The Voter-ID ‘Dent’ That Wasn’t

http://www.nationalreview.com/node/363548/print

The article begins by noting that three prominent Texans — state judge Sandra Watts, state senator Wendy Davis, and state attorney general Greg Abbott — all had photo IDs that did not quite match their names on official voter rolls, and so all had to sign affidavits before they could vote. But . . . they all could and did vote.

Jim Wright — another Texan, whom the Times helpfully identifies as a former U.S. Speaker of the House — had an expired driver's license, and so he had to produce a birth certificate. But . . . he also voted.

So, when all is said and done, where's the "dent"?

It's worth noting that these four voter-ID "victims" are hardly the poor, minority voters that the Left asserts are targeted by these laws. To the contrary, all four are white and quite prominent, one a Republican. They not only got to vote, they were alerted to discrepancies in their voter registrations that they can now get corrected.

This is the new Jim Crow?

It does, however, note, "Officials also said there was little traffic at the offices set up by the state to provide free voter-ID documents for those without another approved form of identification." So, in other words, the state had conscientiously prepared for the contingency of people needing voter-ID documents, and had set up offices to provide them for free. That's a good thing, right? And what's more, it turns out that there was really no problem after all. Contrary to the hysterical claims of those opposing voter-ID requirements, there apparently are not large numbers of Texas voters who lack identification.
Yet the article proceeds to speculate that problems might arise in a better-publicized election with higher voter turnout. Why? Because those elections might attract the "more casual voter."
Well, that's one way to put it. The other way to put it is that there is more likely to be fraud. But in any event, it is a good thing that this week's low-turnout, "trial run" election ran so smoothly, right?
The Times article acknowledges that the Texas election provided no evidence that women were affected more than men — the latest fear raised by voter-ID critics. And, looking again at the four horror stories that began the article, we see two men and two women as the "victims." That does not sound very disproportionate.