by James A. Bacon
I didn’t see any pressing need for the Voter ID law in Virginia but now that we’re going to get one, I don’t see the need to get all agitated about it. In signing the Voter ID legislation into law, Governor Bob McDonnell issued an executive order instructing the State Board of Elections to issue voter cards to every Virginia voter by election day and to launch a public education campaign to raise awareness for the need to bring an ID card to the polling place. (See the press release.)
The idea that African-Americans and Hispanics will be disenfranchised by the thousands is a paranoid conspiracy fantasy peddled to whip up the fears of minorities. Really and truly, it’ s nothing but race mongering.
Why am I so confident that the impact on voting will be minimal?
First, because of McDonnell’s aforesaid prophylactic measures: issuing cards to voters and launching a public education campaign. And second, because Democrats, like Republicans, spend massive sums in get-out-the-vote efforts. How much effort will it take for Dem organizers to make sure every potential Democratic voter has a proper ID card?
Someone was certainly effective in persuading convicted felons to vote in 2008. (See “What Do You Know, There Is Electoral Fraud in Virginia?”) If minorities fail to turn out in the hoped-for numbers, blame the Democratic Party for running an inadequate get-out-the-vote effort.
And if a handful of people slip between the cracks, well, it won’t threaten the democratic system. The Bacon family knows what it’s like to be deprived of the right to vote. (See “Voter Suppression through Bureaucratic Lethargy.”) I dare say that the problem of registering people moving in and out of the state will be a far bigger problem than “voter suppression” by a dozen times over.
