Just about everyone in every group in America supports voter ID, and almost no one is excluded from voting by this requirement.
Those are the findings of a survey written about by MIT Department of Political Science Professor Stephen Ansolabehere in February 2007. During 2006, a collaborative survey project among 37 universities included a 36,500 person national sample survey, called the Cooperative Congressional Election Survey (CCES).
The survey was taken of people who voted in 2006 elections and was conducted in three timeframes: August-September 2006, October 2006, and November 2006.
Here are the key findings pertaining to voter ID. A large majority of all respondents expressed support for the requirement, over 75 percent with 17 percent opposed, and eight percent unsure.
It doesn’t matter what part of the country the question is asked. The majority of voters endorse voter ID. The highest level of support is in the South where every state has some form of ID requirement to vote. An incredible 81 percent supports voter ID in the South, with three-fourths of voters in the Midwest and West and just over two-thirds of voters in the Northeast like the idea.
What is the breakdown by political persuasion? Ansolabehere writes:
“Ninety-five percent of people who identify as Conservatives or as Republicans support voter identification requirements. Slightly more than 7 in 10 moderates and Independents supported the voter identification rule. Two-thirds of Democrats supported the idea, as did 60 percent of people who identify as Liberal and 50 percent of those who identify as very liberal. The very high support among Democratic voters comes as something of a surprise considering the very strong opposition to the voter identification proposal from Democratic congressional leaders and members.”
The biggest surprise from the survey came with race. Ansolabehere writes:
“The surprise was the lack of division. Over 70 percent of Whites, Hispanics, and Blacks support the requirement. Black and Hispanic voters did not express measurably less support for voter identification requirements than whites. The Congressional Black Caucus and the Democratic Party leadership were wholly out of step with the analogous segments of the electorate on this issue. The lowest levels of support (and again it’s a majority) came from White Democrats and White Liberals.”
The true test of voting requirements that include identification according to Ansolabehere is in the rate such laws exclude or prevent people from casting ballots. The MIT professor offers the reminder that the Help America Vote Act created a fail-safe mechanism: the provisional ballot. If a voter’s name is not on a list or questions a rise, the individual can cast a ballot that is verified later. Studies done by the Election Assistance Commission conclude that approximately two percent of ballots cast in 2004 were provisional. About two-thirds of those were valid, and most of those consisted of people who were not in fact registered.
The MIT survey found, as Ansolabehere puts it that, “Almost no one was excluded from voting. Only 23 people in the entire 36,500 person sample said that they were not allowed to vote because of voter identification requirements. That figure translates into approximately one-tenth of one percent of voters. The real lesson from the data is that the total number of people who said they were not allowed to vote because of voter identification requirements is trivially small.”
What about race? Ansolabehre writes:
“Exclusions because of voter qualification questions showed no racial differences. Of those Election Day voters whose registration was problematic, 70 percent were white, 16 percent were black, and 10 percent were Hispanic. Across all racial groups 85 to 86 percent were allowed to cast regular ballots and 13 to 14 percent cast provisional ballots. It is rare in survey data that a true zero arises. The number of people who said they were excluded from the polls as a result of voter identification requirements, however, is approaching that limit.”
Ansolabehere is blunt in his conclusions:
“Voter identification is the controversy that isn’t. Almost no one is excluded by this requirement, and when problems arise there is now a reasonable fail safe mechanism. It is not surprising, then, that large majorities in the public support the idea.
It is charged that voter id requirements are used to discriminate against people, especially racial minorities, and that has a chilling effect. That almost no one is prevented from voting because of voter id requirements casts doubt on arguments from the left that this amounts to a new poll tax or literacy test.
It is also hard to imagine how id requirements could have a chilling effect, if they are rarely used to prevent people from voting. The poll tax, literacy test, and other tools of the Jim Crow laws are powerful metaphors derived from a very ugly period in American history. Id requirements in practice bear absolutely no resemblance to such discriminatory practices. This is simply not a case of voter intimidation. Almost no one in the survey (less than one tenth of one percent of voters) reported that they could not vote.”
Here is survey data breaking down responses from various groups. You will see two numbers. The first is the percentage that supports voter ID from that particular group. The second is the percentage of the group that was prevented from voting because of voter ID:
All Respondents 77% / 0.1%
Northeast 68% /0.1%
Midwest 76% /0.2%
South 81% /0.1%
West 76% /0.1%
Democrats 67% / 0.2%
Republicans 95% /0.1%
Independents 72% /0.1%
Very Liberal 51% /0.2%
Liberal 61% /0.3%
Moderate 74% /0.1%
Conservative 95% / 0.1%
Very Conservative 95% / 0.0%
Whites 77% /0.1%
Blacks 70% /0.4%
Hispanic 78% /0.1%
Here are some other numbers closer to home to consider.
April 1, 2008, Wisconsin voters decided a statewide referendum about the Frankenstein veto. With 99% of the vote reporting, 567,913 (71%) voted in favor of the constitutional amendment to end the veto, and 237, 338 (29%) voted no. That means at least 805,251 people in Wisconsin voted on the veto issue.
Probably about 805,000 and maybe more Wisconsin voters would like to go to the polls and cast a ballot about a photo ID requirement for voting in our state.
It is sad and unfortunate that 19 individuals, Governor Doyle and 18 state Senate Democrats block voter ID in Wisconsin. Governor Doyle vetoed voter ID three times. Senate Democrats refused to bring the issue to the Senate floor March 6, 2008, days before the end of the 2007-2008 General Session of the Legislature. The Constitutional Amendment process is dead and must start over with approval during the 2009-2010 session of the Legislature and the 2011-2012 session of the Legislature. The only other option is to convince Governor Doyle to approve and not veto a photo ID bill.
Governor Doyle and Senate Democrats are, in essence, standing in the way, obstructing the will of hundreds of thousands of Wisconsin citizens denying them an opportunity to speak out on election reform.
Here is Ansolabehre’s entire paper about voter ID.
