[EL] Question on voters who by-pass voter ID requirements

Tue Nov 8 23:34:54 PST 2011

In the District of Columbia, we only require ID in a few situations, one of which is for same-day registration. But the purposes is more proof of residence than identity, so a photo ID is not required and we have a very long list of acceptable documents (the last of which is "or other government document").

Because all of our same-day registrants cast provisional ballots, we are able to have our pollworkers leave the hard part to us. Rather than asking our pollworkers to assess whether an ID is acceptable or not, we ask them to first check the right box for which category of ID they presented: driver's license, utility bill, etc., and depending on the category, we have them fill out certain information (such as the driver's license number or, in the case of "other government document", the agency issuing the document).

We've now used this system in three elections, with the most pressure on the provisional ballot clerks in the first election and the least pressure in the most recent. There is, of course, the risk that pollworkers won't fill out the information properly for an eligible voter, but we did an exhaustive review after the last general election and paid a performance bonus to our precinct captains in the precincts that "got it right". The effort involved in giving that feedback was a headache, but it worked. In the most recent election this past spring, we counted 96% of provisional ballots and few, if any, of the rejections were due to pollworker error.

As for the earlier question about profiling, I've seen pollworkers deviate from procedure and single out voters to ask for ID, not with an intent to deny someone a ballot but because they thought it would be the most efficient way to get the spelling of an unfamiliar name. I'm sure that correlates quite heavily with ethnicity. I don't deny that racism occurs, or that being asked if you have ID can have a chilling effect, but if you're analyzing the results of an exit poll I think it would be difficult to separate out the effects of outright racism on one side of the spectrum from the "I didn't understand that, do you happen to have an ID on you" on the other.

Alysoun McLaughlin
Public Affairs Manager
District of Columbia Board of Elections and Ethics
441 4th St. NW Suite 250 N
Washington, DC 20001
email: amclaughlin at dcboee.org
Website:www.dcboee.org
Phone: 202-727-2511
Cell: 202-441-1121
________________________________
From: law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu [law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu] On Behalf Of David A. Holtzman [David at HoltzmanLaw.com]
Sent: Tuesday, November 08, 2011 10:21 PM
To: law-election at department-lists.uci.edu
Subject: Re: [EL] Question on voters who by-pass voter ID requirements

As a former pollworker (I was not one today -- the hours are just horrible!), I have questioned whether pollworkers are qualified (or alert enough, given when they have to wake up) to judge the authenticity of IDs and whether IDs match the person presenting them.

If the foundation of our democracy is at risk, voter ID assessment should probably be a job for the TSA, or other specially-trained Homeland Security agents.  Surely federal agents would treat all voters with equal regard.  (As a bonus, they might find Larry Levine’s hand grenades.)

  - dah

On 11/8/2011 6:28 PM, Doug Hess wrote:

Interesting. Although I am willing to assume, at least use as a null
hyp., that people who act in a way that has a disproportionate impact
on those less like themselves  do so largely "unthinkingly" even
though the result is the same as a more partisan model of behavior.

Keep in mind, too, that non-white poll workers may ask non-white
voters to follow procedures more often than they ask white voters. I
believe there is evidence of this. Anybody know of the paper that
shows this? I need to set up an EndNote or RefWorks file someday of
this stuff.

Doug Hess
202-277-6400 (cell)

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On Tue, Nov 8, 2011 at 7:35 PM, Larry Levine <larrylevine at earthlink.net><mailto:larrylevine at earthlink.net> wrote:

I'll throw the hand grenade into the discussion by extending Doug's question
to ask: might a conservative, possible Republican or Tea Party polling place
worker be more inclined to "look the other way" on some voters and less so
on other voters? I can hear the Republicans on this list screaming that the
exact opposite is a bigger worry.
Larry

-----Original Message-----
From: law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu<mailto:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu>
[mailto:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu] On Behalf Of Doug
Hess
Sent: Tuesday, November 08, 2011 1:45 PM
To: Election Law
Subject: [EL] Question on voters who by-pass voter ID requirements

In talking to some college students the other day, it occurred to me that in
addition to people who may face higher costs to voting under Voter ID laws
or who find it very hard to get the proper ID, there is also the possibility
that some classes of people will be allowed to vote even if they do not have
the right ID. I know some thought has been given to people who are
improperly asked for ID in states where it is not required, etc., but what
about the reverse?  Might voters in smaller towns, or voters benefiting from
positive regard by the election workers be allowed to vote when they
shouldn't? After all, "look the other way" events form bias if, when
aggregated, it occurs more often for members of some groups than others.

It would seem this should be as important a line of research and
argumentation as the concern of people having a hard time voting, at least
for concerns about discrimination against a class of voters. In other words,
even if the law is not applied in a discriminatory fashion AGAINST certain
voters, is it applied in a discriminatory fashion in FAVOR of some voters? I
guess supporters of ID laws may say that is just an implementation problem,
but given that the law doesn't address a real policy concern, it does seem
one more category of cost against the zero benefits of these laws.

Has much been done on this? I recall that there was some work done 3-4 years
ago on race and identity checking in the southwest. I forget if it looked at
failures to implement the law that favored people, or just looked at
failures that harmed individuals through improper identity checking or
rejection.

I guess people who know they should not have been allowed to vote are not
likely to come forward, but certainly some election officials or volunteers
might be willing to say (perhaps sheepishly) that they have done it by
mistake or seen it happen (or are concerned that it is happening).

Doug Hess
202-277-6400 (cell)

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David A. Holtzman, M.P.H., J.D.
david at holtzmanlaw.com<mailto:david at holtzmanlaw.com>

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