Why We Need Voter ID, According to Disillusioned Democrat Artur Davis
Few public figures can explain the voter ID issue as clearly and simply as former Congressman Artur Davis.
Davis is the man who seconded Barack Obama’s nomination at the Democratic Party’s 2008 convention. After serving in Congress from 2003 to 2011, he has since left the party, disgusted by the radicalism and race-baiting now in vogue among national Democrats.
Using simple language, Davis explained to an audience this summer that state laws requiring voters to present government-issued photo identification in order to cast their ballots are eminently sensible.
In fact, according to Davis, asking voters to present government-issued photo ID in order to vote is not a burden, contrary to the increasingly rabid claims being propagated by the Left and the mainstream media.
Davis made the comments during a panel discussion on electoral integrity that took place at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C., on July 26, 2012.
Here is a transcript containing the relevant portions of his remarks:
Let me begin — I want to start by showing you something if I can, and it’s obviously something that’s at the core of what it is we’re talking about today.
Perhaps you can’t see it so well if you’re watching this on the Internet, on television, and most of you in the audience can see it all too well — you can see how bad I look.
This is a Virginia driver’s license, also known as a state-issued photo ID. Very small. Pretty innocuous-looking except for the ugly face on it.
And it’s actually even sanded around the edges, so unlike the notes I have in front of me or the notes maybe you have in front of you, you can’t even cut your hand inadvertently.
It’s a very tiny little thing that will fit in a breast pocket, fit in a wallet — you can carry it next to your pager or your BlackBerry.
It is not a billy club; if you look at it that’s clear. It’s not a fire hose.
I live in Virginia now but I come from the state of Alabama and used to represent Birmingham, Alabama, and Selma, Alabama, in the United States Congress.
I know a little something about fire hoses. It’s not this. It’s not some kind of a weapon or club that southern sheriffs used to use to keep people from voting or participating.
It’s a tiny little photo ID.
But this tiny little thing I’m holding up in my hand tends to do very weird things to people. It tends to create some very interesting political arguments.
Several months ago, two very prominent leaders of organizations, civil rights organizations, as a matter of fact in the United States, were so riled up by this tiny little thing called a photo ID that they went to the United Nations and they went to a very particular place in the United Nations called the UN Commission on Human Rights.
And while I’m not an expert on United Nations terminology, basically they filed a complaint against us with the UN Commission on Human Rights, and the basis for the complaint was the incredibly devastating potential to suppress this little thing I’m holding up, or so they were told.
Now I won’t even get into the fact that Cuba sits on the UN Commission on Human Rights and Cuba would not know a free election if it walked in and did a burlesque dance in front of it.
I won’t get into the fact that China sits on the UN Commission on Human Rights — and China has many great virtues as a great competitor and sometimes partner of ours, but in China, unless you’re one of a small group of provinces that actually do get to cast votes in some of their local races, China has never had a free election in many histories of dynasties and centuries. They make us look like the rookies as old as that civilization is; they have never had a free election.
Saudi Arabia sits on the UN Commission on Human Rights. Saudi Arabia occasionally experiments with voting, but if you’re a woman you’re not part of the experiment.
You get my point. Not quite the group I would expect to judge our integrity when it comes to elections.
[South Carolina] Attorney General [Alan] Wilson touched on this [during today's panel discussion], some other speakers touched on it. You know the arguments on the other side, and frankly the most powerful argument rhetorically on the other side is, oh, to have photo ID it will have this effect of diminishing participation, it will have the effect of crushing the ability of all kinds of people who wish to vote, and they’re talking very candidly about many of our minority citizens.
Ladies and gentlemen, can we dial the clock back four years ago when some of us had no gray hair and some of us had more hair?
Remember four years ago we were told about the young people in this country and we were told that they were so fired up and so enthusiastic and so energized? We were told they were led to believe in a way that they’d never been led to believe before. Now four short years later we’re told that those same motivated go-getters who were ready to take over the world can’t be bothered with getting an ID.
Remember when we were told four years ago about the seniors who were in their eighties who never missed an election and who were so motivated to get involved in politics right now in this season? Now we’re told that those same people who were so fired up and ready to go and so motivated and cared so much about their country, now we’re told that they’re so fragile and so weak and so marginalized and so isolated that they don’t have an ID and couldn’t be bothered to get one.
You take my point.
Reasonable people can differ about almost everything in American life today including this issue, but reasonable people shouldn’t disagree on one thing.
We have had our share of suppression, particularly in the American South. There’s no question about that. But this is not suppression.
This is a simple little device that you use all the time. When I leave here I have to hightail it to the airport because I’ve got to speak in Salt Lake City tomorrow. I won’t get on the plane if I happen to leave this here.
Most buildings in Washington, D.C., including the Department of Justice that is filing lawsuits trying to stop these states from implementing voter ID laws, if I were to decide that I wanted to go by the Department of Justice to try to get a meeting with anybody there I couldn’t get in without this.
And finally, we have our friends in the news media, and I love the definition of objectivity with journalists. Objectivity to a journalist means I think the opposite of whoever I’m interviewing.
I did an interview a few months ago with a news organization about this very issue and they asked me what they thought were some pretty tough questions.
When I went to the news organization to do the interview, the first thing that was sitting on top of an ominous-looking security guard who looked a lot scarier than this was a sign that said “photo ID required — no exceptions.”
Which, by the way, is more than most states which permit a number of exceptions.
So, I’m glad to be here. Make sure I don’t leave this little thing as I go to catch my flight.
I’m glad to talk about this issue and finally in all seriousness this is something Democrats and Republicans ought to care about, something conservatives and liberals ought to care about, something Americans ought to embrace, the notion of voter integrity.
Later, in response to a question from a member of the audience, Davis said:
The issue is whether it’s an unreasonable burden to make someone produce photo ID or some equivalent [to] photo ID.
We might debate the public policy all we want. The courts are looking at these issues, that’s the only thing courts are looking at, [whether it] is an unreasonable burden and the reason that we keep talking about the ubiquity of driver’s licenses. The reason we keep talking about the fact that ID is common, is not that we’re trying to just make a debater’s point, but we’re trying to say that, how can it be a burden to ask people to do something they do all the time?
That’s all this comes down to.
How can it be a burden to ask people to do something they do all the time?
Congressman Davis, the question answers itself, but thanks for asking nonetheless.
It’s not like the Left, which relies on voter fraud to win elections, will ever ask.
If registering is such a mental challenge then you’re definitely too stupid to vote.
Why all this resistance to ID laws? It seems to me it is just predatory behavior by an elite class to control the mentally challenged.
This “elite” class also wants to make it easier for repeat voters.
The more, the merrier, they say.
Radicals do what radicals do best – they lie, and then lie some more. On top of it, they pretend they are taking the moral high road, attempting to protect the underclass in the process. Hogwash.
The above meme has to be destroyed at EVERY turn. It is easy to do. If one contends that showing proper ID to vote disenfranchises the poor/minorities, then one is stating that ALL ID’s are unnecessary.However, if one wants to confuse the voting process, thus padding the Dem rolls, then by all means their screams of racism etc are on target.
In any case, the far left has a death grip on the Dem party, and they are hell bent on destroying the American process. The following describes the thugs in charge of the regime, and targets their surrogates too -
http://adinakutnicki.com/2012/10/07/when-authentic-revolutionaries-hold-the-reins-of-american-power-centers-via-the-most-radical-regime-in-u-s-history-commentary-by-adina-kutnicki/
Look, if it were really that simple, honest people wouldn’t be arguing about this.
Oh, wait…
You can’t get a Sam’s Club card or a Costco card without a picture ID.
We have 12 million border crashers living in our country. ACORN/SEIU were engaged in massive voter registration fraud.
We have Democratic OFFICE SEEKERS who fraudulently voted in multiple states.
The Lawless Presidency seeks a lawless election process. Only a fool says that a picture ID is too heavy of a burden to try to prevent leftist voter fraud.
I don’t care about leftist voter fraud, cf.
I care about voter fraud.
It should be a hanging offense, whoever commits it.
I’m all for disenfranchising voters;
The Dead
The Non-Citizen
The Ficticious
The Alter Egos (second and third name on the voter rolls)
I guess I’m just a Neanderthal.
I’m with JD, but I’ll add those who register in multiple locations and can mosey along and vote more than once abetted by early voting.
Why is this man still a Democrat?
As much as he hates communists and racists, he has a vision that is still left of center. He still believes that Government should be Charity, in the idiotic biblical sense.
He is not. He changed parties.
Kudos to Congressman Davis for having the guts to make the case!
Sadly, the Left wants to throw African-Americans under the bus and have illegal voters take their place. African-Americans were the most important Democratic voter group 30 years ago. Since then, Hispanics have overtaken them as the largest minority, mostly through illegal immigration. Obama’s illegal “DREAM Act” benefits for Hispanics is a NIGHTMARE Act for struggling African-American workers.
Authentic African-Americans are already “in the system” and have or had authentic driver’s licenses, military ID, welfare cards and other government ID, and can easily get current ID anytime they want.
Barack Obama and Eric Holder want to give votes to illegal aliens, felons and the dead. With these voting blocks safely locked in, Democrats won’t listen to African-Americans’ complaints about jobs, schools, health care etc.
The debate over Voter ID laws are one of the most cynical lies in Washington. Democrats don’t give a damn about “disenfranchising” anybody. They calculate that loose voting requirements help them in elections, and that tightening up the rules will cost them votes.
It’s as simple as that. All those sanctimonious protestations about “disenfranchising” poor black voters is nothing more than a smoke screen.
And everybody knows it.
I was just in DC and visited the Smithsonian’s Natural History Museum. There was an exhibit chronicling the end of apartheid in South Africa, and the election of Nelson Mandela as President in 1994. It struck me that, when blacks were given the right to vote, 15.5 MILLION new voters were registered and given photo IDs in time for the election (to the best of my recollection). And we say it’s too much of a burden? How many of those voters probably didn’t have transportation to get to the ID location? Or couldn’t afford the transportation? Yet the South Africans were able to make it happen…
I would like someone to show me just one person who doesn’t have ID. That is, a person that WANTS ID and can’t get one.
Most people without ID CHOOSE to be without ID.
How do those voters without ID purchase booze and smokes?
They go to stores where they don’t check ID very carefully, if at all. Lots of places like that where I live. They know your face, they know you’re not a fed or a cop so they don’t even look at your ID.
Really?
Let’s go further and say how do they earn their money – ID required for a job – and in answer to what you will probably say next “They’re unemployed” well then, how do they sign up for welfare?
This can go around in circles, but bottom line is, everyone needs an ID to manage any money they have and if they don’t have one, they can get one for free most of the time.
Your comments and argument are NOT valid.
Glad Mr. Davis is speaking out about this issue. If you listen to the ACLU, you would think that a large portion of the population is disenfranchised by state ID laws. The fact is that in many states a resident may be able to get a state ID for free. You do have to have proof of citizenship but most people should have that anyway. I also told the ACLU that instead of spending money stopping these laws from being passed why not use their funds to help people obtain the ID.
I currently live in my hometown in Illinois (Illinois does not have a state ID law requirement for voting although they were trying to pass one.) but for a time I lived in Pennsylvania. When I moved back to Illinois, I had to provide a birth certificate in order to get an Illinois driver’s license despite having a Pennsylvania one. I went to the county office and picked up the certificate. No big deal!
By the way Obama knows all about voter fraud in Chicago. That is how he and his fellow Democrats are hoping to get re-elected.
How will the dead in Seattle present their ID? Should they have their loved ones glue a photo ID to their tombstone?
For anyone who would like to get the full story on voter fraud, I suggest they obtain a copy of the book, “Who’s Counting”, authored by John Fund and Hans Van Spakovsky. Both gentlemen have impeccable credentials and are non-biased and the book is a searing expose’ of voter fraud (by both political parties).
The usual argument against requiring a photo ID is the hardship it would place on seniors and the poor. Let’s forget about an ID being required for such things that most of us take for granted: driving, flying, opening a bank account, cashing a check, using a credit card, checking into a hotel, entering certain buildings, obtaining a library card, etc., and look at those the Democrats claim would be adversely affected — seniors and the poor. In order to qualify for ANY of the benefits that most in these catagories receive (i.e., Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, Obamaphones, etc.), a photo ID is a standard requirement.