Emails, Eric Schultz, deputy press secretary, the White House, March 21, 2016
_____________________________________________
From: Selby, Gardner (CMG-Austin)
Sent: Thursday, March 17, 2016 6:14 PM
To: Schultz, Eric
Subject: Urgent inquiry for PolitiFact Texas
Hello again. A reader has asked us to check President Obama's statement in Austin, noted below. Could you guide us to what the president was referring to? Elaborate?
THANKS.
g.
W. Gardner Selby
Reporter / News
Austin American-Statesman
PolitiFact Texas
-----Original Message-----
Sent: Thursday, March 17, 2016 4:25 PM
Subject: Voter ID laws. Is President Obama right?
While speaking about voter ID laws recently at SX, President Obama said, "We're the only advanced democracy in the world that makes it harder for people to vote.... We systematically put up barriers and make it as hard as possible for our citizens to vote."
Do you know, is this true? Or what form(s) of voter ID, if any, other 'advanced' democracies require before one can legally cast a vote in their elections?
Thanks much!
(Schultz)
4:37 p.m.
March 21, 2016
Do other democracies require voters to carry photo IDs when they vote?
Many do, but the laws aren’t as strict as those in Texas and South Carolina. According to a Harvard Law & Policy Review study, plenty of democracies do require voters to show identification, but many make allowances for those citizens who, for whatever reason, don’t have official government IDs.
From the report:
Poll workers in Ireland can ask voters for proof of identity, but voters have a choice of “five different forms of photo ID, in addition to bank books, credit cards, checkbooks and marriage certificates.”
“In Switzerland, every registered voter is sent a registration card prior to an election, and if the voter brings her registration card to the polling place, no additional identification is needed.”
“Canada permits any voter who lacks one of the allowed forms of photo identification to present two of forty-five other forms of identification or documentation that have the voter’s name and address on at least one. Acceptable documents include leases, student transcripts, and utility bills.”
Sweden’s policy is a bit more vague, requiring that a “voter who is not known to the voting clerks [produce] an identity document or in another way verify her or his identity.”
“India allows the use of fifteen different types of identification, ranging from property documents to arms licenses to income tax identity cards. Included, too, are forms of identification most likely to be possessed by the poor.... For instance, voters can present ration cards issued to the poor to allow them to buy food staples and kerosene oil at subsidized prices.”
That’s in addition to many countries that don’t require ID to vote, such as “Denmark, Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom (with the exception of Northern Ireland),” the authors wrote.
They also pointed out that in many other countries, it’s much easier to obtain identification than it is in the United States because ID cards are issued to all citizens automatically: “Countries such as Spain, Greece, France, Malta, Belgium, and Italy provide national identity documents to their citizens to use for many purposes, including travel, banking, and healthcare access as well as voting.”
No waits in the DMV line required.
Also - here’s a summary of voting restrictions from 2010 to 2014 from the Brennan Center http://www.brennancenter.org/analysis/state-voting-2014
Election laws have long been prone to politicization, but for decades there were no major legislative movements to restrict voting. Indeed, the last major legislative push to cut back on voting rights was after Reconstruction. The first stirrings of a new movement to restrict voting came after the 2000 Florida election debacle. Indiana and Georgia passed restrictive photo ID laws in 2005 and 2006, respectively, and Arizona voters approved a ballot initiative in 2004 requiring registrants to provide documentary proof of citizenship when signing up.
But the 2010 election marked a major shift. From early 2011 until the 2012 election, state lawmakers across the country introduced at least 180 restrictive voting bills in 41 states. By the 2012 election, 19 states passed 27 restrictive voting measures, many of which were overturned or weakened by courts, citizen-led initiatives, and the Department of Justice before the election. States continued to pass voting restrictions in 2013 and 2014.
What is the cumulative effect of this legislative movement? As of now, a few months before the 2014 midterm elections, new voting restrictions are set to be in place in 22 states.[1]Ongoing court cases could affect laws in six of these states.[2] Unless these restrictions are blocked, citizens in nearly half the nation could find it harder to vote this year than in 2010.
4:38 p.m.
...and here's the Harvard study referenced in the below. http://harvardlpr.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/3.2_8_Schaffer.pdf