimized to near zero. What is so impossibly difficult about getting black people to have ids at the same rate as other groups? Why is that supposed to be so hard? Is it just beyond the scope of black people? Because honestly, that sounds kind of racist to me.
So why not call their bluff? If voter id laws are really about restricting vote access, say you support voter ids, but want to make them free, and have contingencies in case someone loses them (like being able to fingerprint at the polling place), further, insist that voter suppression tactics that are perfectly legal, like reducing polling stations in minority areas are not allowed and there is plenty of access to voting loations to avoid a repeat of Arizona.
Doing all of this and more, could call their bluff, require an id WITHOUT damping turnout, and removing a talking point that riles up their base. If it is not truly about wanting voter ids and more about voter suppression, then they will reject this and you can honestly say you are not against voter ids, with caveats, but they are because it was never about the ids. Take this issue off the table guys, honestly I don’t get the desire to fight over this issue.
If done right, I see it as a potential hassle removed. When I went to vote last week, We had to first get in a line to look up my address, that took about a minute while the lady looked things up and I signed my name. Had I had an id, it could just be scanned, or I could have a look up tied to a fingerprint as a backup, I don’t see why this would not speed up the voting process.
For what it’s worth, it’s not a racist issue primarily. I have full confidence that if there was an all-white neighborhood that consistently voted for Party X, and Party Y was in power, somebody in Party Y would float the idea of scheduling roadwork on election day in the X neighborhood, or giving them the older voting machines, or assigning the fussier poll workers, or any number of strategies to inconvenience the residents of that neighborhood.
It’s probably an easier sell to other members of Party Y if one could argue the people in the X neighborhood are genetically or culturally inferior in some way.
This kind of corruption is always a risk when elected officials get some control over who comprises the electorate.
Unfortunately, even with things like provisional ballots in place, turnout is still lowered, particularly when coupled with the fewer polling places in urban areas that the same states who like Voter ID laws also tend to like.
To the contrary, I can tolerate it just fine, the majority of the electorate can as well, and the Supreme Court can tolerate it just fine.
What you appear to mean is that YOU can’t tolerate it, but that’s not the basis for reversing laws in a representative democracy, is it?
Of course. May not be admirable, but is not racist.
Oh, I’m not inclined to be so gentle as to describe it as merely “not admirable”. It’s full-on corrupt and corrosive and if ever there was a felony that I think might justify taking away someone’s franchise for life, manipulating the election process would be it.
All these compromises have been proposed. All have been rejected.
The reason they’ve been rejected is that the purpose of the laws is to reduce Democratic voter turnout. And saying that isn’t a guess on my part–it’s the expressly stated goal of the voter ID laws. In fact, stating “the goal of reducing early voting is to reduce Democratic voting” was offered as a defense in the NC case (because it’s not illegal).
Earlier NC voting restriction laws had been upheld because they were demonstrated to be targeted at Democratic voters. When the NC laws were rejected it was because the judge had evidence that the voting restrictions were designed to target black voters, which is illegal, not Democrats, which is legal.
Any voter who can’t produce the necessary piece of paper can’t vote. If producing the necessary piece of paper requires many many hours and many hundreds of dollars (which it well might for somebody who doesn’t have a birth certificate on file), that’s more than a “slight additional burden”; for anybody who doesn’t happen to have many hundreds of dollars laying around, that is effective disenfranchisement.
When I needed to obtain a copy of my birth certificate a few years ago, it took nearly five months to get my home state’s vital statistics office to disgorge one. I had the $25 or so and a valid method of payment, my name is correctly spelled on the certificate, I already possessed photo ID to prove my eligibility to order it–there was no real reason it should have taken so long. It was just a slow office and a bureaucrat who dropped the ball. Had I needed a birth certificate for an election during those five months, though, how would I NOT have been disenfranchised? [My state requires a birth certificate or other evidence of citizenship to register to vote and to obtain a driver’s license or state-issued ID, and I need that license or one of selected other forms to actually vote.)
Now, imagine somebody who DOESN’T have a credit card, or doesn’t have the photo ID required to order a birth certificate, or whose name is misspelled or whose BC is misfiled. That doesn’t even get us to the people who don’t have BCs at all, either because they were born before their state required them, or they had strange parents, or the state foster care system dropped the ball). How “slight” is this “slight additional burden,” really?
Further, if you make one group feel better about the election, and another group feel worse and less confident about its fairness, how is that any better than leaving well enough alone?
The Election Office is perfectly willing to deliver the ballot to her, so her “polling place” could be her bedroom or the dining hall. (Well, technically they pay the Postal Service to deliver the ballot.) Absentee ballots have been a thing in the U.S. since before most people had drivers’ licenses.
We COULD do all sorts of those things, but we haven’t. The groups pushing for voter ID laws have taken no real steps to minimize the differentials because they have no real interest in doing so. When the goal is reducing the turnout of people likely to vote for Democrats, making it easier to obtain the IDs needed to vote is counterproductive.
Black people don’t have IDs at the same rate as many other groups precisely because access and cost are issues. Blacks are disproportionately likely to be living in poverty, and poverty makes it hard: IDs cost money that could be spent on food or shelter, people in poverty are more likely to suffer losses of ID (fewer safety deposit boxes, more evictions, etc.), people in poverty are less likely to be able to take a lot of time off work or travel all over the county to get to the right office(s), and so forth. These are all solvable problems, but first the folks in charge have to WANT to solve them. Therein lies the rub.
Bolding mine. Don’t most people keep their IDs in their wallets? What do safety deposit boxes or evictions have to with anything? 
What percentage of the population do you think keeps their birth certificates in their wallets?
I do. The Quebec government issues a wallet-size BC for that specific purpose.
Of course, I don’t count, not being part of the population under discussion.
If they have a driver’s license or nondriver ID, it’s probably in their wallet or purse. Other documents, however, are probably not there. In Kansas, for example, part of the voter ID law requires a birth certificate or certain other named documents (passport, certificate of citizenship, military discharge papers, final adoption decree, etc.) in order to register to vote. None of those are typically carried around; if you don’t have a safe deposit box, they’re probably in a box or drawer at home, where they are more vulnerable to theft, natural disaster, and other losses. (The old-style “landlord throws all your possessions into the front yard” style of eviction still happens in parts of this country.)
(While you could carry a wallet-size birth registration card, the police strongly advise against doing so, because of the potential for identity theft. Armed with your birth certificate, an enterprising thief can obtain a “replacement” Social Security card and driver’s license, and then has pretty much unfettered access to your bank accounts and credit.)
Cite as to fingerprints?
It’s possible Evil Economist is wrong, but if you know of an accepted fingerprint-based compromise, why not save time and just mention it.
I don’t accept your attempt to switch from “disenfranchisement,” to “effective disenfranchisement,” and then to further define how much difficulty is necessary to trigger the “effectiveness.” That’s a job I am certainly willing to let the let the legislature do, and the courts judge.
But not you. If you’ve lost at the legislature and then lost again trying to convince the courts that there is “effective disenfranchisement,” then you cannot keep claiming in debate that this “effective disenfranchisement” exists. Your side had the chance to prove this claim in court, and failed.
(If you succeeded, then I have no problem accepting the need to change that state law to be more accomodating.)
With all due respect to your understanding of the rules… what’s your state? I’d prefer to look at your state’s laws myself and then answer the question.
Because society is prepared to recognize one group’s concerns as being more reasonable. That’s how a representative democracy works.
Sure: and there was no Voter ID required to use absentee ballots, right?
So how does her case impinge on the ID requirement?
The case I think I know of comes from my memory and in my memory was opposed by Democrats. But if I just said that and someone asked me for a cite, I’d have to spend time searching for it and perhaps I’d discover that my memory was wrong, and then be attacked for making a claim that wasn’t true.
So I chose instead to ask what case he was thinking of. That way the person who made the claim has to support it, instead of the person who just has a vague memory that the claim might not be accurate.