How The Texas Voter Photo I.D. Law Becomes A Poll Tax For Some

The Texas Voter Photo I.D. case currently before the federal Washington D.C. Circuit Court will decide whether Texas can enforce its year-old voter photo I.D. law. The U.S. Department of Justice contends the law will prevent from 795,955 to 1.4 million registered Latino and African-American voters from casting a ballot in the November General Election.

Under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, the Justice Department or a federal court is required to pre-clear laws affecting voters before they go into effect in jurisdictions with a history of voting discrimination -- and that includes Texas. Texas has the burden at trial to prove that its voter photo ID law, signed into law by Gov. Perry last year, does not have the purpose or effect to deny a minority citizen the right to vote. That federal court trial started on Monday, before a three-judge panel composed of two district court judges and an appeals court judge.

Originally set to go into effect on January 1, 2012, the Texas Photo I.D. Law (SB 14) would require voters to present one of a limited selection of government issued photo I.D. to election Judges in order to qualify to vote. The accepted forms of currently dated photo identification are: Department of Public Safety issued Texas driver's license, Texas election I.D., or personal identification card; Texas concealed handgun license; U.S. military I.D. card; U.S. citizenship certificate; or U.S. passport. The other forms of personal identification currently accepted for voter qualification could no longer be used under SB 14. SB 14 provides that people who do not have one of the prescribed photo I.D.'s may obtain a "free" Election Identification Card (EIC) from a Dept. of Public Safety (DPS) Driver's License office.

In opening arguments on Monday, Adam Mortara, an attorney for the State of Texas, told the DC Court three judge panel that the vast majority of registered voters already have a photo ID.

"This is a case about Texas' proposed implementation of one of the most popular voting reforms of the last 20 years, a common-sense requirement that when you show up to polls to vote, you prove you are who you say you are with a photo ID," said Adam Mortara of Bartlit Beck Herman Palenchar & Scott. Mortara said showing a photo ID is part of routine life, from getting into a federal courthouse to riding on an airplane. The DOJ's evidence, Mortara said in his opening statement, is flawed and cannot be used to block the state from carrying out its identification law. Mortara in particular critiqued the work of Stephen Ansolabehere, a professor of government at Harvard University who found Hispanics and blacks in Texas are disproportionately lacking identification compared to white voters.

A DOJ lawyer, Elizabeth Westfall of the department's Civil Rights Division, said in her opening arguments that Texas "is unable to meet its burden" that the voter ID law will not have a retrogressive effect.

Ansolabehere, Westfall said, determined that at least 1.4 million potential voters [approximately 10 percent of all voting age citizens in Texas] lack any form of state-issued ID that is accepted under the law. "In fact, minority registered voters in Texas are two-thirds more likely than white registered voters to lack an allowable state ID," Westfall said. That disparity exists among recent voters and all registrants, she said.

While the State of Texas disputes the fact that up to 1.4 million, or even "just" 795,955 of all voting age citizens in Texas lack any form of state-issued ID accepted under the new I.D. law, there is still no disenfranchisement. Republicans for the state argue there is no disenfranchisement of those without I.D. because anyone can easily obtain a "free" EIC from a Texas DPS office.

The catch is that in order to obtain a “free" EIC from the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS), a person must take time to travel to a DPS office and present other government-issued documents mandated by the federal Real I.D. Act of 2005. The Federal Real I.D. Act, which turns state driver's licenses into a national identity card, adds additional barriers for everyone, particularly women of every age, to obtain or renew their driver's license. documents needed to obtain a “free" EIC include a passport, or a combination of documents, or a state certified birth certificate, or a certified copy of a court order indicating the applicant’s name and date of birth, and additional documents. Identification documents required to obtain a "free" EIC can cost considerable time and money to obtain. For example, obtaining a birth certificate in Texas costs $22 in order to vote -- and that amounts to a poll tax. For those who do not have a driver's license, and therefore don't own a car, getting to the DPS adds additional financial burdens that may, in some areas of Texas, be insurmountable -- and that, too, amounts to a poll tax.

Texas A Step Closer To Federal Real I.D. Act

As of May, more identification is now required in order to apply for a Texas Driver License, Personal Identification Card, or Election Identification Card, and this new change has brought the state closer to complying with the controversial Real I.D. Act.

Under the new law, applicants must prove they are Texas residents and that they have lived at their residence for at least 30 days. Among the forms of identification and proof of residency are current deeds and mortgages, concealed handgun licenses, medical cards, military documents and school transcripts. For those without photo I.D., under the new Texas voter photo I.D. law, these additional documentation requirements will make it even more difficult to obtain the photo identification they need to vote.

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Other states across the country have implemented this law, as well, and many feel it walks the line of invading privacy. They do not want to provide more information than they have to, which is also an issue with the Real I.D. Act.

This act, which has already taken effect in some states, turns driver licenses into national identification cards complete with chips that automatically allow computers to pull up biographic and biometric data.

Many states have been resistant to a national I.D. card and the fact that the federal government could keep track of them.

Though the Real I.D. Act has not yet been fully implemented in the Lone Star State, this additional burdens to obtain a puts Texas one step closer to it.

On May 11, 2005, President Bush signed into law the “Emergency Supplemental Appropriation for Defense, the Global War on Terror, and Tsunami Relief, 2005,” which included the “Real ID Act of 2005.”

The Real ID Act mandates that all fifty states must follow specific security, authentication, and issuance regulations, administered by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), in issuing driver's license and personal identification cards. On March 4, 2011, U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano extended by 20 months (to January 15, 2013) the May 10, 2011 deadline for states to be in full compliance with the federal Real ID regulations. Texas already substantially complies with the Real ID regulations for obtaining or renewing driver's licenses and personal identification cards.

Once the January 15, 2013 deadline has passed, applicants for first time or renewed driver's licenses, personal identification cards, or election identification certificates will need to prove five items of fact to their state driver's license office: full legal name, birth date, citizenship or immigration status, social security number, and proof of permanent residence address.

Americans' Confidence In TV News Drops To New Low

Confidence in television news has hit a new low, a new Gallup poll reported Tuesday.

The polling firm does an annual survey of the confidence that Americans have in their biggest institutions. Just 21% of adults said they had a "great deal" or "quite a lot" of confidence in TV news. That's down a whopping 25% from 1993, when Gallup began the poll:

The survey showed an interesting political split. Overall, Democrats were much more likely than Republicans to trust TV news (34 percent versus 17 percent.) But self-identified liberals were the most disenchanted of all groups, with just 19 percent expressing confidence in the medium.

Gallup said that "Americans' negativity likely reflects the continuation of a broader trend that appeared to enjoy only a brief respite last year. Americans have grown more negative about the media in recent years, as they have about many other U.S. institutions and the direction of the country in general."

As if to illustrate that point, American newspapers also fared very poorly in the survey, with only 25 percent of respondents expressing confidence. As the news media has become increasingly controlled by a few global conglomerates who format news as entertainment programing, often little more than repackaged political "think tank" propaganda, Americans have lost confidence in traditional "old media" news outlets.

In 1910, nearly 60% of cities had competing daily papers, but today that completion of viewpoints has all but disappeared. Unfortunately, media consolidation over the past twenty years has taken its toll on the "widest possible dissemination of information as an essential check on government and business."

Through successive acquisitions and mergers a few massive multinational media conglomerates controlled by conservative owners control more and more of our vital information sources – including television networks, cable channels, newspaper publishing, radio, and the Internet.

A robust, free press has been viewed by many as an essential check on government and business since the early days of the Republic. “The only security of all is in a free press,” Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1823. Nearly 60 years ago, the Supreme Court declared that "the widest possible dissemination of information from diverse and antagonistic sources is essential to the welfare of the public, that a free press is essential to the condition of a free society."

Today, people, particularly younger Americans, have gone to Internet to find the widest possible dissemination of information from diverse and antagonistic sources.

A Pew Research Center for the People & the Press survey in 2010 found that the internet surpassed television as the main source of national and international news for people younger than 30. (chart right)

Since 2007, the number of 18 to 29 year old adults citing the internet as their main source has nearly doubled, from 34% to 65%.

Over this period, the number of young people citing television as their main news source has dropped from 68% to 52%.

The internet is slowly closing in on television as Americans’ main source of national and international news.

Poll: Smartphone Users Back Obama

According to a new survey from Harris Interactive, both iPhone and Android owners find common ground when picking the next president.

Regardless of whether they're on iOS or Android, younger smartphone owners overwhelmingly choose Barack Obama -- smartphone users would vote for Barack Obama over Mitt Romney, 49 percent to 31 percent.

That wide margin holds across iOS and Android users, with iPhone owners preferring Obama to Romney 47 percent to 34 percent and Android owners preferring Obama to Romney 50 percent to 29 percent.

The survey was commissioned by Velti, a mobile marketing firm.

Politico: “The results of this survey demonstrate that the smartphone market is becoming a whole new demographic that candidates must take into consideration when building a comprehensive campaign strategy,” Velti CMO Krishna Subramanian said. “Clearly, mobile advertising is emerging as an influential medium and a distinct audience.”

Just as candidates are quickly learning how to text mobile device owners for campaign donations, so too candidates will quickly learn how to message mobile Ads to smartphones. In fact, Mitt Romney became the first U.S. politician to use Apple's iAd service in June, with another round of Google ads for Android, coming. Barack Obama's campaign is thought to be planning smartphone Ads in the near future, too.

There was some good news for Romney in the Harris Interactive poll, however: Romney leads Obama 57 percent to 34 percent among older retired iPhone and Android users.

An overwhelming 97 percent of Obama voters were either iPhone or Android users, compared with 63 percent for Romney voters. The survey was conducted online June 27-29 among 2,164 adults, 776 of whom were iPhone/Android owners.

More:

• The Mobile Election 2012
• Smartphones Rapidly Replacing Computers For Internet Access