ACLU challenges 'discriminatory' Kansas voter ID law

The American Civil Liberties Union will go to court on Thursday to issue a preliminary injunction against another voter ID law that it says restricts democracy more than it prevents fraud, this time in Kansas.

Under the Kansas law, enacted in 2013, citizens must prove their citizenship to register to vote, as well as at the polls. Acceptable forms of identification for registration purposes include items like US passports or birth certificates, but not free state issued IDs. 

Thirty-four states have some form of voter ID law in place, but Kansas has one of the stricter statues, requiring a photo ID.

The ACLU says that the Kansas law violates the Motor Voter ID Law passed by Congress in 1993 to raise voter registration rates and promote ease of registration. According to ACLU lawyer Dale Ho, Kansas does not conform to national voter registration law expectations, which require a uniform and accessible voter system.

Georgia and Alabama both have laws like Kansas's, according to Reuters. Other states, such as Wisconsin and Texas, have faced legal challenges to their similar laws in recent years.

The problems with these voter ID laws are manifold, say critics, disenfranchising groups that are already marginalized by society: African Americans, Hispanics, disabled individuals, and those in poverty.

“Voter ID laws remain a threat to our democracy,” said ACLU staff attorney Sean Young in a phone interview with the Christian Science Monitor. “They affect a substantial portion of the population, particularly low income people.”

Voters who cannot afford costly passports or meet driver’s license requirements also are likely to be unable to take the time to meet state requirements, although states with voter ID laws often point to services intended to help those who cannot easily register.

Mr. Young told the Monitor that, despite these promises, states do little to help poorer votes.

In late February, the Washington Post found that Texas’s voter ID laws disenfranchised about 500,000 citizens, and prevented them from voting in the presidential primaries.

Critics compare voter ID laws to the voter suppression that prevented African Americans from voting in the South during the Jim Crow era.

The ACLU estimates that in Kansas, about 22,000 eligible voters have been unable to register.

Meanwhile, proponents of these laws say that they help prevent voter fraud.

Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach supported the state's ID laws, saying that voter fraud can impact the outcome of an election.

"This is a very real issue and we have lots of close elections where the margin of victory is one vote or four to five votes," said Secretary Kobach. "Non-citizens voting can potentially steal an election."

But studies consistently show voter fraud is rare, and not effectively prevented by voter ID laws. A 2007 study by voting law expert Justin Levitt, “The Truth About Voter Fraud,” reported that due to the high financial and legal penalties, voter fraud is actually fairly uncommon.  

And when voter fraud does occur, critics of voter laws say that IDs make little difference. Far from Kobach’s claims regarding “stolen elections,” studies of voter fraud show that when it does occur, it is committed by dozens of individuals in a given election, rather than thousands or even hundreds.

The ACLU says the rise in voter ID laws corresponded to the mobilization of minority communities during the 2008 presidential election.

“These laws have definitely become more common since African American turnout rose,” Young told the Monitor, “Eight states passed laws after 2008. I think it’s no coincidence that these laws followed so swiftly after minority communities came out to vote.”

According to Young, concerns about voter fraud have been used to justify laws that prevent African Americans from voting for over a century.

The ACLU takes voter ID laws like Kansas’ very seriously. In 2014, it overturned “extreme” voter ID laws in Pennsylvania and Arkansas. Just this week, a Wisconsin Appeals court ruled that a lower court would have to consider voter concerns about the state’s ID laws.

Despite these victories, the ACLU may be facing an uphill battle in its fight against voter ID laws, which grow more common each election. Nevertheless, Young says, “The ACLU is not going to let up in its efforts to fight these discriminatory measures.”