Identification law is meant to prevent voter fraud

By Robby Lewis

Published Feb. 12, 2008

The U.S. Supreme Court will decide in June how Indiana residents will vote in November, and that ruling could include the controversial law including voter identification at the polls.

The Supreme Court began hearings on Jan. 9 to decide whether a law in Indiana that requires voters to show a state-issued ID in order to cast their ballot is constitutional.

This hearing will be important for a lot of states, including Missouri, where the Missouri Supreme Court vetoed a similar law in October 2006. The law was ruled unconstitutional because it caused an unneeded expense to voters.

Rep. Ed Robb, R-Columbia, endorsed the law and did not agree with the court’s decision.

“I think that if when you go into vote, you need to give proof that you’re you, and I’m not sure an electric bill from the city of Columbia is adequate proof,” Robb said.

Robb said the law is likely to come up again because voter fraud is an ongoing problem.

“It’s still an ongoing concern whether or not the person who walks into the voter’s booth is who they say they are,” Robb said. “It’s just a matter of finding a reasonable compromise that the court’s going to live with. Somehow this was seen as a burden to put on voters. Missouri was going to pay for IDs.”

Since the case went to the U.S. Supreme Court, there has been a mixed student response nationally.

Mizzou College Republicans Vice President Marcus Bowen said he supports the law.

“In my opinion, the voter ID law is a very reasonable law,” Bowen said. “Most college Republicans and most people are going to support a law like this. It’s going to surprise most people when you tell them that they don’t need a license to vote.”

Bowen said he feels the people who don’t have driver’s licenses likely aren’t voting anyway.

But the law, which was voted for along party lines in Missouri and Indiana, drew a different response from other students.

“I definitely think it was a great move to veto the law,” MU College Democrats President Caitlin Ellis said. “All it does is make it harder to vote, for college students especially.”

Ellis, who is from Illinois, said because MU has many out-of-state students, this law would force a lot of students to either give up their votes or declare residency when they don’t plan on living permanently.

“They’re not sure if they’re going to be staying,” Ellis said. “I currently have no motivation to get Missouri ID. There’s just no need for it.”

Matthew Segal, founder of the Student Association for Voter Empowerment, said a similar law in Ohio, where he attends Kenyon College, affects him. Segal said changing residency is not something most students want to do.

“Unless students are to change their out-of-state driver’s licenses or residency entirely, many young voters will be forced to vote absentee or provisionally, lowering voter efficacy and making the registration process more bureaucratic, time-consuming and cumbersome,” Segal said. “Changing state residency can also create complications for out-of-state students on certain scholarship guidelines or financial aid contracts.”

Segal added he has heard from several students that they decided not to vote based on this law.

“I am deeply disturbed by the prospect that voter ID laws are not considered an access barrier,” Segal said. “In light of fantastic youth turnout in both presidential primaries, I am skeptical of our ability to maintain momentum as we move forward with this disproportionately discriminatory law.”

Professors at MU conducted a study that found requiring state IDs does not lower the amount of people who vote.