Point/Counterpoint with Carnahan/Scott on Mo’s defunct photo ID law
Monday’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling in favor of Indiana’s mandate requiring voters to produce a government-issued photo ID produced a lot of reaction in Missouri.
Some of the best analysis of the impact in Missouri, from both sides, came from Secretary of State Robin Carnahan, a critic of the photo ID requirement, and from state Sen. Delbert Scott, R-Lowry City, one of the original sponsors of the photo-ID law that the Missouri Supreme Court struck down in 2006.
Because the state high court ruled that Missouri’s requirement violated the state’s constitution, the decision wasn’t affected by the U.S. Supreme Court ruling.
At issue now: will photo-ID supporters seek to resurrect Missouri’s law? Doing so will require a statewide vote.
Here’s the assessments of Carnahan and Scott, both from interviews with my colleague — reporter Adam Jadhav — who worked with me on a story for Tuesday’s Post-Dispatch.
First, Scott:
“I think the (U.S. Supreme Court) ruling itself shows that Missouri’s attempt to provide fair elections was right on target and did not disenfranchise people,” he said.
“This allows us to feel sure in going back to address the Missouri state Supreme Court’s ruling.”
“The encouraging part is that it the U.S. Supreme Court is saying that a photo id requirement does not disenfranchise people and that it is a reasonable way to provide some validity and security in elections,” Scott continued.
“When you provide a free photo id, which is no more of a burden than you have to have to get on a plane or go to the store and rent a video, it’s just not something that is a hurdle for voters.”
Still, Scott acknowledged that it was unlikely that a new Missouri version could be in place by the November presidential election.
“It would be very difficult in the three weeks remaining to get something — that the Democrats will make very controversial — passed through the legislature.”
“And even if it’s passed and signed and then approved by voters in August, the Democrats will challenge this thing. That’s without question…”
Now, Carnahan:
“(The SCOTUS decision) doesn’t change the fact that the Missouri Supreme Court found a voter ID law unduly burdensome based on our own state constitution,” she said.
“If folks wanted to change Missouri’s constitution, they didn’t need to wait for the United State’s Supreme Court to tell them they could. So I think this ruling doesn’t really change anything.”
“My reading of the court’s opinion is that justices didn’t think there was sufficient evidence of burden and sufficient evidence of voters that would be harmed in the Indiana case.”
Carnahan noted in a statement sent Monday that, based on her office’s data, as many as 240,000 Missouri registered voters might have been prevented from voting because they lacked a drivers license — the most common form of government-issued photo ID.
She also had filed a legal brief with the U.S. Supreme Court laying out her office’s concerns. “One of the things that we did in our amicus brief was try to tell the story of regular people who would be hurt by this kind of law,” Carnahan said.
“Look, I’m in favor of reasonable laws. I’m in favor of people having to identify themselves, but we already do that here in Missouri.”
She also observed: “If the Legislature and the governor decide they want to take that action to pursue a constitutional amendment, that’s what they can do. I don’t think they’ll choose to do that.”
(4 votes, average: 3.25 out of 5)
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I suggest here and now that Ms Carnahan is either a startled political hack, terrified for her own future at the public trough, or that she is a fool.
I know that she is no fool.
240,000 people… a number that one can only assume comes from the number of people voting, against the number holding driver’s licenses.
What person outside an institution can live today without a ID? The elderly? How do they cash a check? How do they get their Social Security? Their Medicare? The poor you say? How do they get their federal or state aid? Their WIK? Their food stamps? Their Medicaid? Each requires identification.
Might there be a person or people that are so far ‘off the grid’ that they not only don’t have any of those needs… none at all? I concede that there might be some small number, true enough. But if they can come forward to be, first registered to vote, then again to vote might they also be able to come forth and seek a free ID card?
No, I say that a good number of those don’t have a driver’s license or any other form of ID for one simple reason… that they do not exist… except on election day. And further that Ms Carnahan knows this.
Every victory of every statewide office holder belonging to the Democratic Party comes on the votes cast in Jackson County and in the City of St. Louis. This too, Ms Carnahan knows. The City has seen vote fraud on a massive scale… in the resent past sending several people to prison for it. How many were not caught… for it has been going on for years beyond count?
My own Great Uncle voted in every election, local state and federal from 1952 through 1977 when the city made note that the building at his address had been torn down. I remember this because my Grandfather got a good laugh out of all this… as his older brother had died in 1949, AND was never a citizen of the US. He never voted while alive.
No fool is Ms Carnahan… she knows that if any sizable part of those 240,000 votes go away that she would very likely not be able to win statewide office again. And with a ID requirement that is exactly what will happen.