Voter ID protects you and me

Voter ID defends the legitimacy of elections by ensuring every eligible citizen gets one vote. Those who complain that there’s a broader suppression effort in the new law are either misleading you or are themselves misinformed.

The law ensures that the person at the poll is the same as the person on the registration.

Case law supports this idea, as Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens wrote in Crawford v. Marion County Election Board that the photo ID requirement doesn’t constitute a burden that outweighs the state’s interest in preventing voter fraud. Where, then, is the problem?

The attacks against voter ID follow two themes: either voter ID is unnecessary because there’s no voter fraud, or Republicans passed voter ID to keep minorities and youth from voting. Kindly put, both are incorrect.

Fun fact: Monaco’s intentional homicide rate is zero. That means in 2008, the last available year, exactly zero people were found to have been murdered there. But just because a crime is rare doesn’t mean we don’t need protection from it.

Isn’t that how we justify humiliating security procedures at the airport?

In the same year that no one was murdered in Monaco, the State Board of Elections reported 49 cases of voter fraud. That equals a fraud rate of about 11 per 100,000 votes.

It’s funny to think that a wealthy expat wandering the streets of Monaco in the middle of the night is safer than our votes.

In terms of statistical significance, voter fraud is more like murder in Monaco — it’s probably not going to happen to you or me or anyone we know.

But in terms of philosophical significance, that number represents actual people who were robbed of their vote. That’s real voter suppression, and that’s why voter ID makes so much sense. The law doesn’t take away your vote. It ensures your vote is counted like everyone else’s.

The idea that that it will suppress the youth vote is suspect. Opponents point to the fact that poll officials won’t accept college IDs or out-of-state driver’s licenses, with the second point being simply untrue.

But think of all of the things you already can’t do with your college ID: obtain a marriage license, buy a gun or get a passport. Voting with my OneCard would be like going to the liquor store with my fishing license.

I’m insulted by the idea that minorities are incapable of obtaining a photo ID in three years. Does my being Japanese-American prevent me from taking a couple of hours to ensure my vote is secure? Raising the boogeyman of racial discrimination only serves to silence sensible debate. Voter ID isn’t some 21st-century poll tax — if only because that same law offers free voter ID cards to those who can’t afford a driver’s license.

Opponents protest that the right to vote must be fiercely protected. I couldn’t agree more, and that’s why I supported voter ID, first as an intern for one of the bill’s primary sponsors and now as a columnist.