[EL] voter ID backlash after the election?

[Charles Stewart III]

Based on the public opinion work I've done on the issue, if there is a backlash, it's unlikely to be a widespread popular backlash.  At the mass level at least, a majority of voters in every state, and of every politically-relevant demographic, supports photo identification laws.  Granted, some are MORE supportive than others.  Still, requiring photo identification is the change to election law that is most popular across-the-board among voters.  See the article recently published in the ELJ, by Alvarez, Hall, Levin, and Stewart, for more details.  (Apologies for the self promotion.)

Whether states that return to Democratic control (legislature + governor) in the future repeal these laws is another question.  Elite polarization on this issue is much greater than mass polarization.  Democratic legislators and their core supporters will undoubtedly want to get rid of them.  In my book, a "backlash" is a mass phenomenon, so when this happens, I won't label it a backlash, though I suspect others will.  Furthermore, there's a tendency for state voters and election officials to support the status quo.  Once these laws are in place, they will undoubtedly become even more popular at the mass level, and local officials will resist changing procedures YET AGAIN.  So, if I were a betting person, I'd bet that photo ID laws, once enacted, will be hard to repeal legislatively.

The _courts_ are another issue, and one that's beyond my expertise.  The public opinion data also suggest there's a great deal of variation in how ID laws are enforced locally.  However, from what I can tell, the most minimal laws (the so-called "HAVA minimum") tend to have the greatest variability in implementation.  It appears that through a combination of (1) the attitudes of precinct workers, who tend to believe there SHOULD BE identification laws, even if there aren't, and (2) the fact that many voters believe they have to show ID, even when they don't, that the implementation of the minimal laws is more variable than the implementation of the stricter laws.  Time will tell.  Still, I don't think this is good news for people who oppose ID laws (and I am one of those people).

Charles

-----Original Message-----
From: law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu [mailto:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu] On Behalf Of Doug Hess
Sent: Friday, July 01, 2011 9:31 AM
To: Election Law
Subject: [EL] voter ID backlash after the election?

I am wondering what response there has been from voters in states with
ID requirements. Certainly most voters might think it's no big deal,
but I recall that there were several cases that drew attention (the
famous nuns, I recall a story about a veteran who was very angry about
the ID request, and even an election official or maybe it was a
politician that didn't have their ID on them).

Although we all suspect these laws will likely most hurt younger
voters and voters who interact poorly with government (fragile,
isolated, and low-literacy populations) or who are likely behind in
updating their ID (recent movers), it seems that people pushing these
requirements might face a bit of a backlash from a wider range of
people that end up being inconvenienced at all by these laws. It may
be that such anger could be used to liberalize the list of things in
those states that count as ID or cause people to give up in pushing
for them. After all, the "less redtape" argument can be a pretty
powerful one, and the number of voters that will not have a ballot
counted due to this surely must surpass the number of illegal votes
that this would stop (which itself cannot be many, as others have
pointed out...i.e., a small percent of a small number is almost nil).

Doug Hess
202-277-6400 (cell)

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