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COLUMBUS, Ohio — House Republicans on Wednesday pushed through what could become the nation's most restrictive voter identification law, requiring Ohioans to show government-issued photo IDs at the polls.

More than three hours of fiery debate, following two hearings over eight days, netted a near-party line vote of 57-38 for the voter ID bill, which now heads to the Republican-dominated Senate. Rep. Kirk Schuring, from the Canton area, was the only Republican to join Democrats in voting against the legislation.

The legislation would require voters to show one of four forms of ID when voting in person -- an Ohio driver's license, state ID, military ID or passport. The bill would not affect mail-in absentee voting. Currently, voters must show a photo ID or present a utility bill, bank statement, paycheck or government document with a current name and address. Ohio would follow Indiana and Georgia in passing a photo ID law, although those other states allow students to use IDs issued by state colleges in some cases. Republicans tabled a Democratic amendment to allow Ohio college students at state-run schools to use their photo IDs for voting purposes in Ohio.

The bill's sponsor, Rep. Bob Mecklenborg, a Cincinnati Republican, said the bill is a "cornerstone" of further election reforms that Republicans will be seeking in the coming months. "Our present system rips our communities asunder with unnecessary concern and unnecessary litigation," he said, adding that the current ID system is confusing and open to lawsuits.

But Democrats bashed the bill, likening it to a "poll tax" and saying that it would disenfranchise blacks, senior citizens, college students and poor people -- all groups with lower rates of having state-issued IDs, according to several national studies of the issue.

While Republicans produced no evidence of voter fraud from impersonation, Mecklenborg and other GOP leaders say they believe it is going on unreported. "I believe it happens, but it's proving a negative," Mecklenborg told reporters after the vote. "It's impossible to prove a negative. How do you prove that fraud doesn't exist there?"

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Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted talks to Mike McIntyre

However, Cuyahoga County Board of Elections head Jane Platten, a Democrat, said she has never seen a case of voter impersonation in the seven years she has been with the local elections board. "In terms of someone going to polling location and impersonating someone else, I have never seen it," Platten said. "It's never been brought to my attention that it has ever happened in Cuyahoga County."

Told of Platten's comments, House Speaker William G. Batchelder seemed flabbergasted. "That has to be one of the silliest things I've ever heard of," said the veteran Medina Republican. "How can anybody say with any certainty that they never had any votes cast using someone else's name?"

Peg Rosenfield, an elections specialist for the League of Women Voters who has spent four decades monitoring Ohio elections, agreed with Platten, saying that the kind of voter fraud that would be stopped by the legislation passed Wednesday doesn't exist. The league and AARP Ohio oppose the bill.

"We have never seen an instance of voter impersonation," said Rosenfield, who worked at the secretary of state's office under Democrat Sherrod Brown. "We have never even heard of one." And in an interview Wednesday afternoon, former Democratic Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner said that during her four years in office she also never saw a single case of voter impersonation in Ohio.

A handful of black Democratic lawmakers rose during the debate to say the legislation targets blacks, because of a study from the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law finding that 25 percent of voting-age blacks lack a current government-issued photo ID. They likened it to a Jim Crow-era "poll tax" that was levied in some places in the South to keep blacks from voting.

Rep. Carlton Weddington, a Columbus black Democrat, told House Republicans they were "trying to put some of us all in the back of the bus" and said the legislation sends Ohio back to "a time of racial prejudice."

However, Mecklenborg said those concerns were overblown. He pointed to vote totals in Georgia after that state adopted its voter ID law that showed a surge in voting for all racial groups, including blacks.

Batchelder said he was "a little bit embarrassed" by the racial accusations. "I don't think it's fair in any way, shape or form," he said. "We don't need people standing up on the floor of the House and acting like everything that is going on is racist -- particularly not from the party that gave fewer votes to the 1964 Civil Rights Act than Republicans did."

Democrats also saw political motivations in the Republican-backed legislation because they think it could cut into votes from typical Democratic constituencies. However, Batchelder said there was "none of that whatsoever" in response.

Under the bill, those who declare "indigence" will be able to get the state ID fee waived. The bill would also allow expired state IDs to be used for voting, Republicans said.

Democrats say that the bill could cost up to $20 million to implement once litigation, poll-worker training, voter education and costs for free IDs for the indigent are factored in.

However, Batchelder said any new poll worker training or voter education needed could just be rolled into the current training and forms. And Republicans cited a fiscal note from the non-partisan Legislative Service Commission predicted "minimal" costs to the state for free Ids for the indigent. Republican Secretary of State Jon Husted has not taken a position on the bill, but did not include the photo ID requirement in his proposed elections reform package rolled out recently.

To reach this Plain Dealer reporter: amarshall@plaind.com, 1-800-228-8272