Voter Identification Essay

In “The Historical Context of Voter Photo-ID Laws”, Chandler Davidson argues that the Indiana legislature requiring most voters to show photo identification in order to cast a ballot serves as a way for Republican officials to attempt to gain votes. Due to the Twenty-Fourth Amendment and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, poll taxes, literacy and property tests, white primaries, and other restrictions placed on minorities were abolished. However, race, class, and partisanship continue to push lawmakers to place restrictions on voters. With the Indiana legislation, many argued that it violated the First and Fourteenth Amendments by placing an unfair burden on those who do not have the proper government-issued documents that constitute identification.

Voter identification can prevent impersonation fraud at the polls, voting under fictitious voter registrations, double voting, and voting by undocumented individuals. Not only can voter identification prevent fraudulent voting, but has not reduced voter turnout across racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic lines. In Indiana, the state with the strictest voter identification laws, saw an increase in voter turnout in the Democratic presidential preference primary in 2008 from the 2004 election when the photo identification law was not in effect. Spakovsky also refutes the claim that voter identification is of the same nature of that of a “poll tax” by arguing that a federal court dismissed this claim, pointing out that such an “argument represents a dramatic overstatement of what fairly constitutes a ‘poll tax’”. The United States is one of nearly one-hundred democracies without uniform voter photo-identification requirements, all of which administer the law without issue. Spakovsky concludes that requirement voter identification can be easily met, is supported by the vast majority of voters of various races and ethnic backgrounds, and provides security for