'Right to Vote vs Integrity of Elections:' Voter ID Panel at UNI Draws Contrasts, Tempers

Tensions at times ran high at a voter ID panel discussion at the University of Northern Iowa Tuesday.

Voter ID laws, the strictest of which require showing photo identification before voting, have been enacted in 30 states and are a controversial topic. That controversy was in the air at the campus forum, with some panel members talking over each other and different sections of audience members cheering for different positions.

Iowa Secretary of State Matt Schultz has been trying to enact a voter ID law in Iowa. He said such a law is necessary to stop voter fraud.

"We live in a free and open society," he said. "When you live in a free and open society you have a criminal element. In-person fraud is almost impossible to detect."

Others on the panel argued voter fraud is almost non-existent and the votes that would be lost due to people not having ID outweigh the fraud cases.

"Such laws have a disproportionate impact on African-American and other minority communities," said Michael Blackwell, director of UNI's Center for Multicultural Education and a member of the executive board of the local NAACP.

"Approximately 25 percent of the African American population do not have government IDs compared to 8 percent of whites," he said. "All other rights flow from the right to vote. We will not let anyone take away that right."

Blackwell and others on the panel were concerned requiring ID would be cost- prohibitive for some voters, calling it an illegal poll tax. Schultz said his bill would provide free IDs to those who want them and that student IDs would be accepted. He did not talk about what would be required to get the free ID, such as a birth certificate, which does have a fee associated with it.

Schultz also said that under his bill anyone who does not have an ID could still vote if they came with someone with an ID who was willing to vouch for them.

The debate, according to Professor Donna Hoffman, chair of UNI's Department of Political Science, boils down to what people value.

She said, for some, the right to vote is sacrosanct, making voter ID laws that may restrict some from voting hard to swallow. For others, keeping elections free of fraud, even if that means some legal voters won't then vote, is more important.

"It's really an issue of balance," she said. "Where do you put the right to vote, where do you put the integrity of elections?"

UNI history professor John Johnson said he was more concerned with votes lost to error, which he said could be one to two percent of all votes.

He said such error includes things like Florida's now-infamous hanging chads from the 2004 presidential election, spoiled ballots, machine and human errors handling ballots and long lines or inaccessible poll times that prevent people from voting.

The audience, around 70 people, seemed split between voter ID law opponents and supporters. Supporters included a large contingent of UNI College Republicans wearing red shirts that read, "I (Heart) Voter ID."

"Even one case of voter ID is one case too many," one student said during the audience question session. "If you're saying one vote doesn't matter, what message does that send to students?"

Recently, three people were arrested in Council Bluffs on voter fraud charges, two from Canada and one from Mexico. The Associated Press reported the cases may stall in the courts because juries may find lack of intent to commit a crime. The Canadians, a husband and wife, said they mistakenly believed, as legal residents, they could vote in every election except the presidential race

Their cases were uncovered under a two-year, $280,000 contract between Schultz's office and the Department of Criminal Investigations.

The forum was sponsored by UNI's American Democracy Project and the Black Hawk-Bremer League of Women Voters.

Want to know more about voter I.D. laws? Journalism non-profit Pro-Publica has a comprehensive guide looking at such laws across the country, laying out the arguments both for and against them.