Wednesday, October 22, 2014

Why Voter ID Laws Aren’t Really about Fraud | Government / Elections / Politics | FRONTLINE | PBS

 

Why Voter ID Laws Aren’t Really about Fraud

October 20, 2014, 6:14 pm ET by Sarah Childress

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Voters going to the polls in Texas starting this week will have to show one of a few specific forms of photo ID under a controversial new law upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court over the weekend.

The Texas law — along with 15 other voter ID laws passed since 2010 — was billed as a way to prevent people from impersonating eligible voters at the polls.

But voter ID laws don’t address what appears to be a more common source of voter fraud: mail-in absentee ballots.

A FRONTLINE analysis of voting laws nationwide found that only six of the 31 states that require ID at the polls apply those standards to absentee voters, who are generally whiter and older than in-person voters. And two states with strict photo ID policies for in-person voters — Rhode Island and Georgia — have recently passed bills that allow anyone to mail in a ballot.

Click to launch Ballot Watch

Click to launch Ballot Watch

Voter fraud generally rarely happens. When it does, election law experts say it happens more often through mail-in ballots than people impersonating eligible voters at the polls. An analysis by News21, a journalism project at Arizona State University, found 28 cases of voter fraud convictions since 2000. Of those, 14 percent involved absentee ballot fraud. Voter impersonation, the form of fraud that voter ID laws are designed to prevent, made up only 3.6 percent of those cases. (Other types included double voting, the most common form, at 25 percent, and felons voting when they were prohibited from doing so. But neither of those would be prevented by voter ID laws, either.)

Mark Obenshain, a Republican Virginia state senator who was the primary sponsor of his state’s voter ID law, said that lawmakers tried to balance improving security with maintaining access to the ballot for elderly and disabled people.

“There are good arguments that there are gaps with absentee ballots,” he said. “But the issue is, how can we close that gap without unduly burdening the right to vote?” Obenshain said that these voters might not have access to a scanner or Xerox machine to make a copy of their ID.

And, because absentee ballots must be sent to a voter’s registered address, they are still relatively secure, Obenshain said. “It doesn’t warrant making the voters jump through unnecessary hoops.”

Who Votes Absentee?

Absentee voters tend to be older and whiter than in-person voters. In 2012, nearly half, or 46 percent, of mail-in voters were aged 60 and older, and more than 75 percent were white, according to an analysis by Michael McDonald, a political science professor at the University of Florida who tracks demographic trends in voting. Older white Americans generally are more likely to vote Republican.

African-Americans, who overwhelmingly vote Democratic, are less likely to use mail-in ballots. Although they make up about 13 percent of the population, only 8 percent voted by mail in 2012.

Either way, most states — nine — of the 16 that have passed stricter voter ID laws since 2010 only allow voters to mail in ballots if they have an excuse, such as an illness, disability or old age.

Who Is Impacted by Voter ID Laws?

Laws that require photo ID at the polls vary, but the strictest laws limit the forms of acceptable documentation to only a handful of cards. For example, in Texas, voters must show one of seven forms of state or federal-issue photo ID, with a valid expiration date: a driver’s license, a personal ID card issued by the state, a concealed handgun license, a military ID, citizenship certificate or a passport. The name on the ID must exactly match the one on the voter rolls.

African-Americans and Latinos are more likely to lack one of these qualifying IDs, according to several estimates. Even when the state offers a free photo ID, these voters, who are disproportionately low-income, may not be able to procure the underlying documents, such as a birth certificate, to obtain one.

In Texas, for example, challengers to the law cited an African-American grandmother who could not afford the $25 to purchase her birth certificate to get an ID, and an elderly African-American veteran and longtime voter who was turned away at the polls in 2013 despite having three types of ID, because none qualified under the new law.

And new research from the Government Accountability Office, an independent agency that prepares reports for members of Congress, suggests that voter ID laws are having an impact at the polls. Turnout dropped among both young people and African-Americans in Kansas and Tennessee after new voter ID requirements took effect in 2012, the study found.

Six of the 16 states that have passed voter ID laws since 2010 have a documented history of discriminating against minority voters. All but one of those states’ laws were put in place after the Supreme Court overturned a key provision of the Voting Rights Act that required them to seek approval from the Justice Department for any voting-law changes.

Courts have so far blocked three ID laws. A state judge struck down Pennsylvania’s law earlier this year, determining that it discriminated against low-income and minority voters. Two weeks ago, the U.S. Supreme Court blocked Wisconsin’s from taking effect for this election, and last week, a state court declared Arkansas’ voter ID law unconstitutional. Lawsuits are currently pending against similar laws in North Carolina and Alabama, though they won’t be decided before the November elections.

Voter ID laws have all been sponsored by Republicans and passed overwhelmingly by Republican legislatures. A conservative U.S. circuit judge, Richard Posner, in a recent scathing critique of these laws, calling the expressed concern about fraud a “a mere fig leaf” and that they instead “appear to be aimed at limiting voting by minorities, particularly blacks.”

“There is only one motivation for imposing burdens on voting that are ostensibly designed to discourage voter-impersonation fraud,” Posner wrote, “…and that is to discourage voting by persons likely to vote against the party responsible for imposing the burdens.”

Obenshain, the Virginia senator, said his law wasn’t about keeping voters from the polls. “There’s only one class of people who are going to be discouraged from voting, and that’s fraudulent voters.”

Why Voter ID Laws Aren’t Really about Fraud | Government / Elections / Politics | FRONTLINE | PBS

My View: Time to the put the brakes on gaming expansion - Opinion - Rockford Register Star - Rockford, IL

 

  • My View: Time to the put the brakes on gaming expansion

    Tom Swoik is executive director of the Illinois Casino Gaming Association.

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    • Posted Oct. 18, 2014 @ 2:00 pm

      It has been two years since the first legal video slot machines were installed in Illinois. In just 24 months more than 18,000 slot machines have been installed at more than 4,700 locations. As a result of this growth, Illinois now has double the locations licensed to conduct gaming than Nevada.
      While the video gaming industry wants to proclaim success, we should not gloss over the challenges caused by this explosion of gaming. As with any law, a number of entrepreneurs have taken advantage of loopholes that allow slot machines in “casino cafes” in strip malls, laundromats and gas stations. At these locations, important rules that prevent compulsive gamblers from playing the slots are impossible to enforce.
      Gaming at these large chains of casino cafes as well as some of the other locations was not the intent of video gaming. As officials weigh reasonable regulations to reign in the excesses of the law, they should also rule out further gaming expansion.
      State tax revenues generated by neighborhood slots are going to pay for things already built under the 2009 capital program. While the video gaming industry touts the tax revenue the state is receiving, they want you to overlook that casino taxes, which are earmarked for education, are falling as a result of this expansion of gaming into our neighborhoods. Given the prevalence of video slots, casino admissions are down 1.2 million from last year and total taxes generated have fallen $29 million. Compared to the same point in 2012, before video slots were active, casino admissions are down 2.1 million and total taxes generated have fallen by $57 million.
      The explosion of video gaming is proof that the state can drastically increase gaming positions, yet end up with little or less gaming tax revenue for education. Despite all of this, calls to further expand gaming are coming from Illinois’ horse racing industry. They claim slots at tracks will be the savior of their sport, overlooking the broader national decline in the popularity of the pastime. If tracks were given slots, tax revenue for education from casinos would further decline.
      The calls for assistance from the racing industry are nothing new. Over the years they have asked lawmakers to change laws to help rekindle the sport in Illinois, ranging from intertrack wagering, simulcasting, advanced deposit wagering and a 1999 tax break package. The industry’s most audacious request was for direct cash infusions from state funds to reverse its fortunes. Over the past two years, the racing industry has received $167 million in state tax dollars to revive its sport.
      In 2012, tracks received $144 million from a special tax assessment on some casinos that proponents claimed would propel Illinois’ tracks to second or third in the nation. It’s clear that didn’t happen as track revenue fell, even after that sizable cash infusion.
      Page 2 of 2 - Then last June Illinois’ racing industry received another $23 million from the state treasury. That’s money that wasn’t spent on school construction, teachers or helping offset property tax increases for education.
      After all this money was infused into the sport, the racing industry says they still can’t make it work. So after burning through $167 million in incentives, the industry wants to pass a large gaming expansion bill that uses thousands of slot machines to subsidize the sport that in turn will take money away from local government budgets and classrooms. This is something we simply cannot afford.
      Tom Swoik is executive director of the Illinois Casino Gaming Association.

      Read more: http://www.rrstar.com/article/20141018/Opinion/141019355#ixzz3GsHT1NXZ
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