Voter ID Laws: What's the Harm?

The following is a response to Carrie Sanders' article titled "Texas voter ID is a must".

Let's think about exactly what we're talking about here. Laws that regulate the way that people vote dabble in an extremely sensitive issue. Historically, the most prevalent voting laws were the Jim Crow laws. In particular, the poll tax prevented many minorities from voting in the South and the Texas Democratic Party didn't allow minorities to vote in its primaries. Obviously, when changing the way that people vote, we don't want to do anything which even resembles these horrible regulations.

But that's exactly what the voter ID law does! According to an article* from the Houston Chronicle, 38.2% of registered voters who do not have photo identification are Hispanic. Compare this to the fact that 21.8% of all registered voters in Texas are Hispanic. We can clearly see that a disproportionate number of Hispanic voters do not have photo identification. This is a fact. Furthermore, it is inevitable that some fraction (and likely a significant one) of those who do not have a photo ID will either not hear about the law or will be unable to obtain an ID by the following election. Many who hear about it and are able to get an ID will still be deterred from doing so because of the time it takes to go to a DPS office and obtain an ID. The simple fact of the matter is that fewer votes would be cast in the election following the passage of this law, and a disproportionate number of those votes would have been from Hispanic voters.

Now, we can clearly ignore these unfortunate statistics if it's shown that the law is, as you say, "a must." This would be the case if there were a significant number of reported cases of voting fraud. However, you neglect to mention any such number, providing no evidence that the law is necessary at all. In fact, the article you mention** only lists six instances of voter fraud over the entire history of the attorney general's office's existence. No other numbers or statistics are given regarding the frequency of voter fraud. The article does mention, as you say, that some Texas House of Representatives elections are decided by as few as 50 votes, but if the number of fraudulent votes per election is as low as six, the probability that voter fraud could change an election's outcome is extremely small.

The given evidence shows that there is nothing suggesting that voter fraud is a problem in Texas, while enacting a counter measure to the perceived issue would disenfranchise Hispanic voters in Texas. Clearly, this measure, the proposed voter ID law, does nothing but harm for Texas. If you want to change my and our colleagues' opinions on this matter, I suggest you bring some evidence to the table.

*Scharrer, Gary. "Facts elusive in Texas voter ID fight." The Houston Chronicle. Published March 25, 2012. Accessed August 3, 2012.
**Abbott, Greg. "ID laws aren't significant obstacle to proper votes." Austin American-Statesman. Published July 8, 2012. Accessed August 3, 2012.