We hope all eligible voters has one of these by the end of Nov. 6.
Yesterday the Journal editorial board weighed in on the six proposed constitutional amendments on this year’s ballot, recommending that voters reject them all. Yet one stands out as being so pernicious that it merits further comment. That’s the requirement for voters to produce a picture ID at the polls. This proposal above all others deserves to be rejected as an unjust attempt to suppress the vote.
On the surface, photo ID sounds harmless and even sensible. Who doesn’t have a picture ID?
Many, it turns out. More than 218,733 in North Carolina, 55 percent of who are Democrats and 26 percent unaffiliated, compared to 19 percent Republican, according to information obtained by Democracy North Carolina. In Forsyth County, more than 10,000 registered voters have no picture ID, with the same percentages.
Nevertheless, requiring a photo ID at the ballot sounds wise when offered as a solution to the problem of voter fraud.
But evidence of rampant voter fraud remains as elusive as Bigfoot; despite continuous claims, it’s just not a problem.
During the 2016 election, Republican Kim Strauch, the executive director of the state board of elections, affirmed that 508 ineligible votes, out of 4.8 million, had been cast. She described the number as “a tiny, tiny, tiny fraction” of the votes cast. The vast majority of those votes — more than 400 — were cast by felons, many believing they were allowed. But there was no evidence of coordinated fraud and these ineligible votes were stopped without photo ID requirements.
The main problem in America today isn’t voter fraud, but widespread voter suppression, most often conducted by Republican officials.
We see it at work in North Dakota, where thousands of Native American voters are being disenfranchised by targeted technical requirements.
We see it in Kansas, where Secretary of State Kris Kobach, who happens to be running for governor, has eliminated the one polling place in majority-Hispanic Dodge City, forcing the city’s residents to go to elsewhere to vote. This is the same Kris Kobach who spearheaded President Trump’s “election integrity” commission, which was disbanded after finding no supportive evidence of widespread voter fraud.
We see it in Georgia, where some 53,000 voter registrations, more than 70 percent African American, have been put on hold because of minor errors best described as typos and 340,134 voter registrations were incorrectly purged by Secretary of State Brian Kemp — who also happens to be running for governor.
We’ve also seen this very clearly in North Carolina, where a 2013 Republican attempt to require photo IDs for voting was struck down by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, ruling that it targeted African-Americans “with almost surgical precision.”
Voting is a fundamental right that should be encouraged rather than discouraged, no matter which party is in charge. If any provision should be added to our constitution, it should be an amendment establishing the right to access the proper ID, with minimum effort and no cost, for all legitimate voters.
