The voter ID bill, SB 362, is being debated for final passage on the Senate floor. It has been amended twice thus far, the most important of which was the addition of a provision for voter education to explain the identification requirements. The smelly part of this: The bill supposedly had a fiscal note of $0, or at least “no significant fiscal implication to the State.”
Democrats suspected that was baloney, and this amendment proves it. Now, because of the voter education, the number being tossed around is about $2 million, although as Austin Sen. Kirk Watson noted, it isn’t really certain where that number comes from.
“Why not $1 million?” he asked. “Why not $5 million? What does the education effort really cost? … And that’s just the info from the Secretary of State. What about the Department of Public Safety? The DPS said it would $671,000 per year to provide people free IDs for the purpose of voting.” (In an attempt to get around Democratic charges that the cost of obtaining a photo ID amounts to a revival of the poll tax, author Troy Fraser included a requirement that the DPS provide a personal identification card free to anyone who says they’re requesting it for the purpose of voting.)
This article appears in March 13 • 2009.