Picture This: States Want Voters to Produce Photo IDs -- GOPUSA

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Picture This: States Want Voters to Produce Photo IDs
By Alexa Moutevelis
CNSNews.com Correspondent
July 29, 2005

(CNSNews.com) -- The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was supposed to end the practice of subjecting black voters to literacy tests, poll taxes and intimidation. But one civil rights leader said the use of photo identification requirements in some states is a giant step backwards.

U.S. Rep. John Lewis, a Georgia Democrat who marched for civil rights with Martin Luther King, Jr. in the 1960s, told Cybercast News Service that legislation recently passed in his home state requiring voters to provide photo IDs "is going back almost to the literacy tests; to tell people you must prove who you are [to polling officials]."

The issue came up at a news briefing on the Voting Rights Act, sponsored by Lewis, at the Library of Congress. The 40-year anniversary of the signing of the act will be Aug. 7, 2005, and there are also discussions in Congress about reauthorizing portions of the act that expire in 2007.

Section 5 of the Act, which is up for reauthorization in two years, requires regions (states, counties or towns) that historically disenfranchised blacks, especially in the South, to get approval from the federal government before making changes in voting regulations.

Georgia would become the seventh state to require a photo ID on Election Day if the U.S. Justice Department approves legislation already passed by Georgia state lawmakers. The bill is being reviewed by the Justice Department under Section 5. A decision is expected by Aug. 12.

Ted Shaw, director-counsel and president of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc., said the required IDs would violate the spirit of the Voting Rights Act.

"The bill by any measure would have retrogressive effect because it will disproportionately affect African Americans [and] Latinos .... Many of them don't have driver's licenses and, although it's hard for many people to understand how this may be possible, for them the cost of getting a state ID is a deterrent."

Georgia State Sen. Cecil Stanton, a sponsor of the bill to require voters to show photo IDs, told Cybercast News Service, that he and his allies are "not without concern for how this might impact people who didn't have photo ids or poor people or African Americans in our state.

However, Stanton added that "if the bill is analyzed, what you'll find is that ... we said if you do not have a photo ID and cannot afford one, you can get one for free. The state must issue you a free photo ID."

There is a history of voter fraud in Georgia, Stanton said, necessitating the introduction of photo IDs. He said he wanted to make sure "we have safe, reliable elections so that we can go to bed at night and know the electoral process has integrity."

Lewis disputed that the current system increases the chances of fraud.

"When you fill out the voter application form, you fill out your address and your precinct and people know they're committing a crime if they give false information," Lewis said. "So you're not going to have senior citizens giving the local polling officials false information."

As for mistakes and ineligible votes being cast, "that's a risk you have to take in a democracy," according to Lewis. "You should make it as simple and as easy and as convenient for people to vote as getting a glass of water."

Stanton disagreed, asserting that for the "small number of people who may be inconvenienced by this ... I think it's worth it in order to protect the integrity of elections in the state of Georgia, to protect the concept of one person, one vote, which I think is a very important principle in our country."

According to the National Conference of State Legislatures' website, 21 states require voters to present some form of identification, including utility bills, credit cards, or Social Security cards.