Voter ID Laws Draw Strong Support Despite Low Awareness
Despite widespread support for voter IDs, polling
experts say the public is poorly informed about the
controversial laws and their potential impact on the
November presidential election.
A new Washington Post poll found that 74 percent of
respondents strongly agreed or somewhat agreed that
voters should be required to show a government-issued
ID when voting.
However, 51 percent of the randomly selected 2,047
adults surveyed nationally between July 18 and 29 said
they had either heard not much or nothing at all about
voter ID laws.
“From a public awareness standpoint, it’s pretty low
awareness,” said Jon Cohen, The Post’s director of
polling. “We’re talking about under half of all
American adults who have even heard something of this
raging controversy.”
In 2011-12, lawmakers proposed 62 photo-ID bills in 37
states, with multiple bills introduced in some states.
Ten states have passed strict photo ID laws since 2008,
though several may not be in effect in November because
of legal challenges.
Polling expert Phil Meyer, professor emeritus at the
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, agrees
that the public is not familiar with voter-ID laws, and
that how poll questions are worded could determine
responses.
When a recent University of Delaware poll, for
instance, presented laws as a way to stop voter fraud,
there was more support than when the same measures were
described as a possible form of discrimination.
University of Delaware political science professor
David Wilson, who conducted that national survey from
May 20 to June 6, said it showed the 906 randomly
selected respondents weren’t familiar with the debate
over voter IDs.
Wilson said most people haven’t heard as much about
disenfranchisement as they have about alleged voter
fraud because the media does not report on voter
disenfranchisement.
“Until they see specific media accounts of how these
things can disenfranchise voters, people won’t know
much about that argument,” Wilson said.
In the Washington Post poll, there was a sizable gap
between whites, who were more concerned about the voter
fraud that ID laws are supposed to prevent, and blacks,
who were more concerned about the disenfranchisement
that such laws could cause.
Cohen said these results show a stark racial divide
that lines up with partisan divisions based on the
questions asked.
The Post found that 52 percent of whites were more
concerned about voter fraud, compared to 26 percent of
blacks; 67 percent of blacks cited more concern about
voter disenfranchisement, compared to 40 percent of
whites.
Meyer said the public is generally confused about the
basic argument for voter-ID laws, which is that they
would prevent voter fraud. Advocates for the laws,
overwhelmingly Republican and conservative, cite fraud
repeatedly, but have offered virtually no evidence to
support this claim.
“Voter fraud, if you haven’t thought about it, sounds
bad,” said Meyer, a veteran journalist and expert in
computer-assisted reporting. “But if you do (think
about) the probability of a vote being fraudulent, it’s
less than your chance of being struck by lightning.”
The Post poll also found a significant partisan divide
among racial groups when asked the same fraud versus
disenfranchisement question.
“There are two good things at stake,” Cohen said.
“People want all eligible voters to vote, and people
want no fraud.”
“Concern” for voter fraud was more important among
Republicans than Democrats, with 67 percent compared to
32 percent, respectively.
However, 62 percent of Democrats showed more concern
for disenfranchisement, compared to 27 percent of
Republicans.
Additionally, 59 percent of blacks and 41 percent of
whites said support of voter-ID laws is an effort to
boost one party by a good amount or a great deal.
Democrats and civil-rights groups say the ID laws are
unnecessary and will disenfranchise eligible voters,
especially minority groups, adding heat to an already
charged partisan debate.
Every state legislature that has enacted a voter-ID law
— except Rhode Island’s — was controlled by Republicans
when its law was passed.
The Post poll shows broad support for ID laws despite
party affiliation, with support from 88 percent of
Republicans and 60 percent of Democrats.
Wendy Weiser, director of the Democracy Program at the
Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University
School of Law, which opposes strict voter-ID laws, is
concerned that polling on the issue misses many of the
people most likely to be impacted.
“The people who don’t have ID are less likely to be
captured by telephone polls,” she said. “They’re less
likely to be people who answer telephone polls and less
likely to have landlines.”
Weiser and Wilson say that many people supporting voter
ID trust the government to apply the laws fairly.
“People are giving those who are pushing these laws the
benefit of the doubt, because there must be a good
reason for it,” Wilson said.
According to The Post poll, 48 percent of those
surveyed believe voter fraud is a major problem; 57
percent of Republicans responded that way.
Wilson’s University of Delaware study found that the
laws enjoy more support among those who had high levels
of “racial resentment” when answering questions about
African Americans receiving “special considerations.”
For example, Wilson said that those surveyed were more
likely to support voter-ID laws if they agreed with the
statement, “African Americans bring up race only when
they need to make an excuse for their failure.”
The poll found that 34 percent of all respondents
strongly agreed or somewhat agreed with that statement.
Wilson said the “racial resentment” response
represented an attitude about who deserves the right to
vote.
“It’s racialized about who might be getting what in
society, and deserving it,” he said.
According to Wilson, people who showed high levels of
racial resentment probably believe that a “real
American” doesn’t have trouble getting an ID, doesn’t
need help from the government and doesn’t complain.
“It’s about the identity that Americans have … It’s
about working and not complaining — not asking for
special favors like Spanish-speaking forms, or having
to be politically correct in public conversations,” he
said.
Wilson said the lack of knowledge about the laws, along
with the racial issues involved, show that many
supporters of voter ID cannot see things from the
perspective of disenfranchised voters.
“They tend to not be in the position of those who are
disenfranchised,” he said. “It’s not 40 or 50 percent
of the public — it’s people at the margins. But the
margins make a difference in elections.”
Wilson said it is not surprising that Republicans have
higher levels of racial resentment and stronger support
for voter-ID laws.
“You have to think about the parties that are involved.
The Republican Party is much more homogeneous than the
Democratic Party,” he said.
Democrats have criticized the laws for having a
disproportionate effect on minorities. That, in turn,
could mean a drop in turnout, which would hurt
Democratic candidates.
Nate Silver, a statistician who writes the
FiveThirtyEight election and political blog for the New
York Times, raised the stakes in the voter-ID debate in
July, when he wrote about the possible impact of the
laws on the presidential election.
After Pennsylvania’s strict ID law was passed in March,
the Pennsylvania Department of State estimated that
758,939 — or 9 percent — of the state’s registered
voters lacked driver’s licenses, and could be
ineligible to vote under the new law.
Silver however, was more conservative in his analysis
of likely impact.
He expects Pennsylvania’s new voter-ID law to cause a
2.4 percent drop in turnout and said this would shift
1.2 percent of the vote to the Republican candidate in
a traditionally Democratic state.
In a close election, Silver said, the voter-ID law
could help likely Republican nominee Mitt Romney beat
President Barack Obama in Pennsylvania.
Silver said that estimates of potential voter
disenfranchisement by civil-rights groups are
inflated.
“People seize on the most dramatic number
without necessarily telling the whole story,” he told
News21.
Pennsylvania is not the only state which has had high
estimates of potential disenfranchisement.
In a lawsuit over the Texas law, Harvard political
science professor Stephen Ansolabehere testified that
1.5 million to 1.9 million voters do not have the
state-issued ID required under the law, an estimate
lawyers for Texas called flawed.
The Texas voter-ID law was blocked by the Department of
Justice under the Voting Rights Act, and the state has
sued to enforce the law.
A ruling in the Texas case
could come in August. A Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court
judge upheld the photo ID law, but the decision is
expected to be appealed.
Jack Fitzpatrick and Khara Persad were Hearst
Foundations Fellows this summer for News21.
For comments or feedback, email news@news21.com
