More smoke than fire

Voter ID measure accomplishes little in election process

Despite state lawmakers’ recent passage of a law requiring Arkansas voters to show a picture ID before casting a ballot, public policy over the merits of voter identification is far from settled.

In all likelihood, litigation is coming before the law takes effect in about three months. The question of whether Arkansas voters can be required to show a photo ID will be measured against the state’s Constitution. Lawmakers passed a similar requirement in 2013. It failed to measure up and was ruled invalid by the Arkansas Supreme Court.

The General Assembly has tweaked the measure. Advocates hope they’ve done enough to thread the legal needle so that all people who show up at the polls will have to provide photo ID proof of who they are.

Gov. Asa Hutchinson signed the latest measure. Most every Republican lawmaker from Northwest Arkansas backed the measure. Opposition came from Uvalde Lindsey, Kim Hendren, Greg Leding and David Whitaker.

Republicans appear to believe such measures resonate with their constituents, who are told there’s a movement to steal elections, that voter identification is part of the way to save the republic.

So what’s wrong with that, right? Here’s one suggestion: Even if a photo ID requirement was 100 percent successful in weeding out fraudulent voters, its impact will be infinitesimally small. In 2014, a professor of law at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles investigated the more than 1 billion votes cast in general, primary, municipal and special elections between 2000 and 2014. Credible claims of in-person fraud, the kind voter identification bills are supposed to impact, amounted to 31 incidents.

But what’s the harm, some ask. It’s the unnecessary complication of the voting process for no real gain in its integrity. It’s the higher potential that voter ID requirements will thwart an otherwise legal voter than it will stop someone from voting illegally, because there simply aren’t people showing up as fake voters. And even if we grant that one or two manage to get though in each election, it has not proven enough to affect outcomes.

The law is passed. The legal challenge will come. But voters should not allow these lawmakers to make them question the integrity of the balloting process. It simply has not been demonstrated.