[EL] Requiring facsimile of photo ID with application for absentee ballot

[Donald Palmer]

Joe,

I just wanted to jump in quickly to correct one misconception.  The
Virginia Department of Elections did not provide that 200,000 voter
number to the Post as the number of Virginians who were without a photo ID
and not be able to vote.  No, the Post made that leap of logic and ignored
more accurate information and analysis available to them.  The Department
actually provided a much lower and accurate estimate of 100,000 voters;
however, they decided not to run with their 450,000 voters.  After
publication and criticism of their methodology, the Post ran a correction
disclaiming their estimate of over 450,000 voters *not being able to vote*,
and by late morning settled on the 200,000 number despite being informed
of the inaccuracies and false assumptions associated with that estimate.

The 200,000 number was simply the raw number of registered voters of
Virginia voters compared to the DMV database. This inflated estimate did
not account for the large number of other acceptable IDs in Virginia,
including passports, federal, state, and local government employee photo
IDs.  The estimate also did not take into account the large population of
active military, military retirees and veterans with photo IDs, citizens
possessing private employee photo IDs, or the hundreds of thousands
of college students with photo IDs that are issued to each enrollee when
entering public institutions of higher learning.

After the filtering of inactive non-voting registrants and military,
overseas, and absentee voters, the Department sent official
mailed notifications to less than 100,000 persons. The official mailing
provided a notification of the law, the acceptable forms of ID, and how to
obtain a free ID if needed.  The anecdotal results of the mailing were
interesting as many voters did not hesitate to tell their local election
officials that they actually did have IDs.

Most state and election officials felt the implementation of the new photo
ID law was smooth and would only improve as poll workers and voters become
more accustomed to the new law. There were relatively few provisional
ballots and voters were able to quickly obtain free IDs when needed even on
Election Day. Despite predictions of doom, the analysis of the
SBE/Department of Elections estimated that around 4200 free IDs would need
to be produced through the first major election year.  After the dust
settled on the 2014 general election, the actual number of IDs
produced stood at approximately 3900 IDs.

Don Palmer
Former Secretary
Virginia State Board of Elections


On Tue, Feb 10, 2015 at 10:54 AM, Wesley Joe <wjoe at wtfonline.org> wrote:

> Thanks, Justin.  The bill (HB 1318) passed the House of Delegates
> yesterday.
>
> If the concern really is fraud, why not propose a more narrowly
> tailored/less burdensome remedy?  Virginia has ample evidence that a more
> narrowly tailored remedy would work.  Before Virginia's photo ID
> requirement took effect last year, Virginia allowed voters to use a wider
> (and less burdensome) variety of IDs, and I don't recall substantiated
> cases of fraud being an issue.
>
> The new photo ID requirement was, though, plenty burdensome for live
> voters.  Late in September 2014, Virginia state elections officials
> estimated that about 200,000 voters might have still needed to obtain new
> IDs to vote that November (Washington Post 9/24/14).  Similarly, I can
> imagine HB 1318's requirement would be a nontrivial obstacle for
> limited-mobility senior citizens and others who vote absentee _precisely
> because_ they have difficulty getting around.
>
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Sun, 08 Feb 2015 17:15:50 -0800
> From: Justin Levitt <levittj at lls.edu>
> To: law-election at department-lists.uci.edu
> Subject: Re: [EL] Requiring facsimile of photo ID with mailed absentee
> ballot
> Message-ID: <54D80A46.3020604 at lls.edu>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="windows-1252"; Format="flowed"
>
> Bills like this often have unintended consequences, and it wouldn't
> surprise me if the burdens of such a law exceeded the benefits.
>
> That said, for those considering just one side of the equation, it is
> possible for such a bill to make it more difficult to fraudulently
> submit an absentee ballot request. There's more information on the face
> of the ID than just the photo. The absentee ballot request is submitted
> with a name. The ID will also have a name, and at least the most
> prevalent photo IDs (driver's licenses and state substitutes for a
> driver's license) also have an identification number tied to that name.
> Some registrants will have submitted a driver's license number (or
> state ID number) with their registration, so that information will be
> available on the rolls (and possible to compare to the information on
> the copy of the ID submitted with the absentee ballot). Alternatively,
> the officials responsible for processing absentee ballot requests often
> have access to the state motor vehicle database, with at least the
> potential ability to verify the identification numbers submitted. All
> of this is subject, of course, to time and effort and error cost
> (including a mistaken assumption that there's something fraudulent in
> requesting an absentee ballot to an address different from the address
> on the ID). But it would be more difficult to submit an absentee ballot
> request on someone else's behalf if you had to fake a copy of the "ID"
> ... and at least in states where the motor vehicle ID number isn't a
> readily derivable formula, it would be substantially more difficult
> still to fake an ID with the correct identification number on the face.
>
> Indeed, I've wondered at the states that have quite strict rules for
> presenting ID at the polls, but no similar safeguards for absentee
> balloting. Not only is the cost-benefit calculation even more skewed in
> such states, but these sorts of rules would seem to be channeling
> members of the public without ID directly into the form of voting known
> to be more susceptible to real malfeasance.
>
> It should be noted that as described, the bill would only apply to
> absentee ballot requests, and not to the absentee ballots themselves.
> As a practical matter, that would increase the burden on groups seeking
> to engage absentee voters, but would still leave opportunity for fraud
> in the casting of the ballots. And if Virginia has a current provision
> for permanent absentee voters (who have already requested receipt of
> absentee ballots for all elections into the future), the description
> below makes it seem like such voters would already be grandfathered in
> without extra requirements.
>
> Justin Levitt
>
> --
> Justin Levitt
> Professor of Law
> Loyola Law School | Los Angeles
> 919 Albany St.
> Los Angeles, CA 90015
> 213-736-7417
> justin.levitt at lls.edu
> ssrn.com/author=698321
>
> On 2/8/2015 4:43 PM, Wesley Joe wrote:
> > The Virginia House of Delegates' committee on Privileges and Elections
> > recently reported out a bill (HB1318) that would require "that any
> > voter submitting his application for an absentee ballot by mail or by
> > electronic or telephonic transmission to a facsimile device shall
> > submit with his application a copy of one of the forms of
> > identification acceptable under current law."
> >
> > Virginia's current photo ID requirement is fairly modest. But HB1318
> > makes no sense to me. In all seriousness, how is the person who
> > counts the ballot supposed to use the photo on the ID? To what should
> > he/she compare the photo? Is there _any_ reasonable justification for
> > this requirement? I would really like to know whether there any
> > reason to believe that this is something other than 1) an effort to
> > raise the cost of early voting, and 2) increase the probability of
> > ballot disqualification? Thanks in advance.
> >
>
>
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