Op-Ed: It's Time for the US to Join the Rest of the Developed World and Require Voter ID
With the exception of the United States, the developed world recognizes the importance of requiring people to present identification when they vote.
ID is essential to ensure that voters have citizenship, are of proper age, vote only once in each election, and vote in the proper jurisdiction. It is also essential if citizens are to have confidence in election results.
In January, Britain will begin requiring its population to present identification in order to vote in national elections. At that point, all 47 countries of Europe, plus Canada and Mexico, will require voter ID. The U.S. will stand completely alone, with 17 of our states refusing to require identification.
The arguments against voter ID are cynical and absurd. Supposedly, requiring identification will reduce voter participation, especially among minority voters. Critics also claim it is unnecessary because voter fraud is very rare. But those assertions are not supported by the evidence.
After the 2020 election, the state of Georgia enacted legislation requiring photo identification for all in-person and absentee voting. The state itemized seven different types of acceptable photo ID, including a driver’s license, student ID or passport. For voters without appropriate photo identification, the state offered a free ID card.
Outrage over the anticipated “voter suppression” was expressed around the world; however, the evidence seems to suggest that voter participation increased sharply (33 percent) after the ID requirement was put in place. On its website, the Georgia secretary of state’s office provides total voter turnout numbers for consecutive elections. Here are the results:
- Total turnout through Nov. 4, 2022 (after ID requirement was added)…… 2,504,956
- Total turnout through the same day in 2018……………………………….. 1,890,364
Some people worry that voter ID requirements will disproportionally reduce voter participation in “marginalized communities.” Perhaps that is the case where a particular minority group is ambivalent regarding the choice of candidates. However, the opposite can also be true.
In the 2012 election between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, black turnout was significantly higher than white turnout — 66.2 to 64.1 percent. According to PolitiFact, black turnout was also higher in the states requiring photo identification.
But there is no serious election or voter fraud, right?
These days, we are not supposed to discuss the possibility of election or voter fraud: It might cause riots and other acts of violence. Therefore, I will avoid the word “fraud” as much as possible. Instead, let’s discuss “major election irregularities,” which could be caused by fraud, carelessness, lack of training or inadequate resources. Here are a couple of irregularities from the 2020 election:
1. In Maricopa County, Arizona, signatures from 499 voters were compared to registration records by a panel of six people, including three professional document examiners. All six panelists agreed, unanimously, that 12 percent of the signatures submitted with the ballots did not match the signatures in the registration files.
If those results are extrapolated to the entire county voter base, there could have been over 200,000 questionable ballots. Even if 90 percent of those ballots were later “cured,” there would still be 20,000 phonies in an election in which the winning margin was just 10,400 votes.
2. In Nevada, Secretary of State Barbara Cegavske estimated that there may have been 4,000 or more non-citizen voters in the 2020 election. The real number could have been much higher because her estimate was limited to people who voluntarily chose to present immigration documents in the five years prior to the election. People who did not happen to present immigration documents, or who did so 10 or 15 years earlier, were not included.
Those irregularities were not investigated. Why not? There are three reasons: 1) weak identification requirements, 2) vote inaccuracies not caused by fraud and 3) local prosecutors who don’t want to investigate and/or prosecute. An explanation follows:
1. Weak identification requirements. It is hard to spot fraud and other illegalities when voter identities are not based on hard evidence.
There were six key swing states in the 2020 election: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. None required the voter to submit ID with a mail-in ballot, except for a signature. But the signatures were often inadequately checked, or not checked at all.
In Michigan, the secretary of state told workers to “presume” signatures were valid. (After the election, a judge declared that that presumption was illegal.) In Georgia, a settlement (often called a “consent decree”) made it almost impossible to fail a signature test.
In Nevada, no formal test was performed, but an informal test by a journalist found that eight of nine phony signatures were accepted. In Pennsylvania, the Supreme Court ruled that all ballots had to be accepted, even if the accompanying signatures (on the transmittals) did not match. I already told you about the 499 tested signatures in Arizona.
As you can see, in these critical swing states there was no ID requirement and no meaningful signature requirement. For that reason, spotting fraudsters was nearly impossible.
2. Not all voting irregularities can be resolved in a courtroom. As noted, there were probably 4,000 or more non-citizen voters in the 2020 Nevada election. Possibly there were many more. Some of that illegal voting could have been due to fraud, but some was probably due to confusion.
Under federal law (the “Motor Voter” act), all adults registering to drive a motor vehicle have to be offered a chance to register to vote when they obtain a driver’s license. When non-citizens are offered a chance to register to vote, they are supposed to decline the offer, but it is reasonable to assume that some non-citizens may be confused. By federal law, the state official is not allowed to ask for documentation of citizenship, so this type of error (or fraud) will probably not be detected.
3. Some local prosecutors don’t want these cases. The third reason we don’t see more convictions is quite simple: Many county prosecutors don’t want these cases.
In 2021, the Public Interest Legal Foundation asked several Florida counties how many referrals they made to prosecutors for potential election law violations during or just before the 2020 election. There were 156 referrals related to double voting, vote-by-mail violations and non-citizen registration and/or voting. Of the 156 cases, how many were prosecuted? Zero!
Why was that? Well, it could be due to a shortage of law enforcement and prosecutorial manpower, or it could be that big cities have very ideological prosecutors who don’t believe these are crimes worthy of their time and resources.
The arguments against voter ID don’t add up.
Every other developed nation requires voters to provide identification. Where ID has been required in the U.S., voter participation has not necessarily decreased. The fact that there are few convictions for voter fraud does not mean that fraud and other types of irregularities do not exist; election irregularities are just hard to spot when identification is not required and when signatures are not checked. And even when evidence of fraud is produced, local district attorneys may ignore it due to staffing shortages or because they simply don’t feel it is important.
It is time for the United States to join the rest of the developed world. We need voter ID.
The views expressed in this opinion article are those of their author and are not necessarily either shared or endorsed by the owners of this website. If you are interested in contributing an Op-Ed to The Western Journal, you can learn about our submission guidelines and process here.
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