How do voter id laws hurt minorities

Download the Full Report ». All rights reserved. Send it Print it. The research , including multiple studies conducted over several years, has generally found that voter ID laws have little to no impact on voter turnout, even when looking at specific racial groups.

These laws could only swing the closest of elections, when basically everything matters. In fact, none of the other voting restrictions enacted by states seem to have much of an effect on voting either. No study has the final word, but the research is all inconclusive enough to suggest that practical barriers to voting have a fairly small effect on whether people actually vote.

What explains this? Now, easing barriers to voting might still be worthwhile. Even if the effect is small, the issue here is the most basic, fundamental right any citizen of a democracy or republic has.

None of this research should let the people passing voting restrictions off the hook. The New York Times has a good list of these Republican slip-ups. Why else would you do it? While GOP lawmakers might have passed the law to suppress some voters, Wrenn said, that does not mean it was racist. They just ended up in the middle of it because they vote Democrat.

This is simply deplorable. For civil rights groups, voter ID and other new restrictions call back to the days of poll taxes, literacy tests, and other rules — not to mention violence — that were used to block minorities from voting until the Voting Rights Act of effectively banned such laws and tactics. The ultimate impact of the new voting restrictions, particularly voter ID, may be small.

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Please consider making a contribution to Vox today to help us keep our work free for all. Cookie banner We use cookies and other tracking technologies to improve your browsing experience on our site, show personalized content and targeted ads, analyze site traffic, and understand where our audiences come from. These laws require voters to present a government-issued photo ID in order to vote, and they offer no meaningful fallback options for people who do not possess one of these IDs.

Specifically, defenders claim that voter ID laws are needed to combat voter impersonation fraud. But study after study has shown that voter impersonation fraud is vanishingly rare. Look at North Dakota: a federal district court found that, when the state enacted its current ID law in , 19 percent of Native Americans lacked qualifying ID compared to less than 12 percent of other potential voters.

Likewise, Texas permits voters to use a handgun license to vote, but not a student ID from a state university. More than 80 percent of handgun licenses issued to Texans in went to white Texans, while more than half of the students in the University of Texas system are racial or ethnic minorities.

Strict voter ID is just one of a number of racially charged voting restrictions that states have adopted this decade. For example, following the election and reelection of President Obama — and the concomitant surge in turnout by Black voters — states like North Carolina imposed new restrictions on early voting, which was disproportionately used by people of color.

Other states imposed new restrictions on the voter registration process. Three arguments against voter identification laws are that voter identification laws are a burden for many voters, that voter identification laws target minorities, and that in-person voter fraud is rare.

A article on the Brennan Center for Justice website stated the following:. The evidence is clear: identification requirements for voting reduce turnout among low-income and minority voters.

And the particular restrictions imposed by Republican lawmakers—limiting the acceptable forms of identification, ending opportunities for student voting, reducing hours for early voting—certainly do appear aimed at Democratic voters. One could spend hours going through the abundant evidence that these laws are meant to discourage Democratic voting with burdens that harm blacks, Latinos, and other disproportionately low-income groups.

In a Washington Post column titled "A comprehensive investigation of voter impersonation finds 31 credible incidents out of one billion ballots cast," law professor Justin Levitt wrote the following:.

Election fraud happens. Or vote buying. Or coercion. Or fake registration forms. Or voting from the wrong address. Or ballot box stuffing by officials in on the scam. In the page document that Mississippi State Sen. Chris McDaniel filed on Monday with evidence of allegedly illegal votes in the Mississippi Republican primary, there were no allegations of the kind of fraud that ID can stop.

Instead, requirements to show ID at the polls are designed for pretty much one thing: people showing up at the polls pretending to be somebody else in order to each cast one incremental fake ballot. This is a slow, clunky way to steal an election.

Which is why it rarely happens. Former U. The map below displays only those states that require already-registered voters to present identification at the polls on election day as states requiring identification.

Many states that require identification allow voters to cast provisional ballots if they do not have requisite identification. Please see the table below the map for more details and follow the links provided for each state for more information.

All voters are required to present photo identification at the polls in South Carolina. This includes a state driver's license or ID card, a voter registration card that includes a photo, a federal military ID, or a U. A voter can receive a free photo ID from his or her county voter registration office by providing his or her name, date of birth and the last four digits of his or her Social Security number. In Tennessee, voters must present government-issued photo identification at the polls.

Some voters are exempt from ID requirements. Voters can obtain a free photo ID from the Tennessee Department of Safety and Homeland Security at any participating driver service center.

In order to receive an ID, a voter must bring proof of citizenship such as a birth certificate and two proofs of Tennessee residency. Ballotpedia features , encyclopedic articles written and curated by our professional staff of editors, writers, and researchers. Click here to contact our editorial staff, and click here to report an error. Click here to contact us for media inquiries, and please donate here to support our continued expansion.

Share this page Follow Ballotpedia. What's on your ballot? Jump to: navigation , search. Any inconsistencies are attributable to the original source. Hover over each state in the map for more details. In addition, in Minnesota, voters who have not voted in four years must present identification. Several other states that generally don't require identification require it if a voter did not provide it upon registering.

Voting procedures generally; identification; assistance to voters; voting records; penalties. Category : Election governance support and opposition.

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Election results. Privacy policy About Ballotpedia Disclaimers Login. Supporters of voter identification laws argue that requiring voter identification prevents voter fraud, that voter identification laws do not decrease minority voter turnout, and that requiring identification to vote is not burdensome. Opponents of voter identification laws argue that voter identification laws are a burden for many voters, that voter identification laws target minorities, and that in-person voter fraud is rare.

Every individual who is eligible to vote should have the opportunity to do so. It is equally important, however, that the votes of eligible voters are not stolen or diluted by a fraudulent or bogus vote cast by an ineligible or imaginary voter. The evidence from academic studies and actual turnout in elections is also overwhelming that—contrary to the shrill claims of opponents—voter ID does not depress the turnout of voters, including minority, poor, and elderly voters.

Many Americans do not have one of the forms of identification states acceptable for voting. These voters are disproportionately low-income, racial and ethnic minorities, the elderly, and people with disabilities. Such voters more frequently have difficulty obtaining ID, because they cannot afford or cannot obtain the underlying documents that are a prerequisite to obtaining government-issued photo ID card. Voter ID can prevent and deter: Impersonation fraud at the polls; Voting under fictitious voter registrations; Double voting by individuals registered in more than one state or locality; and Voting by illegal aliens, or even legal aliens who are still not entitled to vote since state and federal elections are restricted to U.

Millions of Americans Lack ID.