The Supreme Court’s recent decision to validate an Indiana state voter ID law has many decrying the ruling as a blow to civil liberties and privacy concerns. The Court stuck to a standard for many years prohibiting any impediments placed in the way of voting unless the potential dangers they meant to protect against outweighed the negatives of the restrictions themselves.
In the 6-3 decision on the cases of Crawford v. Marion County Election Board and Indiana Democratic Party v. Rokita, the Court finally seemed convinced that the scales had tipped in the direction of protections. Justice Stevens was an unexpected member of the prevailing camp within the Court. In his majority opinion, he wrote, “Not only is the risk of voter fraud real but . . . it could affect the outcome of a close election.” He went on to assert that the need for photo identification was not “excessively burdensome” on any group of voters.
Few journalists hailed the ruling favorably. In Slate, Marty Lederman argued, “The law is Unconstitutional because it imposes burdens on voting without advancing any governmental interest.” That seems almost tame compared to some of his colleagues.
“Democracy was the big loser . . . Monday,” stormed the New York Times. The Washington Post argued a position, advanced by many, that the level of voter ID fraud at the polls was too insignificant to merit such an extreme response. “Most voter fraud is committed through absentee ballots,” they noted. The Los Angels Times struck another common theme and lamented the decision seemed at odds with past precedent. They found the ruling “particularly dismaying” and feared the Court “encourages mischief and undermines its great history as an engine of democracy.”
The New York Times could not help observing, with a sardonic tone, that back in 2000 the Supreme Court was willing to move heaven and earth to defend a single individual, when George W. Bush charged his equal protection rights were being denied by a state election system in Bush v. Gore.
Cynthia Tucker, columnist for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, was especially damning, not only of the ruling itself but the forces that advocate voter ID lawsin the first place. “Rather than trying to intimidate educated, affluent voters of color – who are well-versed in voting rights – the laws target a smaller number of poor and less-educated voters, those less likely to have a driver's license,” she writes. “Since those voters tend to favor Democrats, discouraging them from voting can help Republicans.”
Whether you agree or disagree that voter ID fraud is a real problem, there is little question that Indiana’s law is conspicuously burdensome on non-drivers. It allows voters without government-issued photo IDs to cast provisional ballots at the polls but then requires them to travel to their county courthouses within ten days to file affidavits attesting to their identify or their votes are set aside. Such travel can be difficult enough for individuals lacking driving privileges but many are also too poor to afford birth certificates or other documentation necessary to prove their identity.
No matter how much I dislike the Indiana law, as well as those adopted by other states, the Supreme Court has validated their practice and we are likely only to see a proliferation of such restrictions in additional states. In light of that, I am thinking the time may have come to support yet another recent trend that many disparage on the grounds of civil liberties and privacy. I speak of a national ID card.
The REAL ID Act has already been passed by Congress and signed into law by President Bush back in 2005, although its implementation has been postponed several times. The act does not define a new, separate card but rather imposes standards on state-issued identification cards, such as driver’s licenses, to make them consistent and acceptable anywhere in the nation.
The law defines what data must be included on the card, what documentation must be presented before a card can be issued, and how states must share their data. Under REAL ID, a card must include, at a minimum, the person's full legal name, signature, address, date of birth, gender, unique identification number, facial photograph, and some physical security features designed to prevent tampering, counterfeiting, or duplication of the document for fraudulent purposes.
The REAL ID Act currently stipulates, “a Federal agency may not accept, for any official purpose, a driver's license or identification card issued by a state to any person unless the state is meeting [REAL ID] requirements” as of 2011. All persons born on or after December 1, 1964, must obtain a REAL ID by 2014. Those born earlier must obtain a REAL ID by 2017.
Opponents of such cards have pithily and clairvoyantly warned that the government will not issue such cards without subsequently beginning to find numerous reasons to compel citizens to produce them. The Supreme Court appears to have just defined the first such Constitutional compulsion. To that end, civil libertarians face few options. Both voter ID laws and national ID cards are here for the foreseeable future. Unable to avoid either, let us ensure the latter keeps the former from disenfranchising as few people as possible by mandating that such IDs must be provided at government expense to anybody requesting them.
My Ohio driver’s license is set to expire in May. If I go to a Bureau of Motor Vehicles to renew it, I can expect to pay $24.00. I have no qualms with this. I consider driving a privilege and hope the state will use the money, as it does for my car annual registration and plates, to improve roads and other driving-related benefits. My opinion on this does not waver regardless of whether my license also serves as my national ID card.
However, I must also go to the BMV to acquire a state identification card and I must pay a sum of $8.50 for this service. Eliminating this expense is critical. If a national ID card will protect society as a whole, whether at the polls or elsewhere, then society as a whole should bear the expense of ensuring even its least fortunate segments, such as the disabled, elderly, and those living in poverty, can acquire and use them without undue burden. The expense necessary to research and authenticate citizenship or legal residence as well as an individual’s primary place of residence may also have to be (partially) borne by the government.
Transportation issues also require individuals be able to apply for and obtain such REAL ID cards via the Internet or by mail.
Civil libertarians are no doubt shaking their heads sadly at me and arguing we must inflexibly resist all such measures. Any seeming compliance or compromise will denote acceptance and put us on the slippery slop to erosion of further rights. I cannot say I think this is a great answer but then this is not much of a great situation. My only counter is that in having failed to stop an evil, the next logical step is to neutralize its poison to the greatest extent possible.
The best answer to voter ID laws, besides their eventual repeal, are national ID cards that are obtainable by and affordable for all Americans.
