Illinois Republicans wasted no time piggybacking off of Monday's Supreme Court decision to uphold Indiana’s strict voter-identification law, which declared that the state has a “valid interest” in improving election procedures as well as deterring fraud by requiring voters to produce photo identification at the polls. Via the Bloomington Pantagraph:
After a U.S. Supreme Court decision this week, a Republican lawmaker says he plans to push forward with a plan to require Illinois voters to show a photo identification card before casting a ballot. [...]
In Illinois, state Rep. David Reis, R-Willow Hill, has been trying to convince his fellow lawmakers to approve a mandatory ID law for three years without success. He says the requirement of showing proof of identification is important to preventing voter fraud.
As Reis' renewed push shows, the Court's decision will likely spur Republican legislators to replicate the Indiana law in their own states, a pattern that unnerves many voting rights advocates. Along with the introduction of new proposals, The New York Times says that "similar laws in the other 20 or so states that have photo-identification rules would appear to have a good chance of surviving scrutiny."
Why is this problematic? As Slate's Marty Lederman recently put it, the decision essentially institutionalizes a solution to a problem that does not exist.
The ostensible reason for the legislation is to protect against in-person "voter fraud," which Republicans suggest is rampant and a scourge on the Republic. But the Times begs to differ, reporting last year that "[f]ive years after the Bush administration began a crackdown on voter fraud, the Justice Department has turned up virtually no evidence of any organized effort to skew federal elections, according to court records and interviews."
Even the SCOTUS justices themselves couldn't point to reasonable examples in their decision. As Lederman noted, they cited an anecdote from 1868, as well as a single example of in-person fraud committed in Washington in 2004.
But at least Justice Roberts and company tried. In justifying his bill, Rep. Reis doesn't even attempt to offer examples or allegations of fraud here in Illinois:
But Reis argues ID cards are routinely required in daily life to buy certain things.
“Why not to vote?” Reis said.
Maybe because it places an extra burden on certain voters without securing any governmental interests? Just a thought ...
The Republicans' voter fraud crusade is a manufactured issue aimed at suppressing likely-Democratic voters, plain and simple. That the court couldn't see through such a blatant partisan tactic is unfortunate. Let's hope our state's legislators don't fall into the same trap.
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