[EL] voter ID backlash after the election?

[Doug Hess]

I guess backlash may be the incorrect term, or at least an inexact one, but
a policy response doesn't have to be large to get results. For examples, the
response may not result in repeals but it could change the momentum on the
issue...or states may respond by liberalizing what counts as ID, etc. As
long as the public and opinion leaders begin to hear more "horror stories"
about sympathetic people having problems voting or needing to go home and
come back to the precinct, or holding up the line as they fumble through
their purse, I think the issue could face some "backlash" (insert your word
here). Sort of a "I may have supported this until I realized it was a pain
in the neck for me" regret. Of course, the public is great at forgetting
past support for policies they now grumble about...but maybe it doesn't go
past some "grumbling."

I recall that after we won one round in the IL NVRA lawsuit in the
mid-1990s (this is the case that Obama was a part of for a while) the state
said they were going to keep two registration systems: one for state
registration (that wouldn't use NVRA reforms) and one for federal
registration (that would obey the NVRA). Obviously, very few people followed
the story, but the idea was so silly to the opinion leaders that did and
would eventually lead to some headaches at the polls that the idea died. Not
a perfect analogy, but the point is that pressure doesn't have to be massive
to work.  Policy feedback often works in mysterious ways.

Doug Hess

On Fri, Jul 1, 2011 at 10:33 AM, Charles Stewart III <cstewart at mit.edu>wrote:

> 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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