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Maine Voices: Bills to make it harder to vote are contrary to Mainers' long-held interests

Requiring early voter registration and a photo ID are huge overkill for a tiny problem.

BANGOR - Maine should be proud of its long tradition of high voter turnout.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Barbara McDade of Bangor is the president of the League of Women Voters of Maine (www.lwvme.org).

It indicates that a wide cross section of the state's eligible voters is involved in choosing leaders and deciding issues.

This level of civic engagement is admirable in the 21st century.

In 2008's presidential election, Maine's voter turnout was 72.7 percent -- third highest in the nation, behind only Minnesota and Wisconsin.

In 2004, Maine set its all-time record, with a voter turnout of 73.8 percent.

States with high voter turnout like Maine, Minnesota and Wisconsin share a common characteristic. They permit voters to register on Election Day.

On Wednesday, the Legislature's Veterans and Legal Affairs Committee held a hearing on two bills that would decrease Maine's voter turnout.

The first bill would require voters to register by the Tuesday preceding an election.

The second bill would require all voters to show photo identification every time they vote.

Since 1973, Maine voters have been able to register in person up to and including Election Day.

They have been able to exercise their constitutional right to cast a ballot without the impediment of an arbitrary deadline.

Pushing the deadline for registration back seven days would discourage voters.

First, it is inconvenient to make one trip to register and another to vote.

Second, it would not permit eligible voters who become interested in an election in its final days to vote.

Finally, people who have moved or changed their names recently or been accidentally purged from the voting rolls could be disenfranchised.

The stated purpose for eliminating same-day registration is to assist municipal clerks.

However, the demands on their time would simply shift from registering voters to scrutinizing "challenged" ballots.

Currently, if a voter's name does not appear on the voting rolls, an election official may refer him or her to the town clerk to register.

Without same-day registration, an election official would have to fill out all of the paperwork and permit the voter to cast a "challenged" ballot.

After the election, the clerk would have to hold a hearing within a reasonable time to determine whether the "challenged" voter was actually registered.

Under current law, Maine voters can establish their identities at the time of registration with official documents, such as a certified birth certificate or a signed Social Security card, that do not include photos.

Established voters are not required to prove their identities again.

The problem with a photo ID requirement is that not everyone has one. Most people use their driver's licenses as photo ID.

However, a large segment of the population does not have a license.

Many elderly, disabled and economically disadvantaged people do not drive.

If Maine changes its laws, the least mobile people would need to go to the Bureau of Motor Vehicles to get a state identification card, go to town hall to register and go to the polling place to vote.

Studies indicate that 11 percent of the population does not have a photo ID meeting the requirements of similar laws in other states.

In the case of the elderly, 18 percent of the population does not have a photo ID.

One stated purpose of requiring photo ID is to prevent voter fraud.

However, fraud is extremely rare. In Maine, only one case of voter fraud has been prosecuted by the attorney general in more than 30 years.

To eliminate one case of fraud, thousands upon thousands of potential voters would be excluded from the polls. This is a drastic solution to a virtually nonexistent problem.

If the photo ID bill passes, state and municipal governments would have to undertake the costs of revising their voting systems and conducting a public education campaign.

For example, Indiana has spent over $12.2 million since 2007 to implement its photo ID law, and this amount only covered the cost of voter education and free IDs.

These costs would be incurred at a time when government budgets are stretched thin and the stated priorities of legislators are jobs and the economy.

The Legislature should turn down these two bills because they would be a step in the wrong direction.

Maine is currently viewed as a model for other states because its voter registration system has been so successful and its voter turnout has been so high.

Maine people have long enjoyed the ease of registering and voting in this state, and they should not tolerate the imposition of unnecessary barriers to casting their ballots.

- Special to the Press Herald