Voter ID laws are not unjust and they also do not prevent fraud. Both of these things are true and it’s an example of an entirely pointless, nonsensical debate that we should not be wasting our energies on.
California state and local politicians have not yet received the memo, however, seeing as the state Senate passed Senate Bill 1174 in direct opposition to Huntington Beach approving voter ID requirements.
Legislators who oppose ID requirements will claim that such laws are unjust because they disproportionately affect low-income and minority voters and reduce their turnout. Some research suggests that voter ID laws modestly reduce turnout among minorities and particularly Black voters. A lot of other research suggests that it doesn’t affect turnout at all.
Even if we assume that it does marginally reduce turnout among minorities, a policy having a disparate impact on a particular group does not necessarily make it unjust.
Getting an ID is one of the most basic things you can do as an adult. You need an ID for everything from driving, to buying alcohol, opening a bank account, applying for the food stamps and welfare that these poor people need, and much more. In the minds of progressives, when was the bar set so low for minorities that they would think that it’s an excessive burden for them to obtain an ID?
A certain portion of the adult population will fail to have a non-expired ID. In that case, they won’t drive, buy alcohol or vote. They cost about $30 in California. If you don’t have $30 for an ID then getting out to vote is the least of your concerns. Progressives like to include things like “cost of transportation” as part of the burden one needs to meet to acquire an ID. Do we think that a couple of dollars in bus fare is stopping Brown and Black people from getting to a DMV? Maybe it’s the 14 jobs they have to have to make ends meet?
It’s about the most condescending, insulting thing to hear that minorities can’t get IDs, for whatever reason, or that it’s too much to expect of them.
Irrespective of whether we should implement ID requirements, the bare minimum you could expect from a voting-age citizen is for them to have an ID if not a driver’s license, particularly when we expect them to make decisions about what our future is going to look like.
On the other hand, it’s plainly clear that voter ID laws also do nothing to stop fraud. One of the reasons this is the case is that voter impersonation is just about the worst, least efficient way to impact an election. Even mail-in voting fraud, which is much more inviting for would-be fraudsters and not the target of most ID laws, is exceedingly rare.
With just a bit of research, people like Gregg Abbott and Donald Trump who claim that voter fraud is rampant would have immediate access to all of the information I have provided. They’re either woefully misinformed or just lying about how common voter fraud is.
Some Democrats will claim that Republicans push for ID requirements because they wish to suppress Black and Hispanic voters. People who don’t have IDs have no desire to vote anyway. If they did, and it required an ID, they could very easily make their way over to their local DMV and buy one. That’s why the evidence suggests that voter ID laws have no appreciable impact on turnout. Social issues often involve many complexities, but not this time — it’s really that simple.
If you’re willing to go through life without an up-to-date ID, then you’re also willing to go without many of the other goods and services where an ID is required. When you don’t have a bank account and you don’t drive, what would you care about whether some bill that you’ve probably never heard of gets passed.
According to some estimates, roughly 80% of the public supports voter ID laws. If they want it, let them have it. It makes no difference at all — not even to the public’s perception of the legitimacy of elections, contrary to what some conservatives claim.
Rafael Perez is a doctoral candidate in philosophy at the University of Rochester. You can reach him at [email protected].