Voter and Voter Turnout
Prepare: Prior to completing this discussion question, review Chapters 10, 11, and 12 in American Government and review Week Five Instructor Guidance. Also read the following articles: How Voter ID Laws Are Being Used to Disenfranchise Minorities and the Poor, Fraught with Fraud, and Proof at the Polls.
Reflect Icon
Reflect: The U.S. has one of the lowest voter turnout rates among modern democratic political systems. One study ranks the U.S. 120th on a list of 169 nations compared on voter turnout (Pintor, Gratschew, & Sullivan, 2002). During the last decade, many initiatives have been undertaken to increase voter participation, yet concerns about the possibility of election fraud have also increased. Additionally, some political interests feel threatened by the increase in turnout among some traditionally low-turnout ethnic minorities. Several states have recently passed legislation imposing new registration and identification requirements. This has sparked debate about whether these are tactics intended to suppress turnout or to prevent fraud. Think about the media's role in the election process and how both mass media and social media can impact the election process.
Write Icon
Write: In your initial post, summarize recent developments in several states enacting voter ID laws. Analyze and describe the pros and cons on both sides of the debate about these laws. Is voter fraud a major problem for our democracy or are some groups trying to make it harder for some segments of society to vote? What impact has the media (mass and social) had in influencing public opinion regarding voter ID laws? Draw your own conclusion about the debate over voter ID laws and justify your conclusions with facts and persuasive reasoning.
Fully respond to all parts of the prompt and write your response in your own words. Your initial post must be at least 300 words. Support your position with at least two of the assigned resources required for this discussion, and/or peer reviewed scholarly sources obtained through the AU Library databases. Include APA in-text citations in the body of your post and full citations on the references list at the end. Support your position with APA citations from two or more of the assigned resources required for this discussion. Please be sure that you demonstrate understanding of these resources, integrate them into your argument, and cite them properly.
Respond to the following
1) Many states as many as 27 have recently instituted or tried to institute voters ID laws. Many believe this was done to make it harder on minorities and low-income persons to vote. It has become more so in states with Republican governors. After the previous two presidential elections in which many minority voters came out and made a huge difference in who won certain states believed a change needed to be made. Many thought there was fraud involved.
I believe voter fraud has been around since the birth of our political system. "In 2005, the U.S. Government Accountability Office found that up to 3 percent of the 30,000 individuals called for jury duty from voter registration rolls over a two-year period in just one U.S. district court were not citizens" (2008). As the previous quote shows, it has been prevalent in certain periods of our time at all levels of politics. What does one determine to be fraud? Is it just casting votes by illegal citizens, or by people using dead people names, or can you lump into it, in the early 1900s when a person voted based on your boss recommendation or you would lose your job. This needs to be decided. When one does come up with the definition of fraud, how do you prove it.
Texas implemented its' requirement that you needed an ID to vote. They did this as a deterrent to stop voter fraud. They deemed it to be necessary as there were proof that people used a dead relative to cast a vote, some were criminals As Cohen stated, "Since 2002, the U.S. Department of Justice has prosecuted more than 100 defendants for election fraud. During the same period, election fraud investigations by the Texas Attorney General's Office have resulted in 50 convictions" (2012). If you do the math, over this 10-year period that amounted to 5 fraud cases per year on average. I don't believe 5 votes would swing the election.
The media obviously has an impact on public opinion in many ways. Whether they report the truth or not, that is up to them. They have the ability to cast a news story about fraud, which will sway opinion. I personally stop using Facebook due to the amount of posts, news stories and rhetoric that was being thrown around. The issue is no one would fact check to see if the story was true or not.
In closing, I think there should be a requirement for someone to prove who they are. When I registered to vote, I had to sign the form and in my district that is how they verify who I am when I attempt to vote. I have to show my voter id card, and sign my name twice. There are many ways I believe to do this without forcing people to have to get id cards. However, I also believe that the ability to get an id is not as difficult as the media portrays it to be.
Hyde, K. (2008, October 13). Fraught With Fraud. Retrieved December 8, 2016, from https://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/politics/item/2442-fraught-with-fraud
Cohen, A. (2012, March 16). How Voter ID Laws Are Being Used to Disenfranchise Minorities and the Poor. Retrieved December 8, 2016, from https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/03/how-voter-id-laws-are-being-used-to-disenfranchise-minorities-and-the-poor/254572/
2) Voter ID Laws and Turnout
Voter ID laws in the U.S are laws that require citizens to produce official identification forms before they can be allowed to register to vote, receive a ballot for election or to actually cast a vote. Although proponents of Voter ID laws argue that the laws help in reducing electoral fraud, there is no evidence showing any fraud in country's election. Since voting is a right protected by the constitution for all citizens, Voter ID laws deny thousands of citizens who don't have or cannot obtain the required identification the right to vote (Wilson, 2010). Voter ID laws have unfair and disproportionate impact on students, low-income citizens, senior citizens, voters with disabilities, racial and ethnic minorities, and other groups who do not have documents like birth certificates and passports required to obtain a government-issued ID (Wilson, 2010).
There is no plausible evidence showing the existence of in-person impersonation voter fraud in the U.S. - the type of voter fraud to be prevented by photo IDs. Studies have shown that all cases of in-person impersonation voter ‘fraud' results are from voters making honest mistakes and these mistakes are extremely infrequent (Gilbert, 2015). Implementing Voter ID laws only disadvantages the elderly, low-income Americans, and racial and ethnic minorities who find it difficult to obtain all official identifications required under Voter ID laws.
Voter ID laws have negative impact on voter turnout because they are discriminatory. Studies have indicated that 11% of American citizens do not have government-issued photo identification and if it is a must to provide a photo ID in order to vote, this large percentage of citizens does not cast their votes (Gilbert, 2015). A study by Government Accountability Office showed that under strict photo ID laws, there is substantial drop in voter turnout for minorities. Its analysis indicated that the voter turnout for Latinos was suppressed by 10.8 points in states that imposed strict ID laws compared to states without the strict photo ID laws (Gilbert, 2015).
References
Gilbert, M.D. (2015). THE PROBLEM OF VOTER FRAUD. Columbia Law Review, 115(3), 739-775.
Wilson, M.W. (2010). TOO MUCH OF A GOOD THING. CAMPAGN SPEECH AFTER CITIZENS UNITED. Cardozo Law Review, 31(6), 2365-2392.