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August 30, 2012

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Campus Vote Project Logo

Photo-ID Laws Pose Hurdle for College Voters

New America Media

College students returning to campuses in states with new voter photo-ID laws may find registering to vote far more challenging than registering for classes.

Restrictive voting laws -- such as requiring a photo ID at the polling place -- are sweeping the country. Since 2011, 19 states have enacted 24 restrictive voting laws that civil-rights advocates say are more likely to disenfranchise ethnic voters. Among those states, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas and Tennessee have passed laws that make it harder or impossible for students to use school IDs as a form of identification at the polls.

In Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, “laws were actually drafted in such a way that not a single existing public university or school ID complied with the requirements as set out in the legislation,” said Lee Rowland, counsel at the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center for Justice.

Speaking to media in a teleconference this week, co-hosted by New America Media, Rowland said laws that seek to limit student voting are not only bad policy but interfere with students’ Constitutional right to cast votes in the places they call home.

In Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, she said colleges and universities have taken steps to ensure their students will have acceptable IDs in time for the election. Some schools have begun either issuing new IDs or stickers that can be affixed to current IDs that would bring them into compliance with the new laws.

However, South Carolina, Texas and Tennessee, “explicitly exclude student IDs from the list of acceptable photo identification that is taken at the polling place,” Rowland said. She called Texas the most “egregious” offender because its new laws would tend to have a disparate impact on African-American voters.

Photo-ID laws hurt minorities

For instance, the Texas law allows the use of a concealed weapons permit as a form of ID to vote but only seven to eight percent of African Americans have that type of permit. She explained that the gun-permit ID provision carries little racial import in isolation, but when viewed in conjunction with a student-ID law, the intent to provide access for one group of voters while limiting access for another is thinly veiled discrimination. It is clear that student-ID restriction could potentially affect the state’s public university population, 17 percent of which is African-American.

Because state-issued driver’s licenses are the prevailing form of photo ID and African-American and Hispanic students typically have lower rates of car ownership, they would thus be affected in higher numbers than their white peers by the student ID law. The reasons for the gap in rates of car ownership between the groups include differences in income and population distribution. African Americans and Hispanics are more likely to be from urban areas, and urban dwellers often rely more on public transportation than their rural counterparts. Wisconsin’s low rate of car ownership among African-Americans and Latinos is a well-documented example of this pattern.

Photo-ID laws are not the only barriers that students may now face. Rowland cited states that have shortened the time frame during which a student may declare residency. Laws imposing unrealistic bureaucratic burdens and costs on voter-registration drives have been particularly burdensome.

Pushback to restrictive voting laws

In some states, members of the public, galvanized by civil rights groups, are pushing back against restrictive voting laws.

In Florida, early voting days have been restored by a panel of judges this month and, in a separate May decision, a federal judge blocked provisions of a law he termed “impractical” due to its onerous fines and reporting requirements for organizations conducting voter-registration drives. Rock the Vote, with the League of Women Voters of Florida and the Florida Public Interest Research Group, brought the suit that successfully rescinded those requirements.

Rowland of the Brennan Center cited the Florida victories, as well as other citizen-led push backs against restrictive laws, as victories in the rapidly shifting landscape of the voter suppression wars.

The laws tightening restrictions on young voters -- shortening the time lines for registering or for reporting a change in residency -- have arisen from Republican legislatures concerned about the youth vote, particularly its burgeoning African-American and Latino segments, that have trended Democratic in recent presidential elections.i

Heather Smith, president of Rock the Vote, said “50,000 Latinos are turning 18 each month,”  and “just over 12,000 kids every single day become eligible to vote.”

She said one unfortunate aspect of the rash of new laws is that her organization has had to spend time challenging them as opposed to registering voters and educating them about the political process.

To assist young voters, Rowland said the Brennan Center has posted its 50-State Student Voting Guide online. Smith said Rock the Vote is launching a public-education campaign through social media, campus newspapers, billboards and other avenues.

Smith was critical of those who erect barriers to voting.

“When young people participate at an early age, they’re voters for the rest of their lives,” Smith said, “and if the strength of a democracy is determined by the participation of its citizens, we should be celebrating and encouraging participation amongst our newest and youngest voters, not making it harder for them to show up.”

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