Stop the Nonsense About Voter ID
I heard from Joe Biden that voter ID laws are like “Jim Crow on steroids”. Wow. Requiring people to show ID cards when voting is much worse than legally mandated racial segregation? Why is it so bad?
What I’ve heard is that it’s racist, because it’s harder for black people to get ID’s. It seems that rank-and-file progressives hear that, immediately say, “Yeah, that sounds right,” and move on. That’s the impression you get from hilarious videos like this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yW2LpFkVfYk
(Man interviews some progressives who elaborate on how black people can’t get ID’s, then talks to some black people who find the idea ridiculous.)
From the other side, I’ve heard that we need voter ID laws to stop voter fraud, like all those dead illegal aliens trying to vote twice, which must be how Trump lost the last election.
In this, as on so many other issues, both major positions are bullshit. This article from the Heritage Foundation – https://www.heritage.org/election-integrity/commentary/new-study-confirms-voter-id-laws-dont-hurt-election-turnout – reports that “a new study shows that voter ID laws don’t [significantly] hurt election turnout.” If you look at the study in question (https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w25522/w25522.pdf), you’ll see that that is part of what it says. The other part of what it says is that strict voter ID laws also have no effect on election fraud. So in brief, the whole issue is bogus, and voter ID laws don’t matter. It’s just an excuse for Republicans and Democrats to fight with each other.
So we should probably leave it at that and stop talking about this artificial controversy. But I won’t, because I noticed a few mildly interesting things.
(a)
One interesting thing is the reason why voter impersonation isn’t a big deal. Former Attorney General Eric Holder explained why: Basically, we don’t need to worry about it, because there’s not much point in someone’s trying to vote as someone else, because it’s not going to make any difference to the outcome of an election. If someone wanted to rig an election, they wouldn’t do that; they’d have to come up with some scheme that changes thousands of votes. (https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/2016-right-vote-risk-and-promise-automatic-voter-registration)
Now, that’s of course true. But it kind of puts the lie to the saying, “Every vote matters”, doesn’t it? If every vote matters, then why doesn’t it matter if a few people vote fraudulently? If you cast a fraudulent vote, that one matters exactly as much as your legal vote. If there’s no point in casting a fraudulent vote, there’s no point in casting a vote.
(b)
The ease of convincing Democrats that voter ID laws are racist is striking. Democratic leaders say it, and rank-and-file Democrats accept it just like that. It doesn’t occur to anyone to say, “Wait a minute. Are you sure that a lot of black people don’t have ID’s”? Black people aren’t children, or idiots, or hermits living in the mountains. It’s pretty hard to get by in our society without an ID. I don’t think I’ve ever known an adult who didn’t have one.
One explanation I’ve heard is that it can be expensive to get an ID. You have to pay a fee to get a copy of your birth certificate (if you lost the original), which you need to get your driver’s license. In Colorado, the fee is something like $20.
So $20 is enough to stop people from getting an ID? It’s not like you have to get tons of birth certificates; you only need one, ever. So to avoid paying $20 one time, someone is going to just go through the rest of their life without any ID card? According to the ACLU (https://www.aclu.org/other/oppose-voter-id-legislation-fact-sheet), 11% of Americans don’t have ID’s, including up to a quarter of black people. That came from a study, so that must be true.
Democrats, this doesn’t sound fishy to you guys?
(Note: Other studies estimate much lower numbers of people who lack a valid, unexpired ID, like around 3% for the total population. [https://www.conservativedailynews.com/2018/12/fact-check-do-millions-of-americans-not-have-government-photo-id/])
(c)
Still, there are at least some people who lack ID’s, albeit a tiny percentage, and the percentage is higher among blacks. Let’s stipulate that. Does that mean that requiring an ID at the polls is racist?
Well, if it is, then why aren’t all the other times that people check for ID’s examples of racism? You have to show ID to board a plane, buy alcohol (if you look under 35), open a bank account, buy a house, enter a courthouse, and often to get a job or rent an apartment. Are those things all worse than Jim Crow?
You might say: "No, because the purpose of ID requirements in those cases isn’t to exclude blacks; that’s just a side effect. (Invoke the Doctrine of Double Effect here.) But the purpose of voter ID laws is to exclude blacks." Of course, Republicans would deny this; more on that below.
But what I learned from progressives in the past few years is that intention doesn’t matter to accusations of racism; what matters is the effect of a policy, rule, or institution. If it has a disparate impact on the races, then it’s racist. So again, why isn’t it racist to ask for ID in all the above contexts? Maybe the progressives will just agree that it is racist. (?)
(d)
What is the actual purpose of voter ID laws? Republicans would say that they are just trying to secure the integrity of elections by ensuring that each voter is who they say they are. Democrats would say the laws are trying to exclude (some) black voters.
I don’t think either of these is exactly correct. These reasons influence some voters, which has some effect on the politicians. But it’s not the main motive for the politicians. The main motives for Republican legislators are:
(i) A desire to win more elections, which means they would like to reduce Democrat votes. They don’t give a single crap whether the voters in question are black, white, Asian, Hispanic, female, transgender, disabled, or anything else. They just want fewer Democrat votes, by whatever means, and they expect that voter ID laws will (very slightly) reduce Democrat turnout, which could swing an election in a really tight year.
(ii) Tribalism. You support voter ID laws because that’s the position of “your side”, to whom you need to declare loyalty. And this counts as a “right wing” position, in large part, because Trump started a lie about widespread voter fraud when he was making excuses for losing the last election. Because he said that, now “right-wing” people have to think that there’s a big danger of voter fraud, and then they have to support measures to combat all this fraud.
So the main actual motivations for Republicans wanting stricter voter ID laws, though not racist, are totally bogus.
(e)
Now let’s ask the symmetrical question: What is the actual motivation for Democrat politicians to oppose voter ID laws? It’s exactly parallel:
(i) A desire to win more elections, which means that they would like to increase Democrat votes, by whatever means. They don’t give a crap whether the voters are black, white, etc., as long as they vote Democrat. They expect lax voting laws to (very slightly) increase Democrat turnout, so they want that.
(ii) Tribalism. You have to oppose voter ID laws because that’s the position of your side, to whom you have to declare loyalty. Trump said that voter fraud was a big problem; that’s enough to make it a left-wing position to declare that voter fraud isn’t a problem and no steps should be taken to prevent it.
These motivations, too, are totally bogus.
Neither side is trying to advance the good of society. Neither gives a crap about the race of the voters, either. Both just want more power for themselves and want to declare loyalty to their own tribe and opposition to the other tribe.
(f)
Okay, but what is the correct, libertarian view of voter ID laws? We have no reason to want either Democrats or Republicans in general to have more power, nor should we reflexively declare loyalty to either the left or the right in the culture wars. We should disregard those motivations and evaluate the issue on its merits. Is it right to require ID’s, to prevent fraud? Is it right to accept votes without ID’s, so that more people have a chance to vote?
Well, neither of these views is right. Both of them presuppose that citizens (and only citizens) have a right to vote, which is false. Of course, people have a legal right to vote, but not a moral right. (Why? Basically, you don’t have a general, natural right to participate in a group’s forcibly imposing its will on others. See Jason Brennan’s “The Right to a Competent Electorate”.) Casting an illegal vote is just as good or bad, morally, as casting a legal vote, and each of these is permissible only if it is a rational, well-informed, morally good vote.
So there’s no intrinsic reason for wanting either more or less voter turnout. There’s just a consequentialist issue: Does more voter turnout tend to make outcomes better, or worse?
My guess is that voter ID laws have at most a tiny impact, but if there is an effect, it would probably be a positive one. That is, I would guess that the tiny number of people who would be prevented from voting because they can’t show an ID would tend to be low-information voters. So it’s better for them not to be in the voting pool.
(g)
I know what you’re thinking: “That’s just some crazy libertarian view that refuses to respect the sacredness of democracy. Of course people have a moral right to vote!”
So let’s set aside the crazy [but true!] libertarian view of voting. Suppose there is a moral right to vote. Do voter ID laws violate that right?
I don’t think so. Mainly because I think the laws impose only minimal burdens, which are reasonably connected to officials’ ascertaining that the person actually has the right that they’re trying to exercise.
Example: Indigent defendants have a right to state-appointed legal counsel in a criminal case. Pretend that you agree that all and only indigent defendants have this right. Now, say the court wants a defendant to show some documents to verify that their income is low enough to qualify, before they appoint a public defender. Some particular defendant refuses to show any documentation and wants the court to just accept his word. As a result, the court refuses to appoint an attorney for him.
Q: Did the court violate this defendant’s right to legal counsel?
I don’t think so. I think this defendant in effect chose to give up his right (assuming he had it to begin with). And that’s true regardless of his race. Even if more black people do this than white people, I still don’t think it would be a rights-violation. It would merely mean that black people are overrepresented among those who give up their right in this weird way.
Similarly, if someone can’t vote because they refuse to get an ID, even though it’s pretty easy to get one and the state isn’t trying to stop them from doing it, then I think that person effectively chose to give up their right to vote; it’s not that the government took it away.
That doesn’t mean that voter ID laws are good. Just that they’re not rights-violations, even if there is a right to vote [which there isn’t].