The Century Foundation's Working Group on State Implementation of Election Reform just released a report called Balancing Access and Integrity that makes a number of innovative recommendations for the states to follow in order to comply effectively and fairly with the Help American Vote Act of 2004 in upcoming federal elections. While states are likely to be receptive to many of the suggestions the group makes, in one area the working group is definitely swimming against the tide: the report flatly states that there is no reason for states to go beyond HAVA's narrow provisions regarding the presentation of identification in order to vote.

Since the passage of that act many states have, in the name of fighting "fraud," plunged forward to enact stricter and stricter identification requirements for voting. Some 20 states now require all voters to present identification in order to cast a ballot—sometimes even mandating that it be a government issued photo identification. Yet the scholars of elections and election law involved in this group unanimously state that there is simply very scant evidence that such measures do anything to combat fraud. While the potential disenfranchising impacts of such requirements also need further study, the report points out that there is some anecdotal evidence that identification requirements serve to disenfranchise major segments of the voting population.

Since the publication of the report, some real data has started to materialize that supports these arguments.

For example, after practically every lawyer in the state scoured the land for fraudulent votes in Washington State because of the election litigation surrounding the gubernatorial race, only six cases of alleged double voting were found.

Similarly, in Ohio—perhaps the only other state to be subjected to the same level of scrutiny as Washington—a statewide survey found that of the 9,078,728 votes cast in Ohio's 2002 and 2004 general elections, a total of four were deemed as ineligible or "fraudulent" and found by the board of elections and county prosecutors to be legally actionable.

As we further cite in the report, Georgia Secretary of State Kathy Cox wrote in a letter to Governor Sonny Purdue opposing the state's new identification bill:

One of the primary justifications given by the Legislature for the passage of the photo identification provisions of House Bill 244—the elimination of voter ID fraud at the polls—is an unfounded justification. I cannot recall one documented case of voter fraud during my tenure as Secretary of State or Assistant Secretary of State that specifically related to the impersonation of a registered voter at voting polls. Our state currently has several practices and procedures in existence to ensure that such cases of voter fraud would have been detected if they in fact occurred, and at the very least, we would have complaints of voters who were unable to vote because someone had previously represented himself or herself as such person on that respective Election Day.

The data is also mounting that identification requirements have disproportionately disenfranchising impacts on certain communities. These include those less likely to have the requisite identification and those with less ability to obtain it—the poor, minorities, the elderly, the young, the elderly and urban residents. A June 2005 study by the University of Wisconsin found the following:

• An estimated 23 percent of persons aged 65 and over do not have a Wisconsin drivers license or a photo ID.
• An estimated 98,247 Wisconsin residents ages 35 through 64 also do not have either a drivers license or a photo ID.
• Less than half (47 percent) of Milwaukee County African American adults and 43 percent of Hispanic adults have a valid drivers license compared to 85 percent of white adults outside Milwaukee.
• For young adults ages 18-24 only 26 percent of African Americans and 34 percent of Hispanics in Milwaukee County have a valid license compared to 71 percent of young white adults in the balance of the state
  

Previous studies have produced results in accordance with these findings. A study by the The National Commission on Federal Election Reform—the Carter-Ford Commission—found in 2001 that 6 to 10 percent of the existing American electorate lacks any form of state ID. A 1994 Justice Department study found that blacks in Louisiana were four to five times less likely than whites to have photo IDs.

Given all this piling on of negative evidence, both in terms of the efficacy of ID requirements in fulfilling the goal their advocate's claim and their impact on voting rights, it is somewhat mind boggling that so many state officials, as well as other groups working on this issue, are still vigorously pushing for greater expansion of what seems to be a rather useless yet dangerous tool. Shouldn't the burden of proof now shift to the advocates of more voter ID to demonstrate the value of their cause?

Tova Andrea Wang is a senior program officer and Democracy Fellow at The Century Foundation.