BY: B. Keith Plunkett–@Keithplunkett
The chicks are all aflutter. It seems Voter ID in Mississippi and beyond is going to seriously hamper the ability of otherwise qualified individuals to vote. It seems that, despite the 62% of the people who voted for the initiative obviously don’t mind showing their ID to do so, this law is going to wreak havoc on our entire election system. There is only one problem: there is no real evidence to support that claim.
However, there is plenty of subjective treatment, leaps of intellect and illusions of complication to go around. There are plenty of “what if’s”, and plenty of references to little old ladies who have neither a birth certificate nor a photo ID. I’ll acknowledge, like Bigfoot, just because I haven’t seen them doesn’t mean they don’t exist. But, like Bigfoot, I’m curious as to how they manage in today’s world to remain so hidden.
At best and assuming a few do exist, then as an overall percentage these “examples” are a fraction of the overall voting population that can be easily dealt with in implementing the law. At worst, they don’t exist, figments of “Chicken Little’s” creative imagination.
As much as the hard working folks over at the Jackson Free Press want you to believe this will negatively affect Democrat leaning voters only, and the Republican “machine” is simply going to ignore the poor and indigents cries for help, the truth is the complications that must be dealt with cut across demographic and party lines. Furthermore, there is no shortage of voter registration groups working on behalf of both parties to help work out the details.
These “Chicken Littles” revert effortlessly, as they almost always do, to the obligatory reference to Jim Crow, to racism and the “notorious legacies” of southern states. They lean heavily on the fact that not all the nitty gritty details have been worked out between the Department of Justice and the Mississippi Secretary of State’s office as some sort of indication that something is amiss. They reference questionable numbers in Pennsylvania, cases in South Carolina–whatever it takes to continue the ridiculous narrative that the “po’ lil’ folks in Mis-sippy gonna be taken advantage of.”
Mississippi’s Law is patterned after Indiana’s Law.
Out of all of the hullabaloo and the feathers flying, there hasn’t been a great deal of reference from naysayers to the Indiana law. That’s the one that Mississippi’s law is patterned after according to the bill’s author Senator Joey Fillingane. It’s also the one upheld by the federal courts, including the Supreme Court.
Who wrote the lead opinion on that one? None other than the liberal Justice John Paul Stevens.
Despite the fact that both Georgia and Indiana’s photo ID laws were upheld 4 and 5 years ago respectively, the same dismissed arguments as to why they would have been an abomination are being retro-fitted for another round here in Mississippi. The arguments simply don’t hold water.
Both judges in the Indiana and Georgia cases rejected the claim that there were significant numbers of voters without an ID. Over the course of two years of litigation in those cases, the lawyers, the ACLU and the NAACP couldn’t produce a single person unable to vote based on the lack of ID. Where are these people we keep hearing about?
The shell game/straw man/red herring tactics employed by the chicks require now a quick move on to another point without addressing the first. So let’s move on shall we?
Another leap of the left: Disenfranchised voters just won’t go to the polls rather than deal with the hassle.
Sorry Mr. and Mrs. Little, that chicken won’t fly either.
A national study of voting behavior from 2000 to 2006 by scholars at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and University of Delaware concluded that “concerns about voter identification laws affecting turnout are much ado about nothing.”
Other studies back up that finding. A study by The Heritage Foundation in 2005 of the ’04 election found no reduction in turnout, including African American voters. An M.I.T. study in 2007 found that of a cross-section of 36,500 people across racial lines, only 23 could not vote because of ID requirements. A John Lott study found that ID requirements encouraged public confidence and increased voter participation.
When Georgia held its first presidential primary with the photo ID law in effect, the state had a record turnout of over 2 million voters, almost one million more than in its 2004 primary before the ID requirement was in effect. Voters who did not have any ID were less than 0.01 percent. The number of black Georgians who voted more than doubled from the 2004 election and there were 100,000 more votes cast in the Democratic than the Republican primary.
Indiana’s turnout in its initial elections after the photo ID law went into effect went up two percent overall. A study by the University of Missouri found no evidence that turnout of minority, poor, elderly, or less-educated populations was reduced, and in fact, the “only consistent and statistically significant impact of photo ID in Indiana is to increase voter turnout in counties with a greater percentage of Democrats relative to other counties.” When Indiana held its presidential primary on May 6, the turnout of Democratic voters quadrupled over 2004 and over 862,000 more votes were cast in the Democratic than the Republican primary.
So, little chicks will try as they may to raise a ruckus in the barnyard. Voter ID may have been a solution in search of a problem. That’s hard to know since we never had Voter ID before to know how much fraud may have actually been occurring. Ask Ike Brown. Mississippi voters, the ones that will be showing their ID, seemed to think it was a good idea.
But, the evidence clearly shows that it’s not going to disenfranchise voters, along racial or any other lines. That’s just talk of “the sky falling”.
Mississippi’s Voter ID law, based on Indiana’s law already approved by the Supreme Court, should be safe. That is, unless the Department of Justice ends up deciding to disenfranchise and play racial politics.
About Keith: Keith Plunkett has worked on communications issues with a range of public officials from aldermen to Congressmen, and a variety of businesses, governmental agencies and non-profits. He serves or has served as a board member of several non-profit, civic and political organizations. Contact him by going to HorizonMediaMarketing.com or follow him on Twitter @Keithplunkett
Other Articles by Keith Plunkett
- Academia, ObamaCare, MAEP funding, and authority: The Illusion of Knowledge
- Obamacare: A few quick thoughts before the SCOTUS decision
- TEA Party catching flack for Legislative Report Card, but the root of the problem is in a lack of positive issue driven communication
- The Scattering Herd: Mississippi Republican Legislators
- Education Reform: Conservatives being slowly slaughtered by a million tiny cuts.
- Beware the wolf in sheep’s clothing: Parent’s Campaign, Education Superintendent lobbying should worry parents and anger taxpayers
Mississippi PEP 