The Help America Vote Act Helping to Suppress the Vote
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Originnally published in The Santa Fe New Mexican (New Mexico) on September 26, 2004
By: INEZ RUSSELL
The key to winning an election is simple: It's the votes, stupid.
That's why who votes is so important.
Historically, big turnouts help Democrats. Lower turnouts help Republicans. That's especially true in places like New Mexico, where more voters are registered as Democrats.
Here, in a state that went for Democrat Al Gore by just 366 votes in the 2000 presidential election, discouraging some groups of voters is as important to Republican hopes of turning this blue state red as is making sure their voters turn out strong.
That's why people are hearing a loud outcry about the need to halt "voter fraud" and make sure, at the least, that new voters prove their identities.
The ultimate goal, of course, is voter ID for everyone. This time around, stopping enough new voters from exercising their constitutional right to vote could make all the difference in making New Mexico see red this November.
First, some background.
In the 2000 presidential election, news coverage was awash with tales of hanging chads, butterfly ballots and the legitimacy of hand recounts. More important, though, was what happened before Election Day ever dawned in Florida.
Florida purged voting rolls of known felons -- surely, a laudatory goal in this drive to suppress "fraud" -- but, in the process, kicked off thousands of legitimate -- mostly African-American, likely Democratic -- voters as well.
Before ballots were cast, enough Democratic-leaning voters were denied the right to vote to turn the tide for George W. Bush in Florida.
Pleased with the results, Republican-controlled Florida was planning to purge the rolls using the same flawed system this year. Surprisingly, an alert media wrote about it and stopped the purge.
But eliminating legitimate voters from the rolls isn't the only way to suppress turnout.
Welcome to the Help America Vote Act, which has many provisions designed to avoid the 2000 election mess this time around.
One provision, though, requires new voters who register by mail to produce a photo ID at the polls. As required, New Mexico legislators approved a law with the ID requirement for new, registered-by-mail voters. It's now up to the courts to decide what it means to register by mail. Democratic Secretary of State Rebecca Vigil-Giron says a new voter who signs up in person through a voter drive isn't a mail registration; Republicans want anyone who doesn't register at a county clerk's office to prove his or her identity. Sounds easy enough, right? After all, who in an America crazy for cars doesn't have a driver's license? Let's see.
The list of those lacking a photo ID might include elderly people who don't drive -- including many minority men and women living with family members or in nursing homes -- all of whom might be Democratic voters.
That's OK, say supporters of voter ID. Use a utility bill or a Social Security check. That's simple -- unless, for example, like my late grandmother, you live with one daughter, so the bills are in her name, your Social Security check goes to another daughter's house, and the addresses don't match. My grandmother couldn't have proved her identity under this law.
The devil, as in so many things, is in the details.
Already this year in South Dakota, where the Native American vote has made the winning difference for Democrats in tight elections -- Sen. Tim Johnson won by just 524 votes over Republican challenger John Thune two years ago, largely with the help of Indian voters -- the new voter-ID provision stopped Indians from voting.
Voters who lack "proper" ID are supposed to be able to cast a provisional ballot but, in South Dakota, some poll workers didn't allow that and turned away voters -- Indian voters, and, most likely, Democratic voters.
In Florida's primary earlier this year, people were stopped from voting because they lacked photo ID. That happened, according to The New York Times, despite a provision in Florida's law allowing voters without ID to sign an affidavit pledging they are who they say they are.
In New Mexico, imagine the confusion at polls when rural Norteño voters with one mailing address and another physical address present a license and a voter-registration card that don't match.
Or what happens to the college student with a driver's license at school in Las Cruces and a voter-registration card back in Taos?
Or to the busy mom who left her driver's license in her other purse and who can't get back a second time to vote? Legitimate voters will be denied.
Across the country, then, this voter-ID law intended to combat so-called voter "fraud" -- which, if and where it exists, hasn't been shown to be nearly as widespread as repeated, and successful, efforts to suppress the votes of minorities -- will mean eligible citizens will be denied their right to vote.
In America, citizens are supposed to be innocent until proven guilty. Requiring an ID presumes a citizen is there to defraud; it says voters are guilty of not being who they say they are.
It's un-American, really.
But it helps ensure the right votes are counted.
Inez Russell is a longtime New Mexico journalist. Reach her at inezrussell@earthlink.net.
