[EL] Up to 1 Million Voters Face Disenfranchisement

Sat Sep 15 20:47:40 PDT 2012

If someone cannot read and cannot pass a literacy test, that person is 
disenfranchised by a literacy test.

If someone cannot afford to pay a poll tax, that person is 
disenfranchised by a poll tax.

There are other reasons to object to the use of these tests applied to 
others aside from actual disenfranchisement.  For example, literacy 
tests and poll taxes might be seen as not rationally related to the 
exercise of the franchise.  This is the position I take.  The Supreme 
Court split on that question, upholding literacy test (in Lassiter in 
1950) and striking down poll taxes (in Harper in 1966).

In addition, literacy tests also were administered in racially unfair 
ways, and were often administered in an arbitrary way.

Under my view, a person who does not have an i.d. and has to go through 
the hassle of getting the i.d. is not disenfranchised, but a person who 
does not have an i.d. and cannot afford the underlying documents to the 
i.d. is disenfranchised.  There are be line drawing problems in deciding 
whether someone is too poor to afford the underlying documents, but 
there will clearly be people on the side of the line who could afford 
the i.d. and those who cannot.

On 9/15/12 8:33 PM, Michael McDonald wrote:
> By this logic, literacy tests didn't disenfranchise anyone, only those who
> were unduly burdened because they didn't learn how to read. Nor did poll
> taxes, since a poor person who wanted to vote could just skip a few meals.
> And if you want to flip it around for contemporary Republican
> constituencies, keeping in mind that literacy tests and poll taxes were
> originally aimed at Southern African-American Republicans, our military
> personnel in war zones were not unduly burdened by registration laws that
> required applications to be notarized since they could take extraordinary
> measures to get the notary.
>
> But, perhaps you have another word for "disenfranchised" that describes
> people in these situations?
>
> ============
> Dr. Michael P. McDonald
> Associate Professor
> George Mason University
> 4400 University Drive - 3F4
> Fairfax, VA 22030-4444
>
> 703-993-4191 (office)
> e-mail:  mmcdon at gmu.edu
> web:     http://elections.gmu.edu
> twitter: @ElectProject
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Rick Hasen [mailto:rhasen at law.uci.edu]
> Sent: Saturday, September 15, 2012 11:12 PM
> To: mmcdon at gmu.edu
> Cc: law-election at UCI.edu
> Subject: Re: [EL] Up to 1 Million Voters Face Disenfranchisement
>
> Based on a conversation with a voting rights activist last week, I think
> part of the issue here is definitional.  I define a person as
> "disenfranchised" by a voter id law if that person literally cannot vote
> because of the law but who wishes to cast a valid vote.  The most
> important cases would be: (1) a person who cannot get the underlying
> documentation needed to get a state issued i.d. (such as there are no
> birth records); (2) a person who cannot afford to get the underlying
> documentation or get to the location to get the i.d.; and (3) a person
> who has a physical impairment or religious objection which prevents
> getting the i.d.
> I would not include within this definition people (many, many people in
> Pa., apparently), for whom getting the i.d. would be a big hassle, and
> who may be deterred by this hassle.
>
> While the numbers show that there are many people who currently lack the
> i.d., it is actually very hard to find many actual people who (1) lack
> the i.d., (2) cannot get the i.d. because of the reasons listed above;
> (3) cannot vote some other way without i.d. (such as an absentee ballot
> for need in PA); but (4) want to vote in the election.  If this is our
> universe of "disenfranchised" voters, it is clearly much smaller than 1
> million voters in PA.
>
> If you count as disenfranchised those other voters for whom getting the
> i.d. would be a big hassle, and who may deterred from voting by this
> hassle, then the numbers are undoubtedly higher (and my sense is that
> Democrats are much more concerned about this group than the much smaller
> group of the people i would consider disenfranchised by a voter id
> law).  But I don't count these voters are actually disenfranchised.
>
> To be clear, I don't support the idea of putting voters through this
> hassle on the state level given the paltry evidence of the law's
> supposed anti-fraud benefits.  But that's a different question from the
> number of "disenfranchised" voters.
>
>
>
> On 9/15/12 7:35 PM, Michael McDonald wrote:
>> Not sure who the "we" is. The 1 million number is consistent with what was
>> presented by plaintiff's expert witness, Matt Barreto. With approximately
>> 9.5 million eligible voters in Pennsylvania, and if the survey evidence is
>> correct that 10% do not have the forms of id required by the state, you
> get
>> a number of up to 1 million disenfranchised.
>>
>> Perhaps what Rick means is that, well, the turnout rate among those
>> individuals is exceedingly low, so they have already disenfranchised
>> themselves by not registering and voting. This is what I find to be most
>> pernicious about the district court's logic and weighing of the evidence,
>> that it is acceptable to erect high barriers to voting among those with
> low
>> turnout rates because they already do not vote. The judge, for example,
>> dismissed Barreto's survey because the sample frame was of eligible
> voters,
>> not registered voters.
>>
>> ============
>> Dr. Michael P. McDonald
>> Associate Professor
>> George Mason University
>> 4400 University Drive - 3F4
>> Fairfax, VA 22030-4444
>>
>> 703-993-4191 (office)
>> e-mail:  mmcdon at gmu.edu
>> web:     http://elections.gmu.edu
>> twitter: @ElectProject
>> "Could Pennsylvania Voter ID Law Help Romney Win Race? Up to 1 Million
>> Voters Face Disenfranchisement"
>> Posted on September 15, 2012 5:37 pm by Rick Hasen
>> Here is a link to a Democracy Now! program.  I haven't had a chance to
>> listen to the program but the 1 million disenfranchised voters seems quite
>> high and not supported at all by what we know.
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
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>> Law-election at department-lists.uci.edu
>> http://department-lists.uci.edu/mailman/listinfo/law-election

-- 
Rick Hasen
Chancellor's Professor of Law and Political Science
UC Irvine School of Law
401 E. Peltason Dr., Suite 1000
Irvine, CA 92697-8000
949.824.3072 - office
949.824.0495 - fax
rhasen at law.uci.edu
http://law.uci.edu/faculty/page1_r_hasen.html
http://electionlawblog.org
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