Second point first, no, we don’t know it happens. I don’t know anyone who has even joked around that they wanted to commit in person voter fraud. Most of these people that do are people who did not realize they should not be voting, like felons or people who didn’t change their address and went to their old polling place.
If we want to expand what we are talking about to some privileges such as a welfare benefit I guess we can say it does technically but these things aren’t constitutionally protected activities.
Also, frogs point, while sort of done as an emotional argument does bring up what conditions we can assume for monetary awards.
Here’s the thing since we have moved on and are actually drilling down on the subject, asking for ID in and of itself as a requirement for voting is not unconstitutional. However, it may be illegal under the voting rights act because it has a disparate impact on protected classes.
Now to the meat and potatoes, in the paper below you will find various voter id scenarios but the one which will help to prove ID does suppress 10s of thousands of votes is main study of the paper, a Texas case in which 16,000 people were denied voting due to ID but due to a courts decision their votes were allowed to be recorded through a “reasonable impediment” filing. Had that not been allowed those almost 20,000 voters would have been denied despite being fully qualified. And that’s just in one election in one state.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/f3oqui1jhq6nqie/FragaMiller_TXID_2018.pdf?dl=0
So I read that entire paper. Some comments...
The initial issue in Texas arose because, up until 2011, voters could use a broad range of ID, including non-photo ID that allowed them to vote until the law was passed requiring one of three forms of ID, either Federal or State issued. I remember when New Jersey had non-photo driver licenses, too. My mother had one. Many states had non-photo driver's licenses. Then, when they moved to photo IDs, everyone had to get one if they wanted to drive. Pretty soon, other agencies and merchants required photo IDs and said you could no longer use a non-photo ID. If you wanted to fly, you had to get photo ID. You're a progressive, this argument on progress should appeal to you. SB 14 (the Texas legislation) was then watered down by the courts to force voters to provide some form of photo ID and a reason why they could not get one of the three accepted forms of ID if they wanted to vote. But a photo ID was still required.
When it comes to the actual impact of these laws on who votes, however, there is
less clarity. Analyses conducted soon after Indiana’s strict identification law was upheld
indicated that it would be difficult to measure the effect of such laws on turnout (An-solabehere 2009;Hershey 2009;Mycoff, Wagner and Wilson 2009;Erikson and Minnite 2009
Hood and Bullock 2012). These methodological difficulties have persisted since;in his review piece, Highton (2017) indicates the challenges that exist when examining state-level aggregate data. However, there are theoretical reasons for the apparently lim-
ited relationship; for instance, any negative impact on turnout could be matched (or ex-
ceeded) via a “backlash effect” as Democrats in particular mobilize in response to what
they perceive as an unjust law (Valentino and Neuner 2017). Civic education efforts in
the wake of passage could also mitigate any deleterious effects of voter ID laws (e.g.,
Citrin, Green and Levy 2014). Or, perhaps disenfranchised voters do not exist in sufficient numbers to affect average turnout rates; in Texas, Jones et al. (2017) found that more than 97% of non-voters in 2016 possessed at least one valid piece of identification.
Huh. More than 97%. The paper's next paragraph then details studies that both prove and disprove that ID laws result in some disparity of racial profile being allowed to vote. Gee, who'd have thought. I'd be willing to bet those studies supported the partisan position of those authors as well.
As for the 16,000 people who cited reasons for not being able to get ID (by the way, they weren't denied voting) these were the reasons they chose:
Work obligation preventing them from getting ID? You need ID to get paid, and you need a valid social security number for tax purposes, and an I9 requires valid photo ID, so I don't even get this one. ID was lost or stolen - then they should have replaced it. If they wanted to vote, that is. Lacks necessary documents to do what? The Federal Government gives everyone a social security card which you can use to get a valid state ID. Another bullshit excuse. Lack of transportation to do what? Get ID? Or get to the voting station to complain about not having ID? Applied but not received? Want to vote in the election? Apply sooner.
Disability and Illness might be the only valid reason one could claim, but if they were too sick to get ID, but not too sick to show up at a voting station, that kinda makes me skeptical. And then "Other Reason" which is probably more "too lazy to admit why I don't have ID and just want to take advantage of the waiver allowing me to vote without it".
Oh, and there were
more white voters who filed this waiver than other ethnic groups, but the argument democrats use is that
as a percentage certain ethnic groups are more affected. Clever.
