Senator Eliot Shapleigh - El Paso, Texas

As a Chinese-American raised in Houston, I was distressed by the insensitive comments made by State Rep. Betty Brown during a recent state House Elections Committee hearing on the Voter ID Bill (Senate Bill 362).

When presented with testimony concerning potential challenges faced by Chinese Americans under the proposed bill, Brown stated: “Rather than everyone having to learn Chinese — I understand it’s a rather difficult language — do you think that it would behoove you and your citizens to adopt a name that we could deal with more readily here?”

As an immigration lawyer, former City Council member and mayor pro tem of the city of Houston, I have worked for years to register citizens to exercise their right to vote. I have been gratified to see the progress that has been made with our numerous ethnic communities. In a city without a majority population, it is vital that all segments of the community be given access to the polls to properly represent the many needs of our community. I’m intimately familiar with the difficulties Asian Americans already face at the polling sites and the harm that SB 362 could cause to all Texans.

During the November 2008 elections, citizens could show up at the polls with nothing more than their voter registration certificates and vote. SB 362 would change that. If passed, voters would no longer have that option. Instead, they would be required to fulfill more stringent identification requirements. While some will argue that this increases the integrity of the ballot, in reality, voter ID requirements have been overwhelmingly shown to disproportionately disenfranchise older Americans, individuals with disabilities, low income and homeless people, students, married women, minorities and most poignantly, those who, for cultural reasons, may have differing names on differing identification documents. According to the nation’s largest exit poll of Asian Americans, nearly 70 percent of Asian voters were asked for ID at the polls — in states where no ID was required!

Voter ID requirements put an inordinate amount of discretion in the hands of already overworked poll workers. Our state and county election offices already find themselves constantly struggling to find the resources to adequately train poll workers and to recruit diverse poll workers who are versed in every possible cultural circumstance that they may encounter. This legislation would take precious funds away from those programs as well as from real priorities such as transportation and education. As evidenced by this episode with Brown and the Elections Committee, even individuals as well versed in the law as they are were unable to understand the complexities associated with Asian names as they relate to voting. Just imagine the difficulty a poll worker would have and how they could easily not allow an eligible voter even with a valid voter registration card to vote.

I urge Houstonians to let their legislators know Texas doesn’t need this bill.

Quan is a Houston attorney.