The government offices where voters can obtain the proper IDs have limited business hours. Study: Millions in voter ID nightmare

In the states with significant voter ID laws, more than 10 million eligible citizens live 10 or more miles from an office issuing the proper photo IDs and about half a million of those voters don’t have access to a vehicle, according to a study out Wednesday.

One in 10 eligible voters do not have the proper photo ID required to cast ballots under new voter ID laws in the 10 states studied, and the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law found a number of major difficulties for citizens who need to obtain the correct identification.


In the report, the Brennan Center — which is regarded as a liberal think tank and is against the new voter ID laws — states free photo IDs are not easily accessible to the 11 percent of voters who do not currently have them.

In the 10 states with restrictive voter ID laws, about half a million eligible voters do not have access to a vehicle and live 10 miles from a government office where they could acquire an ID, the study found. And more than 10 million eligible voters live more than 10 miles from an ID-issuing office. About 1.2 million black voters and 500,000 Hispanic voters live more than 10 miles away from their closest ID office, and the study noted “people of color are more likely to be disenfranchised by these laws since they are less likely to have a photo ID than the general population.”

The government offices where voters can obtain the proper IDs have limited business hours, the Brennan Center stated, citing an example in Sauk City, Wisconsin where the ID office is open only on the fifth Wednesday of any month — but only four months in 2012 have that fifth Wednesday.

And more than 1 million voters in the 10 states with restrictive ID laws — Alabama, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Mississippi, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Wisconsin — fall below the federal poverty line and live at least 10 miles from an ID office. The center warned these voters could find it difficult to pay for the documents required to obtain the proper voter ID. Birth certificates can cost $8-$25 and marriage licenses go for $8-$20. “By comparison, the notorious poll tax — outlawed during the civil rights era — cost $10.64 in current dollars,” the report stated.

“The result is plain: Voter ID laws will make it harder for hundreds of thousands of poor Americans to vote,” the report added. “They place a serious burden on a core constitutional right that should be universally available to every American citizen. This November, restrictive voter ID states will provide 127 electoral votes — nearly half of the 270 needed to win the presidency. Therefore, the ability of eligible citizens without photo ID to obtain one could have a major influence on the outcome of the 2012 election.”

Amy Ridenour of The National Center for Public Policy Research, a conservative think tank, slammed the Brennan Center’s report in a statement as trying “to find excuses to oppose voter integrity provisions.” Ridenour noted that photo IDs are not needed to vote absentee and added that at the polls, provisional ballots can be cast by those lacking the required ID.

“The Brennan Center apparently does not care that every invalid vote cast cancels out the legitimate voice of a valid voter, but millions of Americans do care,” Ridenour said. “The states wrote these laws carefully.”

“This latest attack on Voter ID as a poll tax and therefore unconstitutional is nonsense. The U.S. Supreme Court examined this question just four years ago and upheld Voter ID. People making this argument, including Eric Holder, are grasping at straws,” Ridenour added.

This article tagged under: Voters

Voter Identification