Voter ID Laws

If you hear the term “voter ID laws” and you are outside the noise machine of leftist newspeak, you may actually evaluate the words on their own terms. However, it is all too likely that your reaction is shaped by a conditioned antipathy.

It is a sad commentary that because of the inability of liberal ideas to compete fairly, the political opposition to voter ID laws resorts to the trump card of race politics to silence debate.

In an intentional rejection of the narrative of racism against any who dare to propose voter ID laws, I will engage in a brief examination of such laws’ intent and effects.

The basic problem is that of voter fraud, fraud that undercuts the fundamental fairness of our electoral system. To fight this, legislatures in several states proposed the requirement that people who want to choose the leader of the free world, and of their local affairs, must have a form of identification that is also needed to board a plane, enter a courthouse, or drive a car.

Now we all know that idea is blatantly racist, but just for the novelty of it, let’s look at some actual effects of this policy. Georgia and Indiana were two of the earliest adopters of voter ID laws, so let’s take a glance at the results there.

In 2008 (the first presidential election after passage of these laws), the turnout of minority voters in these two states reached the highest points on record. But that must be due to the fact that a black candidate was on the ballot and that the Republican storm troopers couldn’t hose then all, right?

Not quite. In fact, minority turnout in more than forty local, state, and federal elections actually went up in both Georgia and Indiana after the passage of voter ID laws. Additionally, these increases surpassed that of most states without voter ID. Georgia even experienced increases in minority turnout that dwarfed those of white turnout and exceeded past such increases in that state’s history.

One might also wonder how this brilliant scheme of suppressing the minority vote is supposed to work when every state with these laws on the books also provides free IDs to citizens who request them. If the intent is to suppress minority votes but those votes increase, then I think we can safely lay aside our fears and allow the suppression of voter fraud to proceed.

But then the debate was never really about the actual merits of the laws. The Left needs you to believe its accusations because success depends, not upon facts and sound argument, but upon libeling opposition. In an open debate, the Left loses. So next time you hear that voter ID laws are racist, ask for some evidence. Don’t be surprised if all you get is a blank stare.