Senator Eliot Shapleigh - El Paso, Texas

Rep. Leo Berman, a Tyler Republican, pointed to estimates that suggest there are 2 million illegal immigrants living in Texas. (photo courtesy Austin American-Statesman)

At least 150,000 registered voters in Texas —about 1 percent — don't have the kind of government-issued photo identification that the Legislature has considered requiring at Texas polls, a legislative committee was told Friday.

Voters without photo identification tend to be women or minorities and elderly, poor or disabled, witnesses told the House Elections Committee.

"There's a huge swath of our population who are poor, don't have cars and live on the margins," said Tova Wang, an elections expert at the Century Foundation, a liberal-leaning nonprofit research organization based in New York City. "They have a right to vote."

Election laws requiring photo identification are at the forefront of the debate on ballot security in part because the U.S. Supreme Court is considering the constitutionality of Indiana's law, which is considered the most stringent in the nation. But the issue is hardly new to Texas. In 2009, the Legislature is expected to tackle the issue for the third time. (A bill requiring photo ID died in the Senate last year when 11 Democratic senators blocked its debate.)

The House Elections Committee heard daylong testimony from witnesses from the offices of the attorney general and secretary of state, local election officials and national experts.

Voter fraud occurs in Texas, they testified, but it is rare.

When fraud does occur, it's unlikely the scam involves impersonating someone else at the polls, and there is no evidence that illegal immigrants are lining up in droves to vote. Instead, the handful of prosecutions for voter fraud in Texas usually involve mail-in absentee ballots or voter registration.

For example, of the 108 cases referred to the attorney general, only 22 were prosecuted. Of those, 14 were about mail-in ballots; only three involved unlawful conduct at the polls.

The photo ID debate usually breaks along partisan lines. Republicans say they suspect voter fraud, while Democrats say the photo ID law would discourage voters, particularly Democratic voters, because it could cause a hardship to get the documents.

In the 2007 version, the Legislature would have required the Department of Public Safety to provide a free ID card to the poor. But Wang said, "There is no such thing as free ID."

She said poor Texans would have to spend $22 to $35 to get copies of their birth certificates to obtain the free identification card. "That essentially is a poll tax," she contended.

Rep. Leo Berman, R-Tyler, the committee chairman, cited news reports that there are almost 2 million illegal immigrants in Texas.

"Do you think we have massive voter fraud in this state?" Berman asked one of his invited witnesses.

"I'm not necessarily convinced of that," testified Jon Taylor, a political science professor at the University of St. Thomas in Houston. He said he had seen no evidence of illegal immigrants lining up to vote.

However, Taylor and David Muhlhausen with the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank based in Washington, told committee members there is no evidence that photo ID laws dampen turnout.

The most vocal witness for a photo ID law, Harris County Tax Assessor-Collector Paul Bettencourt, presented boxes of documents from 381 fraud causes in his county since 1994. Most of those, however, involved voter registration fraud caught before any ballots could be cast.

"I think it proves voter fraud exists," he said. "It shouldn't be a debate in this body."

He said a photo ID would give election workers a second chance to detect the scams if registration officials missed it.

Friday's testimony didn't seem to change many minds on the committee.

"There is hysteria out there on both sides," said Rep. Dwayne Bohac, R-Houston. Even if voter fraud is not widespread, Bohac said, a photo ID would increase the confidence in the voting system.

"It's not just about solving a problem," he said.

Friday's testimony also underscored how much tougher it is to get driver's licenses or to register to vote.

Department of Public Safety officials testified that illegal immigrants may have obtained a valid driver's license years ago when Texas still accepted a Mexican birth certificate as part of the application. New applicants are now asked whether they are U.S. citizens.

When a person initially registers to vote today, federal law requires the applicant to provide a driver's license number or the last four digits of his or her Social Security number. That allows the state to verify the applicant's identity.

If the state can't verify the applicant, the state notifies county election officials, who question the voter. The secretary of state is considering a rule that would allow the state to flag those applicants, requiring him or her to present identification at the polls.