ID bill could make Georgia unique in turning away voters

By Mike Billips

Macon Telegraph   19 March 2005

A bill to require voters to present photo identification at the polls before casting a vote would give Georgia the country's most restrictive voter ID law.

Senate Bill 84 and sections of House Bill 244 differ slightly, but both require voters to present certain forms of approved voter ID before casting a ballot. Voters who showed up at the polls without such ID would not be allowed to vote.

The Senate bill would only allow the following forms of ID: a driver's license or state-issued ID card, a government employee ID with photo, a U.S. passport or a military ID.

Tim Storey, a senior fellow with the National Council of State Legislatures, said five states currently require voters to present voter ID at the polls: South Carolina, Florida, South Dakota, Arizona and Louisiana. All of them have some form of contingency ballot if a voter doesn't have the proper paperwork.

"There is no state now where you would be turned away completely without an ID," Storey said.

Like many states, Georgia's current law allows voters to produce just about any form of paperwork to show that they are who they are, including a utility bill, bank statement or government check that has the voter's name and address on it.

The state allows 17 forms of ID, and allows a voter to cast a provisional ballot if they have none of those. The presumption is currently in favor of voting, with vote fraud prevention coming on the back end by way of checking voter's signatures.

Freshman Sen. Cecil Staton, R-Macon, says he believes the time has come to strictly scrutinize people before they vote because of the way that close elections are being contested.

He said he sponsored Senate Bill 84 to prevent voter fraud and increase the public's trust in election results.

"There are tens of thousands of trial lawyers flying around the country after elections, looking for problems," Staton said. "It's about common sense and protecting the integrity of the electoral system."

Black legislators and the state's Democratic leaders say they want to ensure that Georgia doesn't wind up like, well, Georgia, circa 1952. Any system that could cause a voter to be turned away without voting sounds like the bad old days to them.

"It reminds me of the poll tax," said Rep. David Lucas, D-Macon. "It's basically against older, poor Democrats who don't have a driver's license, the majority of whom are black."

Votes on both bills March 11 led to walkouts by black legislators after both passed. The rhetoric reached a high for the session, with Sen. Emmanuel Jones, D-Atlanta, wearing shackles to the well of the Senate, and Rep. Aleisha Thomas, D-Atlanta, refusing to leave the well of the House after her time to speak expired.

If either bill were signed into law, they would have to pass scrutiny of the U.S. Justice Department, said Charles Bullock, a political science professor at the University of Georgia.

Like most Southern states that restricted black voting rights prior to the 1965 Voting Rights Act, Georgia falls under closer scrutiny than states such as Michigan and Colorado, where less-restrictive photo ID requirements have been upheld.

Those states are not subject to Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, Bullock noted. And both states allow provisional voting.

Black legislators have made numerous speeches since Friday saying they were shocked that white conservatives would attempt to limit voter participation by changing the current law. After all, it was mostly white, conservative Democrats who imposed barriers to black voting in the last century, from poll taxes to voter questionnaires to attacks on those trying to register black voters.

Bullock said Georgia does have a long history of vote fraud. The most recent, and one of the most egregious examples, was in Dodge County in the mid-1990s, where several county officials went to jail after vote-buying came to light.

Even that instance didn't involve voters masquerading as other registered voters, Bullock said.

"It seems this is an anticipatory solution to a perceived problem," he said. "It's hard to say this is being pushed to correct a problem we have; there's no evidence of (this type of fraud)."

Republicans nationwide, from the national party to talk radio and weblogs, have railed against what they claim is widespread voting fraud by Democrats, taking advantage of loose voter ID requirements.

Staton was assisted in drafting his law by Erick Erickson, a self-described political junkie from Macon and blogger who contributes to Redstate.org as well as his own weblog, www.erick-erickson.org.

Redstate.org's 2004 election page is a long series of raging posts about the Washington state governor's 129-vote victory, which many Republicans believe was tainted by fraud.

Twelve states are currently considering legislation to ensure more precise voter identification, Storey said. Currently, 18 states require voters to present some form of ID at the polls, while most of the others rely on a signature to catch vote fraud.

Some new laws were inspired by the 2002 federal Help America Vote Act, or HAVA, which requires an ID number be recorded for first-time voters when they register. The HAVA law is intended to create uniform state databases of voters, which will allow for easier detection of fraud. It doesn't require photo ID.

Secretary of State Cathy Cox and other Democrats countered that the bill fails to address voter fraud through absentee ballot, which they say is much more prone to cheating than voting in person. The bill does require a copy of a photo ID with a mailed-in, first-time registration.

While evidence of fraud is thin, so is evidence that the restrictions would stop people from voting, Bullock said.

"Nobody has any clue as to how many people voted who didn't have a photo ID," he said.

Staton said the law would inconvenience only a small number of people, who could be assisted in getting the correct ID. "If we can drive people to the polls, we can drive them to get an ID made," he said.

The Senate seems to be stalling on action on the bills in order to weigh compromises.

Cox, who is in charge of running the state's elections and has announced plans to run for governor next year, came to a Senate local government committee hearing Friday to testify against House Bill 244. But the subject of her ire was missing. The committee's chairman, Sen. John Wiles, R-Kennesaw, said the bill had been taken off the committee's agenda in order to work out issues.

A House committee was scheduled to meet on Senate Bill 84 on Friday, but postponed its meeting to Monday. The legislative session is scheduled to end April 1.

But Capitol observers don't expect the passions to die down on this, as it is fueled by racial identity, bitter memories and perhaps the most important emotional trigger - the effect the bill could have on each legislator's electoral fate.

"This is the biggest partisan controversy this session," said Senate Majority Leader Bill Stephens, R-Canton. "But redistricting (in 2001) was more contentious, on a higher level. Any time you deal with elections, it gets personal."