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What’s at Stake in Crawford?

Crawford v. Marion County Election Board is the most important voting case in the Supreme Court since Bush v. Gore. At issue is Indiana’s voter ID requirement, currently the most restrictive in the country. Indiana law requires voters to present current government-issued photo ID with an expiration date to cast a ballot. Under this scheme, even veteran and Congressional IDs, which do not have expiration dates, are not enough to get you past your polling place’s doors. The Court is expected to rule on the case in the spring, and a flurry of legislative activity is sure to follow in the months leading up to the presidential election in November, potentially confusing and disenfranchising hundreds of thousands of eligible citizens.

 

On its face, voter ID seems like a sensible, modern update to the way we vote. After all, many of us are asked show photo ID to buy beer, rent a movie, or board a plane, so why not for something as important as voting?

First and foremost, voting is a fundamental right and not a mere luxury like the activities above. What is more, even beer, movies and airplanes don’t really require photo IDs. Although you may be asked to show a photo ID, many people can still engage in those activities if they don’t have it. As of July 2007, only one state (Tennessee) requires every customer, no matter how old, to show ID to purchase alcohol. Unmanned kiosks at several movie rental chains permit DVD rental without showing photo ID. And according to federal regulations, if you don’t have photo ID, you can still board an airplane if you submit to extra screening.

In the case of voting, restrictive requirements like Indiana’s have virtually no alternatives for citizens who don’t have IDs. Indiana claims that voters can always cast absentee ballots, where no ID is required, but absentee ballots are not a perfect substitute to voting on Election Day. In Indiana last year, absentee ballots from legitimate voters were not counted because an election official forgot to initial the envelopes before sending them out. In 2004, Florida mailed thousands of ballots too late for voters to cast them in time. And as many absentee voters in this year’s presidential primaries have found out, their votes are not as meaningful and effective as they intended because they voted for candidates who have since dropped out of the race.

Ultimately, if you don’t have the kind of ID requested and if you don’t get it on time, you can’t cast a ballot that will count – that is the core of the fight about voter ID.

One study found that 13 percent of registered Hoosiers do not have the ID required by state law. According to a national survey sponsored by the Brennan Center for Justice in 2006, more than 21 million people – 11 percent of voting-age citizens – lack government-issued photo ID. Low-income, elderly, and minority voters are less likely to have it. One quarter of African American voting-age citizens do not have current government-issued photo ID, and as many as 18 percent of citizens aged 18 to 24 – almost 4.5 million eligible voters – do not have their current name and address on their photo IDs.

Contrary to popular belief, obtaining such ID is no easy task. The underlying documents required to obtain photo ID can be expensive. Birth certificates cost $10 to $15. A U.S. passport – which only 25 to 27 percent of Americans currently possess – costs $100. Naturalization papers, if lost or damaged, cost $380. By contrast, the poll tax, when it was declared unconstitutional in 1966, was worth $9.57 in today’s dollars. In addition to all these costs, there’s no telling if you’ll get an ID in time to vote.

An amicus brief filed in the Supreme Court put faces to the disenfranchising impact of Indiana’s ID law. For Kim Tilman, a stay-at-home mother of seven whose husband provides the family’s sole source of income working as a janitor, Indiana’s ID law made voting unaffordable. Unable to use her expired Michigan driver’s license, it would have cost Ms. Tilman $26 to $50 to get an Indiana ID to vote – not an insubstantial expense for the Tilmans.

Ninety-two year old Mary Wayne Montgomery Eble was blocked from voting at the polling place she had visited for decades because of Indiana’s law – she had allowed her driver’s license to expire years ago when she stopped driving. Before Ms. Eble could even visit the nearest Indiana Bureau of Motor Vehicles office forty-five minutes away from her rural home to get an ID, she would have to get a certified record of her birth – but born at home, she was not certain any record exists.

The eligibility of Ms. Tilman and Ms. Eble are not in question; they simply cannot afford or are unable to obtain the ID required by Indiana law to vote. So for what reason could the state possibly justify imposing such an onerous requirement?

The fear of fraud.

The push for restrictive forms of ID has been accompanied by efforts to fan fears of voter fraud. The truth of the matter is that impersonation fraud – the only type of misconduct that photo ID requirements would address – is exceedingly rare. The reason is clear: what rational person would show up at the polls and pretend to be another registered voter for one incremental vote at the risk of up to $10,000 in fines and five years in prison? Unsurprisingly, not a single case of impersonation fraud at the polls was found in Indiana. Proven cases of impersonation fraud at the polls similarly fail to exist nationwide. However, the people who are blocked from voting by restrictive ID? They exist. The phantom fear of voter fraud is insufficient justification to make it more difficult to vote.

Crawford is a case to watch closely, as the Supreme Court’s ruling will have implications for voters and voter advocates. The very people assisted by voter advocates and targeted by get-out-the-vote efforts are the most likely to be turned away from the polls due to ID requirements. If the Supreme Court upholds the most restrictive ID requirement in the country, it will legitimize the use of the fear of voter fraud to enact other measures that restrict the right to vote. Restrictive measures will have a disproportionate negative impact on people who already face the greatest barriers to the ballot box and undo decades of voting rights advancement. Let’s hope that the Court recognizes what is at stake when ruling on the constitutionality of Indiana’s law. VCM

Margaret Chen is a Research Associate in the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law.

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