I think we’re going to have start calling these Voter ID laws something more memorable. I prefer “Jim Crow-Lite Laws” because, despite a small degree of hyperbole, the aim of these laws is to address the fact that blacks and Latinos don’t vote for Republicans by making it so a substantial portion of blacks and Latinos cannot vote at all. These Jim Crow-Lite laws will begin passing in every state in the country where the Republicans have the power to ram them through. They hope it will buy them a little extra time as a viable political party.
I’ve talked to a lot of people about Voter ID laws over the years and I can tell you that suburban Americans just don’t understand how someone can go through life without a state-issued picture ID. They think it’s totally reasonable to make it a requirement that someone present a state-issued picture ID at the polls if they want to vote. But, here’s the reality:
According to the South Carolina State Elections Commission, “roughly 180,000 of South Carolina’s registered voters have neither a state-issued driver’s license nor photo ID.” Although the bill waives the five dollar fee for a state ID for residents older than 17, it immediately disenfranchises eight percent of registered voters in the state, not including those newly- registered individuals.
Let me make this as clear as I can. There is no epidemic of voter fraud in this country. People who are not eligible to vote do not vote. If we have an epidemic, it’s the opposite; people who are eligible to vote are staying home. Voter ID laws are ostensibly about making sure people are who they say they are, but there’s a reason that only Republicans are interested in enacting these laws. What they want is to limit the number of minorities who vote. Period. And they don’t care that they are disenfranchising a bunch of elderly people, too, who no longer drive and have no other need for a photo ID.
It’s a racist, voter suppression drive. That’s all it is. It isn’t what they say it is. As someone who spent a year of my life working to register voters in our inner cities, I can tell you that a lot of young urban people do not have a driver’s license because they don’t have a car. And they don’t have a state-issued photo ID because they don’t need one. If you make having a photo ID a condition for voting, you are definitely going to limit these kids’ representation in the electorate. And that’s the point.
