A Few Halting Steps Toward the Middle
January 26th, 2008 at 9:04 am
House Elections Committee Chairman Leo Berman struck an upbeat, philosophical note in his closing words last night: “Some people are hell-bent on seeing voter ID passed, and some are hell-bent on not seeing it passed. Perhaps there’s middle ground somewhere.”
Speaker Tom Craddick had charged the committee with sleuthing out the scope of Texas’ problems with voter fraud, and considering what, oh what, might ever be done about it — photo ID, anyone?
It took nine hours and thirty minutes, and how did the committee fare?
Of course, there was plenty of time for the old favorite lines about voter ID: You need a photo ID to rent a movie, but not to vote? asks one side. Why not ask for a blood sample while we’re at it? asks the other. At one point, committee chairman Leo Berman held up a voter’s license card bearing both a photo and a thumbprint on the back. Perhaps sensing Democrats’ sympathies for all things south-of-the-border, he asked if anyone knew where the card came from. “Mexico!” he said, “You can’t vote in Mexico without a photo ID.”
Berman was surprisingly receptive not only toward the Mexican electoral system, but also toward a proposal for a photo ID law that would let voters without a driver’s license sign their name as proof of identity, instead.
The plan would avoid adding extra paperwork or expense to voting, while adding an extra level of security to the process. After the hearing, Dallas Democratic Rep. Rafael Anchia — the committee’s most outspoken opponent of past voter ID bills — called it an interesting proposal, and wondered at why the Republican leadership seemed so receptive. Past legislation had given voters the chance to vote a provisional ballot without a photo ID, but Anchia and other critics have repeatedly pointed out that most provisional ballots are never counted. This time, though, Berman was talking about dropping the provisional requirement.
For months last year, folks from groups representing Mexican-Americans, women, the elderly and disabled testified about the risk of disenfranchising voters by requiring a photo ID at the polls, to which Republican leaders would smile, sometimes politely, and disagree. Tonight, those same groups’ representatives were guardedly receptive to signature-verification as a backup measure in a photo ID bill.
It’s not clear whether Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst or Republican Party of Texas Chairman Tina Benkiser would go for such a plan, which sets looser requirements than other voter ID bills pushed nationally by the GOP. Maybe it’s just a camel’s nose under the tent kind of thing.
Anchia worried about creating a double-standard for people who vote by mail-in ballot and about passing a voter ID bill in the House with a special exception for people without photo ID’s. The way these things play out, the exception could simply be stripped once the bill hits the Senate floor. “We’d need assurances from the Senate to ensure it’d come back without voter-suppression amendments,” he says.
According to testimony from the Secretary of State’s office, there are 100,000 people in Texas who registered to vote without a driver’s license or a social security number, and the U.S. Supreme Court seems willing to let states decide how readily those without photo ID’s should be allowed to vote.
Today’s testimony painted a dreary picture of the effectiveness of Texas’ elections system, from the troubled statewide voter database to documented cases of voter fraud — through mail-in ballots and vote harvesting. If the 81st Legislature is going to tackle the state’s elections infrastructure, there’s plenty of room for improvement. How about a verifiable paper ballot, anyone? But the stakes are high if the Legislature’s solution does more harm than the system we’ve already got.
January 27th, 2008 at 2:47 pm
“The way these things play out, the exception could simply be stripped once the bill hits the Senate floor.”
I would be worried about trusting them to leave the signature affidavit bypass in the new compromise system too. You’d almost have to have that in writing as a committment from the Governor and the majority controlled Republican Senate.
But if they’re serious about protecting all eligible voters in Texas, then they’re going to have to spend the money to do a massive education campaign for voters explaining the bypass. While at the same time implementing the free photo ID outreach across the state. We hear the GA outreach program is costing them several millions of dollars a year to run.
February 9th, 2008 at 5:29 pm
“Without the Hispanics, Clinton does not win,” Adolfo Carrión,
It seem that we have worked so long and hard to matter in this country just to be set back another two hundred years by the Hispanic vote. I don’t believe the hispanics in america fully understand what they have done. Even Though we stood with them and marched with them when the U.S. said get out. We made picket signs that said” hell no we wont go” because we know what it is to be left behind and treated like second class citizens. They had a chance to stand and make history but chose to block the greatest progress the U.S. has ever been on the verg of making. History will allways blame the Hispanic vote for stalling America. We still love you but we hurt because of you. Will it be your fault when the supper delegates are not given to Obama? Maybe not but you sure made it easier for that to happen. That’s one small step for a man; one giant leap backwards for mankind. My soul cries out in agony. I hope you will not continue in this direction.