Notes on Kamp: Reining in the Vote

As far as I can tell, there are only two groups of people who are willing to argue with a straight face that Texas' Voter ID law isn't specifically designed to harass and intimidate voters: the politicians who enacted the law, and the judges who upheld its constitutionality.

Voter ID was ostensibly enacted to prevent voter fraud by requiring voters to present one on a list of accepted forms of photo ID: a Texas driver's license or photo ID, a Texas handgun license, a U.S. passport, military ID card, or citizenship certificate, or a Texas election identification certificate (this last a new form of photo ID specifically created by the law). The identification could not have expired more than 60 days previously to be considered valid. There are plenty of people who argue that, regardless of why the law exists, it should be no big deal to comply with the law. Why wouldn't someone have at least one form of ID on the list, or be able to get an election identification certificate, which is free?

But there are many reasons why someone might find this law difficult to comply with. Getting documentation isn't especially difficult – although the DPS is never fun and is often time-consuming – if you have readily available the other documentation you need to get it. In order to get an EIC, you must bring other official papers with you to the DPS. If you've lost track of those documents in a move, or because you don't have a secure place to live, or because – to draw on a dramatic, but real, example – your abusive partner destroyed all of your documents in order to keep you from leaving him, then getting an EIC becomes less possible.

Voting is a right, not a privilege. Regardless of whether most eligible voters should find it easy to comply with the law, or whether "you should have valid ID anyway," being able to vote shouldn't be dependent on how many hoops you're willing and able to jump through.

And, of course, just as it was intended to, the law is having a real, negative impact.

During his SXSW appearance last week, President Barack Obama touched on the issue, saying, "We're the only advanced democracy in the world that makes it harder for people to vote ... I hear laughing but it's sad. We systematically put up barriers and make it as hard as possible for our citizens to vote."

As Obama and interviewer Evan Smith discussed, the Voter ID law isn't the only way voting is made unnecessarily difficult.

On Monday, the Texas Civil Rights Project filed a lawsuit on behalf of four voters who were disenfranchised because they mistakenly believed they had been able to update their voter registration online. As the TCRP complaint explains, the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 requires that "every time an eligible voter obtains, renews, or updates his or her driver's license with the Texas Department of Pub­lic Safety, the state must simultaneously offer to register that person to vote or to update the voter's registration record." Yet, contravening the "simultaneous" part of that rule, DPS allows people to update their driver license information online, but directs them to a separate site to download a voter registration form, print it out, and mail to the voter registrar. It's really all-too-ridiculous when you unpack it. There's apparently no security problem in allowing people to update their driver's licenses online – the same driver's licenses they need to present to be able to vote – but updating voter registration not only has to be done by mail, but the information is presented so confusingly that quite a few people don't even realize that their registration hasn't been updated.

TCRP Executive Director Mimi Marziani told the Chronicle Tuesday that DPS' flouting of the NVRA has created a "systemic problem," and that everyone who works on voting issues in Texas hears these sorts of complaints. Between Sept. 2013 and May 2015, the state received complaints from more than 1,800 voters who thought they'd updated their voter registration during an online interaction with DPS, but had not.

Travis County Registrar Bruce Elfant, who has done what he can with his limited power to make voting easier, issued a statement Tuesday harshly criticizing current DPS practice and offering an obvious solution: "Most Texans, especially digital natives, find it hard to believe that a state a big as Texas does not offer online voter registration. ... Online Voter Registration is proven to be more secure, accurate, and far less expensive than our current outdated paper-based process. I could show you many voter registration applications where it is almost impossible to decipher the person's handwriting. Our Legislature could easily resolve this lawsuit, save taxpayer dollars and make voter registration more accessible, accurate, and secure by approving online voter registration for Texans."

Our lawmakers should be ashamed by just how obvious their real intentions in creating these barriers are: On Friday, in response to Smith mentioning that Texas has some of the worst voter turnout in the country, Obama said, "There's a reason I'm bringing this up ... the folks that are currently governing the good state of Texas aren't interested in having people vote."

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View the Texas Civil Rights Project's complaint here.