To secure support for a sweeping proposal to change voting laws, Senate Democrats are being forced to swallow a provision previously considered anathema to them: voter ID laws.
That’s the price of winning support from Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia. On Tuesday, he joined all 49 Democratic colleagues on a vote for the Senate to consider a bill that would overhaul campaign finance laws, extend early voting days, reform redistricting, and enable ballot harvesting.
Manchin’s support meant Democrats voted unanimously to proceed, but it was short of the 60 votes needed to begin debate. That would have required the backing of 10 Republicans, and no GOP senator voted for the measure.
Voter ID law bans will likely not be part of future Senate Democratic efforts on voting rights. Democrats have long painted voter ID laws as efforts to restrict voting, particularly by minorities.
DEMOCRATS HOPE GOP MOVE TO BLOCK ELECTION OVERHAUL BILL WILL PROMPT END OF FILIBUSTER
Manchin offered an alternative measure to the one blocked on Tuesday that would require voters to show a valid utility bill to cast a ballot.
Manchin’s compromise with his fellow Democrats comes after a Monmouth University poll released on Monday showed 80% of respondents support requiring voters to show photo identification to cast a ballot. Just 18% oppose the policy.
“That is something we’re negotiating. Now do remember, our original bill was very clear that you would have to have a sworn statement if you didn’t have an ID. So, it’s not like the original bill was silent on it,” Sen. Amy Klobuchar, a Minnesota Democrat and chairwoman of the Rules Committee, told reporters Tuesday.
Back in March, when the Georgia Legislature passed election reform laws that included a voter ID measure, Democrats and corporations lashed out, calling the law “Jim Crow 2.0.”
Democratic lawmakers such as Sen. Raphael Warnock of Georgia denounced the law, telling the Washington Examiner in April, “We are concerned about the effort to suppress votes. Everybody knows that voter fraud through voter ID is virtually nonexistent.”
However, Warnock, who supports Manchin’s voting measure, recently said he “never opposed voter ID.”
“I don’t know anybody who is — who believes people shouldn’t have to prove that they are who they say they are,” Warnock said. “But what has happened over the years is people have played with common sense identification and put into place restrictive measures intended not to preserve the integrity of the outcome, but to select, certain groups.”
Georgia Democratic activist Stacey Abrams also supported Manchin’s legislation and said she never opposed voter ID either. She argued she was against bills that would prohibit voters from using student ID cards but allow gun licenses.
Fifteen states accept utility bills as a form of ID, including West Virginia. Despite the consistent popularity of photo ID among American voters and voters in 46 European countries, Democrats do not seem ready to negotiate the issue beyond showing a utility bill.
Photo ID advocates, however, argue it is too easy to forge a utility bill. They point to the son of former Rep. Jim Moran of Virginia, Patrick Moran, who was caught on tape in 2012 saying it was easy to “fake a utility bill with ease.”
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
According to Klobuchar, their caucus wants measures dealing with the 34 states that passed no-excuse mail-in ballot laws and six states that mandate notaries for a mail-in ballot to be cast.
