Senator Eliot Shapleigh - El Paso, Texas

State lawmakers, resuming a fight that cleaves Republicans and Democrats nationally, are set to clash again this week over whether voter fraud at the polls is a pressing problem and whether some Texans won't vote if required to present a photo ID or other documents.

Supporters of voter identification say law-abiding citizens will have no qualms about proving their identity to protect the sanctity of the ballot box. Opponents counter that an ID mandate is intended to discourage voters sensitive to past discrimination at the polls.

It's shaping up as the 2009 Legislature's first all-out brawl.

Both major parties are lining up witnesses to speak at a Tuesday Senate hearing in which all 31 senators are meeting as a committee of the whole. It's expected to last into the wee hours or longer, even though the outcome is scarcely in doubt.

Senate President Pro Tem Robert Duncan, R-Lubbock, is expected to chair the session. Republican Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst will take Duncan's place in the Senate and will vote on the bill.

Republicans, who hold a 19-12 majority in the chamber, tweaked the body's rules in January to permit senators to take up voter ID legislation by a majority vote rather than the traditional two-thirds.

The debate over changing the usual rule resulted in a dramatic display of partisan bloodletting on the second day of the 2009 session. At one point, Dewhurst faced a challenge to his status as presiding officer.

Republican Rep. Todd Smith of Euless, chairman of the House Committee on Elections, said competing views on voter ID laws may reflect unjustified hysteria on both sides. He says the proposal is a mild departure from existing law, which allows voters to present either a registration card or sign in after showing a government-issued photo ID card, birth certificate, passport or other documents.

But San Antonio Sen. Leticia Van de Putte, who chairs the Senate Democratic Caucus, said the hearing will ripple with tension reflecting the past denial of voting rights to black and Hispanic residents once subject to poll taxes and literacy tests. Democrats say that asking voters to prove their identities will drive down minority turnout, putting Texas in violation of anti-discrimination provisions in the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

"This is a true voter-suppression bill," Van de Putte said.

Seven states now ask voters for photo identification, and last year the U.S. Supreme Court upheld Indiana's law.

Texas House members approved voter ID mandates in 2005 and 2007, but the proposals died in the Senate partly due to the two-thirds' threshold.

Advocates express optimism about getting a measure to GOP Gov. Rick Perry this round, though the House's membership is more narrowly split than before: 76-74 for Republicans.

Reps. Delwin Jones of Lubbock and Tommy Merritt of Longview, the sole House Republicans to vote against the proposal in 2007 alongside every Democrat present, have yet to take positions this year; both want to see what the Senate hatches.

Possible sweeteners floated by Dewhurst include a two- to-four-year grace period before identification demands are enforced and a provision that taxpayers fund ID cards for citizens lacking them. (A standard Texas driver's license, good for six years, costs $24.)

Jones said poll workers might be hard to recruit if they must enforce an ID law. He added, "I haven't seen any strong evidence of illegal voting."

From August 2002 to January 2008, Attorney General Greg Abbott prosecuted 22 instances of alleged voter fraud out of millions of ballots cast during that time. They include one case of a person cutting in front of two elderly voters to cast a ballot and a person voting for her deceased mother.

The then-tax assessor collector of Harris County testified to a House committee in 2007 that there had been about 24 people since the 1990s "voting" after they'd died; authorities couldn't pin down who turned in the ballots. A Travis County official testified about a woman once voting for herself and for her mother.

Merritt said past voter ID proposals were more about energizing conservative Republicans than combating fraud.

Merritt was recently urged to support the ID proposal by Robin Armstrong, vice chairman of the Republican Party of Texas.

"The party is not focused on what's important to the people," Merritt said. He said his constituents are focused on economic woes, the decline in their 401(k) funds and how to survive in retirement.

Armstrong later said Republicans care about the economy and other issues but would love to see voter ID survive. "It's a very important issue to the people of Texas," he said, referring to a poll suggesting voters of different persuasions support an ID requirement.

Sen. Troy Fraser, R-Horseshoe Bay, co-author of the Senate's ID proposal, said he intends to make it easier to vote in Texas than in Indiana or Georgia, which both have voter ID laws.

Under Fraser's proposal, voters unable to produce a photo ID could still vote if they presented two documents demonstrating their identity. Listed alternatives range from utility bills to divorce decrees to court records of a sex-change operation. And if they can't meet the document request, they'll still be allowed to cast a provisional ballot, which election officials could count later.

Fraser said it's incorrect that Texas doesn't have a problem with voter impersonation. "The problem in Texas is, we don't have the ability to identify when somebody is doing this," he said, noting that state law since 1997 has allowed voters to proceed solely by showing voter registration cards.

Opponents insist some elderly and minority voters, who often lean Democratic, will be deterred by new identification requirements because they don't have photo IDs.

Supporters of the change note that photo IDs or alternatives such as birth certificates and official mail are already required to register to vote in Texas.

Tim Vercellotti, a Massachusetts political scientist who has studied the turnout impact of ID laws, said scientists haven't reached consensus on the effects of voter ID laws.

Fraser hails from Llano County, whose longtime clerk, Bette Sue Hoy, said she's never had someone impersonate another voter.

But Hoy, a Republican, said she'd welcome an ID requirement: "It doesn't matter if you're a Democrat or Republican, we need to make sure everything is right."