Wisconsin Voter ID

Wisconsin Republicans have been working hard to pass a voter ID bill in the state legislature. This bill would require voters to show their driver's license or other valid picture ID as proof of identity at the polling booth. Democrats have opposed the bill, arguing that it would disenfranchise voters.

First off, the Republican strategy here is pretty silly. The governor already vetoed one version of the bill back in 2003, so this year they introduce essentially the same bill. Doyle again vetoes it, so they introduce it a third time, simply adding provisions to address felons voting. If they really wanted to get the thing passed, they would work with the Democrats on a compromise bill that Doyle has indicated he would sign. But, as the national Republican party showed in the ongoing debate over partial birth abortion, they are more interested in posturing than in actually doing something. "[T]he Republicans apparently don't see any value or gain in actually doing something."

I have to say I don't understand the idea that this kind of measure would alienate Democrat voters. I've never understood claims by Florida Democrats in 2000 that having police cars patrolling near polling booths in predominantly black neighborhoods suppressed the black (read Democratic) vote in those neighborhoods either. (That one actually sounds vaguely racist.) Maybe I'm just dense. Captain Ed addresses these kinds of objections. On the other hand, Folkbum presents the following statistics:

The photo ID states, in fact, rank 51 (HI), 50 (SC), 43 (GA), 30 (LA), 14 (FL) and, oddly, 8 (SD). States that require ID (not necessarily a photo) at the polls rank 49 (AR), 43 (AZ), 40 (AL), 39 (TN), 33 (KY), 29 (VA), 20 (MT), 18 (DE), 13 (MO), 9 (CO), and 6 (AK). In other words, the bottom half of states require ID far more often than the top.

Given the small number of photo ID states, this is not a totally convincing argument. Both groups show several low turnout states and some high.

In November, because I was registered before election day, I just walked up to the election workers, told them my name, helped them find it on the list (pretty easy since it's almost always first, but they still had to search) and then went to vote. At no point did I have to prove I was who I said I was. I could have easily said I was my neighbor. As a matter of principle, it doesn't seem too unreasonable to require some basic sort of proof of identity. That doesn't necessarily mean photo ID. The Democratic compromise is to include any "document with their voting addresses, such as a utility bill or a bank statement, or the last four digits of their Social Security numbers, in lieu of a photo ID." Republicans complain that this would water down the bill, but is the approach that Doyle says he would sign. It certainly seems like a good compromise: ensuring some minimal requirement of proof of identity without raising the bar too high. The Republican version would be the most rigid regulation of its type in the nation.

That's common sense. But the Republicans are arguing their measure as a means to address problems of voter fraud. As the Journal Sentinel writes, "It 'solves' a problem that no one is yet entirely certain exists." Again, this is a Republican pattern of behavior, most recently demonstrated at the national level with the bankruptcy bill which was supported on grounds that it would resolve abuse of the bankruptcy system, abuse for which no one actually had documentation. Another common sense idea would be to actually understand a problem before trying to solve it.