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

[Doug Hess]

Thanks for all the detailed information, Alysoun.

When you say "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." How many is a few? And how
many errors were made in previous elections (before the additional
feedback, etc.)?

I'm wondering if we're talking half of one percent of same-day
registrants, or one tenth of one percent, etc. It may not swing
elections, but knowing the number of people who face problems is still
of value. Of course, it sounds like DC (where I've lived for about 20
years) has one of the least stringent ID laws.

Thanks for any ideas or numbers. If it's in a report or memo, I would
appreciate getting that document (or let me know if I should send in a
request for it).

-Doug

From: Alysoun McLaughlin <AMcLaughlin at dcboee.org>
To: "law-election at department-lists.uci.edu"
<law-election at department-lists.uci.edu>
Date: Wed, 9 Nov 2011 02:34:54 -0500
Subject: Re: [EL] Question on voters who by-pass voter ID requirements

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