By Don Feder
No reform is more necessary for the integrity of the electoral process — and none has been subjected to more savage and disingenuous attacks — than voter ID laws. Of all these, the most outrageous is the charge that voter ID is the same as Jim Crow — the racist system that was used to disenfranchise Southern blacks for generations after Reconstruction. Voter ID laws currently in place in 20 states — though some have been delayed by activist courts or are being challenged by Eric Holder’s Justice Department — require voters to present a valid photo ID, like a driver’s license, before voting.
J. Christian Adams, formerly with the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, warns:
“Liberal foundations, public interest law firms and advocacy groups have created a permanent network of experts and organizations devoted to an arcane but critical task: monopolizing the narrative on elections laws and procedures, Cloaking their actions in the rhetoric of civil rights and the right to vote, they seek to affect the outcome of elections. They challenge any efforts to protect the integrity of the ballot box by denying the possibility of vote fraud and crying ‘Jim Crow.'”
Opponents of voter ID take a three-prong approach to defeating the reform. First, they argue that it’s unnecessary — that voter fraud is so rare as to be virtually non-existent. This constitutes a denial of both history and reality. Election fraud has always been with us, from ballot-box stuffing and the graveyard vote to voting by illegal immigrants. By requiring voters to prove their identity, ID laws help to ensure honest elections.
