Senator Eliot Shapleigh - El Paso, Texas

Senator Leticia Van de Putte

State Republican Party Chairwoman Tina Benkiser’s recent essay “Democrats are blocking a bill to halt voter fraud” would be laughable, if her aim was not the very un-funny goal of preventing mainstream Texans from casting legal ballots.

The legislation in question would require a voter to present multiple forms of identification or a drivers license before being allowed to vote, even if the voter has a voter registration card. It might sound good to most folks – but those are the folks who have multiple forms of identification and a drivers license to offer at the polls.

Texans topping the list of those who don’t? Senior citizens whose driving days have passed. In fact, Daniel Tokaji, a law professor at Ohio State University who focuses on voting rights, said that six to ten percent of Americans don’t have photo I.D.

Ms. Benkiser’s claims that the bill is designed to prevent voter fraud are hogwash. The only thing the bill would accomplish would be to create some of the most restrictive voting laws in the nation. Meanwhile, despite investigations related to several recent election contests, the evidence has uncovered no evidence of voter fraud which the provisions in this bill would have prevented. They didn’t even require photo I.D. to vote in the recent Iraqi elections!

The truth is that this bill is part of a nationwide Republican effort to suppress the votes of Democratic-leaning voters, among them the elderly, the poor, and minorities. Similar bills have been filed, considered, or passed this year by Republican legislators in Arizona, Indiana, California, Ohio, and Wisconsin. And Ms. Benkiser is working off the same Republican talking points as other Republicans across the country, exposing this to be a coordinated attempt to stifle voters’ rights.

The most laughable part of her message is that people must present a picture I.D. to rent a movie, so why not to vote? I’ll tell her why: because renting a movie isn’t the most precious fought-and-died-for right of American democracy – voting is.

Republicans do a grave disservice to both the right to vote and to ballot security when they cry “voter fraud” when they want to change the rules to win the game. If there is voter fraud, bring forward the facts and the legislature will address it head-on, because elections must remain honest. But Ms. Benkiser’s wolf crying only serves to make addressing future problems more difficult when cases of actual fraud are brought forward. Meanwhile, this legislation will remain in the trash heap where it belongs.