Don’t backtrack on the right to vote
Rep. Connie L. Johnson
Guest Columnist
After years of struggle to rid our voting laws of discriminatory policies, literacy tests, poll taxes and other barriers that kept women, African Americans and other minorities out of the polling booth, the Missouri Legislature has a bill that would set the clock back 50 years.
If implemented, Senate Bill 1014 could disenfranchise thousands of African-American, poor, elderly and disabled Missourians, backsliding the progress we’ve made since civil rights violations shamed our nation and led to congressional passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Particularly important is the proposed photo ID provision. We need to understand the reality behind the rhetoric. According to the Missouri Department of Revenue, nearly 300,000 Missourians age 18 and over do not have some form of photo identification. For them, this bill throws up an unnecessary barrier to voting. Some Missouri lawmakers defend the ID legislation by claiming that it will improve voter confidence and curb fraud. What this bill would actually do is take away the right to vote from many Missourians.
Even if free photo IDs were offered for voters, the problem becomes implementation – mainly for homebound or otherwise disabled persons. This is yet another barrier to casting a ballot. This is also problematic for people who works long hours, or more than one job, and cannot take time off of work.
Then there are some citizens who will not hear about the law until it is too late, after they’ve shown up to cast their ballots. There is simply no reason to deny those people their right to vote. And there is simply no reason to pass this bill. Missourians already have great confidence in our voting system and there is no evidence of statewide fraud.
Additionally, this bill establishes a host of new requirements for provisional ballots. If the election authority cannot immediately establish that the voter is registered and eligible to vote at the polling place upon examination of its records on file, or if the election judge is unable to contact the election authority immediately, the voter is then entitled to a provisional ballot.
There’s no guarantee that the provisional ballot will be counted. Furthermore, if a voter is told to go to another location, the likely outcome is that the voter will not cast a ballot. This is another provision that will disenfranchise voters.
Experts agree that such restrictive voter ID laws are discriminatory. In fact, a federal court placed an injunction on the Georgia voter identification law. The court found that the law violated the Constitution, stating that it was comparable to a modern-day poll tax. The matter is currently under review by the Department of Justice.
Over the past few years, we’ve had issues regarding the accuracy of the voter rolls in the city of St. Louis; now local and federal authorities are working to address those problems. But broad, sweeping legislation for all Missourians like the bill proposed is not a viable solution to a regional problem.
This legislation will soon come up for a vote in the Senate. I challenge my colleagues from both sides of the aisle to do the right thing. Together, we can score a victory for equality and turn back this attempt to resurrect the failed policies of the past and continue to move Missouri forward.
Connie L. Johnson is state representative for District 61.