Former Rep. Jim Wright (D-Tex.) once held one of the most prominent political positions in the United States. From 1987 to 1989, Wright served as speaker of the House of Representatives. However, last Nov. 2, Wright found he might not even be able to cast a ballot in his state’s elections.
The 90-year-old Wright was denied a voter ID card by the Texas Department of Public Safety because his driver’s license had expired in 2010. Wright needed a valid form of identification to obtain a voter ID card because of a new law enacted by the Texas Legislature.
Similar measures have been enacted in numerous states in the last several years, including North Carolina and Alabama.
Former Rep. Wright is not the only one who has been affected by these harsh new voter ID laws. Although Wright encountered difficulties with the Texas voter registration system because of his age, the groups most likely to be affected by these laws are women and minority groups, particularly African-Americans and Hispanics.
According to Ari Berman of The Nation, Hispanic voters in Texas are 46 to 120 percent more likely than white voters to lack the forms of ID needed to cast a ballot in the state.
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) has argued that “common sense measures such as voter identification laws” are needed to combat the threat of voter fraud.
Contrary to the claims of these proponents of voter ID laws and similar measures, there is absolutely no evidence to suggest voter fraud exists in the United States to any significant degree.
There are currently more than 11 million registered voters in Florida. Igor Volsky of Think Progress found that according to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, just “178 cases of alleged voter fraud have been referred to the department since 2000.”
It is clear the voter ID legislation proposed by Republicans around the country is a solution in search of a problem. What, then, is the true motivation for enacting such harsh and restrictive legislation?
In the 2008 and 2012 elections, members of ethnic and racial minorities voted overwhelmingly for President Barack Obama and other Democratic candidates. African-Americans supported Obama over Mitt Romney by a margin of 93 percent to 6 percent. Hispanics also voted for Obama by a wide margin, 71 percent to 27 percent.
The overwhelming support for the Democratic Party among these demographic groups, combined with the rapid population growth of those groups relative to whites, poses an existential threat to the Republican Party.
Rather than reaching out to members of these demographic groups and trying to gain their political support, Republicans have instead chosen to make it as difficult as possible for them to vote.
The political benefit of voter ID laws to the GOP has been acknowledged by numerous Republican politicians. In 2012, Pennsylvania House leader Mike Turzai said the voter ID law enacted in his state would “allow Governor Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania.”
Some supporters of the voter ID laws and similarly restrictive voting measures have been even more blunt about the true purpose of the legislation.
According to Think Progress, Don Yelton, a former precinct chair of the Buncombe County, North Carolina Republican Party, said if restrictive voting measures hurt “a bunch of lazy blacks that wants the government to give them everything, so be it.”
Although Yelton resigned after making his blatantly racist remarks, he was only saying out loud what Republicans around the country know: If African-Americans, Hispanics and other minorities vote in large numbers, Republicans will lose election after election.
If the Republican Party wants to remain relevant in American politics, it should focus on adapting its policies to suit the interests and beliefs of a larger number of voters, particularly fast-growing demographics like Hispanics and African-Americans.
Attempting to rig the electoral system by making voting more difficult for millions of Americans is an attack on democracy itself and should not be tolerated.
Elliot Levy is a UF political science and public relations junior. His column runs on Wednesdays. A version of this column ran on page 7 on 11/13/2013 under the headline "Voter ID laws threaten democracy"
