With the parties increasingly at odds over voting rules in states, several Democratic members of Congress are maintaining their opposition to voter ID laws despite broad popularity among the public, polls show.
Georgia, in March, joined 36 other states in requiring photo identification to vote. Republican Gov. Brian Kemp’s signature on the legislation sparked weeks of political protests, with critics calling the law a blunt instrument of voter suppression.
Still, according to various polls since 2006, over 75% of people support showing a photo identification in order to cast a ballot. This includes the support of 69% of black voters. However, despite the support, Democrats argue the election provision is a form of voter suppression.
“We should make it as easy as possible for people who are legally entitled to vote, and voter ID laws make it more difficult,” Rep. David Cicilline of Rhode Island, a Democrat and chairman of the Democratic Policy and Communications Committee, told the Washington Examiner. “Our democracy depends on the ability of people to have their voices heard.”
Sen. Rafael Warnock, a Georgia Democrat, won his seat against a Republican incumbent in a January runoff two months after the presidential election. Warnock will face a GOP challenger in 2022 under Georgia’s new election law, which includes the voter ID measure. However, the law is being challenged in court by Democratic-aligned lawyers.
VOTER ID RULES POPULAR AMONG PUBLIC: POLLS
“We are concerned about the effort to suppress votes. Everybody knows that voter fraud through voter ID is virtually nonexistent,” Warnock told the Washington Examiner. “What I’m focused on is making sure that people have access and that we maintain the integrity of our voting systems. You can do both of those.”
Sen. Jon Ossoff, a Georgia Democrat, who won his seat at the same time as Warnock, explained that his party would respond to the voter ID issue through the Democrats’ campaign finance and election reform legislation, known as the For The People Act (S1). The proposal would require states to allow voters to sign sworn affidavits to vote in lieu of presenting photo ID.
“We’re going have an opportunity in the U.S. Senate to pass landmark voting rights legislation, which will secure the sacred franchise for every American and also ensure the security and integrity of our elections, and it’s an ongoing discussion,” Ossoff said.
Democrats, as well as organizations such as the ACLU, will reference numbers from a November 2006 national survey sponsored by the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law that show 7% of U.S. citizens do not have access to citizenship documents or that citizens with “comparatively low incomes are less likely to possess documentation proving their citizenship.” The poll numbers also showed that 25% of black, voting-age citizens have no up-to-date government-issued photo ID, compared to 8% of white voting-age citizens.
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Heritage Foundation Election Law Reform Initiative and senior legal fellow Hans von Spakovsky took issue with the Brennan Center’s 2006 survey.
“The actual turnout and experience of states with voter ID laws in place since the Brennan Center’s erroneous 2006 report shows just how wrong the Brennan Center was in all of its claims and hysterical predictions about ID requirements, which are overwhelmingly supported by the American public,” von Spakovsky told the Washington Examiner.
