When voter ID laws started to become popular about 20 years ago, they were a solution in search of a problem.
Although there may have been some voter impersonation at the polls, there was no evidence it was significant enough to justify requiring voters to show a driver’s license or other form of proof of identity. The opposition to voter ID, however, was also overblown.
Now after several election cycles in the 36 states that ask for ID, the requirement appears to reduce neither voter fraud (most of which occurs with absentee ballots, not at the polls) nor voter participation.
It is a requirement that doesn’t accomplish much, but it’s not onerous either.
Requiring proof of citizenship to vote, though, is proving to be a different matter. It is losing its appeal even among Republicans, many of whom had been generally supportive of the idea championed by Donald Trump, who claimed without evidence that illegal immigrants were helping to steal elections for Democratic candidates.
Trump still likes the idea, although his executive order earlier this year to implement it in federal elections has been blocked by a judge. An effort to accomplish the same through legislation in Congress appears to have stalled, and state-level attempts have also run into difficulties, even in states dominated by Republicans.
The reason is that providing proof of citizenship, unlike voter ID, can be a big hassle, not just for Democratic voters but for Republican ones, too. Many adults in the U.S. don’t have easy access to their birth certificates or don’t have a U.S. passport — the two main documents suitable for proving citizenship of those born in this country. Or they have a birth certificate, but the name on it does not match the name they currently use, such as for women who took their husband’s last name when they married. In those cases, they might have to provide not just a birth certificate but also a marriage certificate to prove their citizenship.
The inconvenience may be enough to dissuade a number of potential voters from bothering to register, a concern in a nation where low turnout for elections and the difficulty in fielding jury pools are better documented than is voter fraud.
If voter ID is a solution in search of a problem, proof of citizenship is a solution that creates a bigger problem than what it is trying to solve.
In the states where the requirement has been enacted, officials are either fighting lawsuits over the legislation or dealing with more complications than they anticipated.
The National Conference of State Legislatures lists nine states that have enacted laws requiring proof of citizenship when registering to vote. The laws vary in scope. The majority require proof of citizenship only of new registrants. Some require proof only if a voter’s citizenship cannot be verified by accessing other government data.
Although Mississippi is not on the NSCL list, it does require proof from new registrants if their U.S. citizenship cannot be determined by checking a state and a federal database. There’s been little said about the law’s results since it went fully into effect at the start of this year — a probable indication that it’s not been turning up much.
