Voter ID laws and the historic poll tax are similar, the author writes. Why voter ID laws are like a poll tax

When is a voter restriction law like a poll tax? This is the question posed by a wave of laws passed in 11 states that require voters to show state-issued photo IDs.

Attorney General Eric Holder has argued that such laws are not aimed at preventing voter fraud, as supporters claim, but to make it more difficult for minorities to exercise their right to vote. The new Texas photo ID law is like the poll taxes, Holder charges, used to disfranchise generations of African-American and Mexican-American citizens.


Texas Gov. Rick Perry denies this. He claims that using “poll tax” language is “designed to inflame passions and incite racial tension.” Perry is now demanding an apology from President Barack Obama for “Holder’s imprudent remarks.”

But no apology needs to be issued. For these laws function very much like a poll tax.

( PHOTOS: The fight against poll taxes)

Poll taxes belong to an ugly chapter in U.S. race relations. They were part of the Southern states’ Jim Crow system, which prevailed from the late 19th century into the 1960s, and robbed blacks and other minorities of their political and civil rights.

The new voter ID laws are, of course, not exactly the same as the old poll taxes. History provides few examples of exact replicas. But the new laws and the historic poll tax do share three significant points:

First, a voter restriction is like a poll tax when its authors use voting fraud as a pretext for legislation that has little to do with voting fraud.

Second, it is like a poll tax when it creates only a small nuisance to some voters, but for other groups it erects serious barriers to the ballot.

Third, it is like a poll tax when it has crude partisan advantage as its most immediate aim.

The Voting Fraud Pretext

Southern states in the 1890s enacted literacy tests, poll taxes and other laws to regulate voting. Politicians who wrote these laws made no secret of their belief in white supremacy. And most Southerners understood that these laws were designed to keep African-Americans and other targeted groups from voting.

But there was a problem: the 15th Amendment to the Constitution. Adopted in 1870, the amendment prohibits any state from depriving citizens of their right to vote based on race. This meant that the poll tax laws could say nothing about race, and the Southern political leaders could not write their real intent into the law. They needed a pretext.

What they came up with was voter fraud. There was plenty of irony in this — because these same politicians who supported the poll tax had raised election-rigging to a high art. Many had been involved in vote-buying schemes, and fixing elections by “counting out” the other side.

The poll tax would do little to prevent such fraudulent voting tactics. But, just as its supporters intended, it put another barrier between minority and poor voters and the ballot box.

The supporters of today’s new voter ID laws deny that they have any racial motive. These laws, however, are anything but racially neutral. The Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University Law School estimates that in Texas alone, for example, the new photo ID requirements could prevent hundreds of thousands of eligible voters from casting a ballot — including a disproportionate number of African-American and Mexican-American citizens.

How to justify such racially imbalanced laws? This is a problem. We still have the 15th Amendment, as well as the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which finally put some teeth in that amendment. The authors of these ID laws need a pretext. So they reached for the old standby of voter fraud.

In reality, cases of voter impersonation, the only type of fraud that a photo ID might prevent, are extraordinarily rare. And picture IDs do nothing to address the real problems with absentee ballots, trimming voting lists and other tactics that “count out” the opposition. What they do, however, is erect new barriers between minority and poor voters and the ballot box.

Building Barriers to the Vote

The old poll taxes cost a dollar or more — a lot of money in the 1890s, particularly for a poor person. Since some of the new photo IDs can be free, their defenders insist they are nothing like poll taxes.

But cost was only part of what made the poll tax a barrier. Even if you paid the tax, the next hurdle was keeping track of the receipt for a year or more until the elections. This was easy if you lived in a stable home, with a desk or file box to keep papers. But it was difficult for poor farm laborers, who moved frequently and lived in overcrowded cabins. Even a smudge on the receipt would bring challenges from polling officers eager to disqualify African-American voters.

That same unequal burden is clear with the new ID laws. They may not be much of a problem for those who drive a car, for example. But for those without a drivers’ license, tracking down the needed birth certificate or other documentation for state-issued ID can be both expensive and complicated. It can be even more complicated for those who don’t have permanent residences. For certain voters — urban, poor, unemployed and young — these can be major barriers.

These new laws will be more onerous for some groups than others. In Pennsylvania, for example, the law may have little effect on the largely white exurban vote. But it may have a big impact on the heavily minority vote in Philadelphia, where more than 18 percent of voters now lack the necessary ID.

Legally, the old poll taxes were considered race neutral. But in practice, they disfranchised generations of nonwhite voters. Similarly, the new photo ID laws are nominally race neutral. And although less effective and thorough than the old poll tax, what is clear is that their practical burdens will mainly fall on minorities and the poor.

Partisan Advantage

Most Southern states adopted poll taxes and other voting restrictions at the end of the 1890s. Until then, even in the face of severe repression, many African-Americans in the South voted. In the 1890s, however, their votes challenged the Democratic Party, which monopolized Southern politics.

The Democratic Party was deemed “the white man’s party.” Most African-Americans still supported Abraham Lincoln’s Republican Party. But with the rise of the People’s Party, or Populists, Democrats confronted new competition.

In North Carolina, for example, white Populists and black Republicans worked together to topple Democratic rule for the first time in a generation. So Democratic legislators devised the poll tax to defeat these challenges. This push for partisan advantage stripped millions of African-American and other nonwhite and poor citizens of their political rights.

So why, in the 2010s, do we have a renewed push to disfranchise groups of voters? Once again, it’s about partisan advantage. And, once again, a harsh reality of U.S. political life is the degree to which the parties are divided by race. But today, the racial configuration of the parties has flipped — the Republican Party draws on white voters, while African-Americans and other minorities tend to vote for the Democratic Party.

This process of racial division between the parties has been under way for decades. But it’s accelerated since the elections of 2008 and 2010.

As a result, Republican legislators look to the political advantages of photo ID laws that disproportionately affect minority voters. This is why Rep. Mike Turzai, the speaker of the Pennsylvania House, can say so confidently that his new photo ID law will deliver the state to the GOP presidential candidate.

The authors of these new voter laws make no effort to hide that they are designed for political advantage. Under the Texas law, for example, you can vote with a hunting license but not a student ID — a fact only explained by political calculation. Given the growing racial divide in U.S. politics, the larger calculation is clear: The higher the barriers to African-American, Mexican-American, poor and young voters — groups that more often support Democrats — the better the political position of the party writing these laws.

Perry protests that, unlike the ugly days of the poll tax, supporters of these laws are not acting out of racial prejudice. Maybe so. But it hardly matters.

Because, as with the poll tax, the push for partisan advantage is being recklessly pursued without regard to the political rights of millions of mainly poor and minority U.S. citizens.

Charles Postel is an associate professor of history at San Francisco State University. He won the Bancroft Prize for “The Populist Vision.”

This article tagged under: Opinion

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