Democrats seem to have shifted on voter ID requirements for voting. Even Stacey Abrams seems to have softened on the idea given that Sen. Joe Manchin’s voting reforms proposal includes it, albeit in fairly liberal way. Former President Barack Obama does not see anything “particularly controversial” in it. Sen. Raphael G. Warnock (D-Ga.) told the Post, “I don’t know anybody who believes that people shouldn’t have to prove that they are who they say they are.”
The Democratic shifts are in part a strategic effort to win broader support for their voting rights push while seeking to put Republicans on the defensive. Voter ID laws have proved popular despite Democratic arguments that they amount to voter suppression, and some activists have concluded that they do less to suppress the vote than they initially feared.
In 2013 (IIRC), North Carolina Democrats called registered Democratic voters lacking DMV accounts and found that most had other forms of ID acceptable under the restrictive Republican bill being challenged in court.
The Post reports Manchin’s compromise allows for ID requirements but broadens what qualifies:
Manchin’s proposal, in contrast, would allow a broad range of documents, including items such as utility bills, to serve as identification for voting purposes. It would also make Election Day a federal holiday and ban partisan gerrymandering, among other things. The plan was immediately rejected by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and other Republicans.
There is little question that leading Democrats’ tone has shifted on the voter ID issue. Abrams and others have long assailed ID rules as a means of disenfranchising voters of color and other disadvantaged groups, since they are least likely to have photo IDs or other government-issued documents. They also argue that there is no evidence that ID requirements prevent election fraud.
The ACLU has called voter ID requirements part of an ongoing strategy to roll back decades of progress on voting rights. Activists have lumped the most onerous identification requirements with bills that make it a felony to give water to people in long voting lines or shuttle people from mostly Black churches to polling places.
The problem is that Republicans’ “common sense” narrative on ID requirements has gained traction.
A Monmouth University poll released Monday found 80 percent of adults supported a photo ID requirement. While support for voter ID requirements peaked at 91 percent among Republicans, 87 percent of independents and 62 percent of Democrats also backed the idea.
Some conservatives say Democrats are now revealing their hypocrisy by suddenly accepting, for strategic reasons, measures they had long decried as racist and slammed Republicans for supporting.
Manchin’s inclusions essentially neuter the ID laws on the books. That won’t win any support from Republicans.
Democrats’ issue with ID requirements is not simply the relative success of their suppressive impact but their antidemocratic intent. Women and minorities would feel the most impact, North Carolina’s state Board of Elections estimated. The GOP treat even their own own sisters, wives, and daughters as acceptable casualties in their effort to shrink the electorate if that is what it takes to win.
But now, democracy itself is in their sights as they pass laws in the states not only to suppress turnout but to allow legislatures to overturn elections. These are perilous times.