What Indiana's Voter-ID Law Really Means

I was not the least bit surprised when I read about the Supreme Court's decision to uphold Indiana's voter ID law. The only real shock was that Justice Stevens sided with the court's conservative majority on a decision that I figured would have run 5-4 along the usual line.

Indiana's law requires everyone who votes in person in an election to present a government-issued ID at the polling place, to prove their identity before being allowed to vote.

The reaction to the Supreme Court's decision was fairly predictable. From the right, we heard that Indiana's law will help to curb the problem of in-person voter fraud. The defendants in the case failed to provide even one single documented instance of such fraud ever taking place in Indiana. In fact, the Bush Justice Department performed a five-year investigation into in-person voter fraud and found that there is, as the NY Times said, scant evidence of any. Nonetheless, the court decided that the state had a valid interest in preventing such a thing from happening, even though it may never happen anyway.

From the left, the cry was that this law is merely an effort by the Indiana Republicans to maintain (or recapture) their majority by suppressing the Democratic voter turnout. Since the GOP has reaped great rewards in recent presidential elections from the disenfranchisement of key Democratic constituencies, I'm inclined to agree with this assessment of the Indiana law.

In fact, looking at research performed at the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee's Employment & Training Institute (Wisconsin is considering a similar voter ID law,) the numbers pretty much spell it out.

An estimated 23 percent of persons aged 65 and over do not have a Wisconsin drivers license or a photo ID.

[...]

Less than half (47 percent) of Milwaukee County African American adults and 43 percent of Hispanic adults have a valid drivers license. ... The situation for young adults ages 18-24 is even worse -- with only 26 percent of African Americans and 34 percent of Hispanics in Milwaukee County with a valid license.

The study "found 558,000 residents (in the age groups 18-24 years, and 35 and older) likely to face problems voting under Voter ID laws". That's over half a million voters, mostly in demographic groups that vote consistently Democratic: young people, the elderly, students and minorities. Would that be enough to swing an election? In 2004, John Kerry won Wisconsin by 10,000 votes, so I'd say yes. Of course, in order to know the true damage such a law does in Indiana, there would have to be a count of all the voters who were not able to obtain proper government-issued ID for the election. Hopefully someone will do that.

The point of Indiana's voter ID law, however, was not to force people to show a government ID in order to vote. The real driving force behind this law and the many others like it that are pending in other states, is to force people to get a new drivers license or ID card.

**Begin paranoid rant here **

What possible reason could the government have in people getting a new drivers license or ID? It all stems from H.R.1268: Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act for Defense, the Global War on Terror, and Tsunami Relief, 2005. Specifically, Division B of that legislation: The REAL ID Act of 2005.

The REAL ID is being sold as a means of deterring identity theft, illegal immigration, terrorism and whatever other boogeyman the Republican party can think of. The truth is, though, that it will do no such thing. The people who pushed this bogus law on us knew that it would never pass the scrutiny of people who actually care about our liberty, so it was tacked on to an "emergency" appropriations bill.

One of the flawed arguments presented by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in their REAL ID Final Rule is that seven of the eighteen 9/11 hijackers used fake IDs while preparing for and carrying out their plans. The suggestion being, of course, that the REAL ID law would have prevented 9/11, which is preposterous. What DHS doesn't point out is that eleven of the hijackers had valid drivers licenses, and thus the REAL ID law would have done nothing to stop them. I don't think it's unreasonable to assume that if seven of the hijackers hadn't been able to secure the documents needed to board the planes, they would have been replaced by seven other terrorists who could.

The REAL ID Act of 2005 specifies that a REAL ID will be required to board a commercial aircraft. DHS also specifies that people will need a REAL ID to enter federal buildings or nuclear plants. Think about the major terrorist attacks that have happened since 9/11. The coordinated bus/subway bombings in London, the train bombings in Madrid. The REAL ID would do nothing to prevent this sort of attack.

Unless the program was expanded to include trains and buses.

DHS has set the bar so low for this program that there is no way it was created to help stop terrorism. In the comments section of the Final Rule, DHS states:

DHS estimated that if the requirements of the proposed rule lowered by 0.061% per year the annual probability of a terrorist attack that caused both immediate and longer run impacts then the quantified benefits of the REAL ID regulation would be positive.

So if they reduce the probability of a terrorist attack by .061%, that is a success. Feel safer now? DHS also admits something rather odd:

DHS notes that individuals without a REAL ID-compliant document will still be able to enter Federal facilities and board commercial aircraft, and these rules cannot determine what alternative documents are acceptable for those purposes.

So DHS admits that the REAL ID system will not stop people without a REAL ID from boarding a commercial aircraft. What was the purpose of this law again?

The real purpose of the REAL ID is to get people used to the idea of a national ID card and to having their personal information stored on a government database.

Changes in technology in the future may enable the States to reduce the elements to a pointer that would electronically link to a database and provide only authorized parties access to information that today is stored in the MRZ

The MRZ being the Machine Readable Zone (barcode) on the back of the REAL ID. Currently, the MRZ is slated to contain little more than the information on the front of the card, but there is no law stopping them from expanding it. Once it's tied to a database, there is really no limit on what can be stored.

We've already been conditioned to accept long lines at the security gates and to remove our shoes to board commercial airlines. How much more of a hassle will it be to have our REAL ID card scanned as we board and then scanned as we leave? How about trains, buses, subways, taxi cabs? Once we're used to swiping our cards in pretty much any public mode of transport, it can be expanded to include the train stations and bus terminals, and then maybe sporting events, starting with the Super Bowl.

Eventually, every aspect of our daily lives will be monitored by our REAL ID. Where we go, how we get there, what we buy, when we buy it. Think I'm just being paranoid? Maybe you don't remember the Total Information Awareness project.

Anyway, getting back to Indiana's voter ID law. The people interested in gathering all of the data they can on every American (let's call them the Bush administration, though it goes beyond that) want to force the people who would normally not bother getting a REAL ID to sign up by taking away their ability to vote. The Indiana law, and others like it, will have one of two effects. The people who would normally live off of the government's ever expanding radar will be compelled to join the system, or millions of Democratic-leaning voters will stay home on election days, increasing the chances of a Republican majority. It's a win-win situation for them.

Oh, and Indiana just happens to be one of the first states to adopt the REAL ID requirements for their drivers licenses and state IDs. Coincidence?

.