Voter photo ID bill misguided, unneeded
Rep. Stanley Cox has convinced enough Missouri House members to support his misguided voter photo identification mandate. We must hope he is less successful if this measure goes before the state’s voters.
As reported by The Democrat’s Dennis Rich, HJR 64 “would put a constitutional amendment before voters in November to ... require voters to show a photo ID at the polls.” A companion piece of legislation introduced by Rep. John Diehl, R-St. Louis County, serves as the enacting measure.
Rep. Chris Kelly, D-Columbia, was spot-on accurate when, during a Feb. 9 House Elections Committee hearing, he called Cox’s measure a “solution looking for a problem.” This came after he asked Cox to provide just a couple of the “countless” examples of voter fraud Cox claims his measure would prevent. Cox, R-Sedalia, cited Kansas City ACORN worker Carmen R. Davis, who in 2007 pleaded guilty to filing false paperwork (which Cox’s bill does not address) and a collection of illegal immigrants who voted in Texas between 2001 and 2007 (but it was not clear whether those people had fraudulent IDs, or were even asked for identification at the polls).
Election officials at the state and local level indicate Cox’s contention of widespread vote fraud is questionable. Laura Egerdal, a spokeswoman for the Missouri Secretary of State’s office, told Rich: “We have seen no cases of voter impersonation and none reported by county clerks anywhere in the state. What we have seen is that bad registrations are caught before they go to the rolls and dealt with by local election authorities.”
Missouri’s Department of Motor Vehicles estimates the number of eligible voters who do not have state-issued ID at about 200,000. The enacting legislation would require taxpayer money be used to provide IDs for Missouri residents who cannot afford them. When you add in mandatory notification costs (public service announcements), cost to create the IDs and system upgrades, among other expenses, this proposal is estimated to hit the state for about $7 million a year the first three years it would be in force, according to the fiscal breakdown of the bill provided by the House Committee on Legislative Research Oversight Division. This at a time when we cannot provide adequate funding for our schools — which is an actual, documented problem in our state.
As Rich reported, the proposal now goes before the Missouri Senate and if it is approved, the constitutional amendment will go before voters in November. Our hope is that state senators will see how unnecessary and costly this measure is and strike it down before it ever gets to the ballot box.
