United States | Voter identification

First, show your face

Now South Carolina, too, wants voters to produce photo ID

|COLUMBIA

RARE is the governor so passionate about a piece of legislation that she offers to turn chauffeur. Yet that is just what Nikki Haley, South Carolina's governor, did after hearing complaints about a bill passed by the state legislature requiring voters to show a government-issued photo ID. More than 178,000 registered voters in South Carolina lack such formal identification. Opponents of the bill claim it discriminates against black and poor voters. “Find me those people that think that this is invading their rights,” Mrs Haley said tartly, responding to such claims, “and I will go take them to the DMV [the Department of Motor Vehicles, which issues driving licences with photographs] myself.” In the end, Mrs Haley did not drive anyone anywhere, though she has ordered the state to ferry voters without ID to the DMV free of charge on September 28th.

Even that offer may be moot. Under the terms of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA), South Carolina, along with part or all of 15 other (mostly Southern) states, must submit changes to its election practices to the Justice Department. In August the department requested additional information from the state about how it intends to implement the law. Some have interpreted this request as a sign that the department has reservations about the new law, and may strike it down for violating the VRA.

Yet South Carolina is just one of 34 states to consider bills to strengthen voter-ID requirements in 2011. Currently only two states, Georgia and Indiana, require voters to show photo ID when they go to vote at polling stations. But Kansas, Tennessee, Wisconsin and, pending the Justice Department's approval, South Carolina and Texas will all probably have such laws in place in time for next year's presidential primaries.

Supporters contend these laws are simply meant to ensure the integrity of the voting process. If Americans must show a photo ID to board a plane or buy a beer, they can easily show one to vote. In 2008 the Supreme Court agreed, denying a challenge to Indiana's law, and ruling that an ID requirement does not constitute an undue burden.

But the sort of deception that showing a government-issued photo ID would prevent—voter-impersonation fraud, in which one person on the voter rolls tries to vote as someone else—is very rare. Too rare, say some opponents, to justify erecting barriers that will disproportionately disenfranchise poor, young and minority voters, who tend to support Democrats. Tova Wang, a fellow at Demos, a public-policy think-tank, notes that this new push for stronger voter-ID laws occurred—suspiciously enough—after Republican takeovers of state legislatures and governorships in 2010. No member of South Carolina's legislative black caucus supported its photo-ID law, and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) claims that the state “ignored significant testimony from opponents of the bill regarding its racial impact…[and] may have enacted the requirement with the intent to discriminate against minorities.”

Whatever their intent, these laws impose significant costs on states. Nationally, around 11% of registered voters lack government-issued photo IDs. States cannot charge for IDs required to vote (that would be a de facto poll tax). They must spend time and money ensuring that voters know about the new requirements and can get their IDs easily. Still, a growing number of states seem to consider that money well spent.

This article appeared in the United States section of the print edition under the headline "First, show your face"

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From the September 17th 2011 edition

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