Voter ID legislation: A fear–based approach instead of a fact–based solution

Editor’s note: The following

is a statement by Barbara

Zia, President of the League

of Women Voters of South

Carolina.

On behalf of the League of Women Voters of South Carolina, I want to express our strong opposition to legislation, H3418, which is currently being debated in the legislature. H3418 would require voters to obtain and show a government issued photo ID before exercising their constitutional right to vote.

Photo ID requirements are one of the most serious threats in decades to our efforts to ensure the right of every eligible American to vote. Research shows that they encourage racial and ethnic discrimination at polling places, prevent eligible voters from participating in our democracy, limit turnout, and do very little to comb genuine instances of voters impersonating someone else at the polls.

The numbers of people who could be disenfranchised by this legislation is daunting. Up to 170,000 of your neighbors in South Carolina do not have valid photo identification. The burden will be greatest for the elderly, low–income, minority, homeless, or handicapped – for whom it is most cost prohibitive and inconvenient to take off work, get transportation, stand in line, and apply for the documentation. In many cases, these individuals don’t have the underlying documentation that is needed to get a South Carolina ID. In other words, this requirement would disenfranchise the very people who currently must work the hardest to vote at all.

Estimates put the cost of voter photo ID at over $1 million annually. This includes lost revenue from elimination of fees for DMV–supplied photo ID cards and additional training for poll workers. Not factored in are the considerable costs of legal challenges that South Carolina would incur. At a time when education services are being cut for our children, why should taxpayers be forced to pay for this costly, unnecessary and suppressive legislation?

The right to vote, and to have that vote counted, is the most important civil right we have. Photo ID requirements are one of the greatest threats to fair and equal voting rights today. State governments should be in the business of encouraging full participation of our citizenry, not developing ways to limit the right to vote.

Any proposal that raises barriers to voting is a fear–based approach instead of a fact–based solution. For these reasons, the League hopes members of the South Carolina Legislature will do the right thing by opposing legislation that would require voter ID and instead focus on provisions that would help improve polling place operations, foster effective training and recruitment of poll workers, and make election administration more efficient, secure, accurate and recountable.

League of Women Voters, 1730 M St Nw Ste 1000, Washington, DC 20036 United States