About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline
LOG IN
LOG IN

3 Harv. L. & Pol'y Rev. 185 (2009)
ID at the Polls: Assessing the Impact of Recent State Voter ID Laws on Voter Turnout

handle is hein.journals/harlpolrv3 and id is 187 raw text is: ID at the Polls: Assessing the Impact of Recent State Voter ID Laws on Voter Turnout Shelley de Alth* INTRODUCTION But on the basis of the evidence in the record it is not possible to quantify either the magnitude of the burden on this narrow class of voters or the portion of the burden imposed on them that is fully justified. - Justice John Paul Stevens' Indiana's Voter ID Law threatens to impose nontrivial burdens on the voting right of tens of thousands of the State's citizens, and a significant percentage of those individuals are likely to be de- terred from voting. - Justice David Souter2 Last spring, in Crawford v. Marion County Election Board, the Su- preme Court upheld Indiana's law requiring voters to show picture identifi- cation in order to vote, but the Court divided four ways over the issue. Central to the Justices' debate and the applicable constitutional balancing test was the degree of the burden that the law imposes on voters. This Essay surveys the voter ID controversy and describes original empirical research finding ID laws to have a negative impact on voter turnout. Since the Court left open the possibility of as-applied challenges to voter ID laws, future litigants who can produce research such as this will have a much stronger case to have these laws declared unconstitutional. Voter ID laws gained increasing popularity in the aftermath of the hotly contested 2000 election. Between 2002 and 2006, twelve states strength- ened their voting laws to require voters to present some form of identifying documentation or photo ID.3 However, these new laws created a highly par- tisan controversy, with Republicans supporting voter ID laws and Democrats opposing them.4 Proponents argue that ID laws are necessary to prevent * J.D., Harvard Law School, 2008. Crawford v. Marion County Election Bd., 128 S. Ct. 1610, 1622 (2008) (lead op.). 2 Id. at 1627 (Souter, J., dissenting) (citations omitted). The states that had strengthened ID laws in place for the 2006 election were Alabama, Arizona, Colorado, Indiana, Montana, New Mexico, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, and Washington. Georgia and Missouri strengthened their laws, but legal challenges prevented the laws from taking effect in 2006. See infra Part IV for data sources. 4 Stephen Ansolabehere, Access versus Integrity in Voter Identification Requirements 2 (CalTech/MIT Voting Tech. Project Working Paper, No. 58, Feb. 2007), available at http:// web.mit.edu/polisci/portl/cces/material/NYUIdentification 1.pdf.

What Is HeinOnline?

HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.



Short-term subscription options include 24 hours, 48 hours, or 1 week to HeinOnline.

Purchase Access

Contact us for annual subscription options:

Contact Us

Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?

Log In

profiles profiles most