Voter ID passes bitterly divided Texas Senate
By Brandi Grissom / Austin Bureau
Posted: 03/18/2009 12:00:00 AM MDT

AUSTIN -- Voters would have to show photo identification before casting a ballot under a measure the Texas Senate preliminarily approved Tuesday after a bitter, partisan debate.
"The goal is to make sure that every person arriving at a polling site is the same one who is named on that voter list, that you are who you say you are," said state Sen. Troy Fraser, R-Horseshoe Bay, author of the bill.

In a 19-12 vote, Republican senators approved the bill a week after they heard nearly 24 hours of testimony from dozens of Texans. After final approval in the Senate, the measure would move to the House, where Republicans hold a two-vote majority.

GOP senators argued that the measure would help root out rampant voter fraud.

"The system we have today is easy to cheat. I'm trying to move a step forward," Fraser said.

Democrats said that voter impersonation is not a big problem in Texas and that the photo ID requirement would suppress votes from the poor, the disabled, the elderly and minorities.

"This bill is about Republicans scaring off just enough elderly, disabled, blacks and Hispanics to stay in power four more years, plain and simple," said Sen. Eliot Shapleigh, D-El Paso.

Under the bill, voters would be required to present photo identification such as a driver's license, passport or concealed-handgun license. A voter without photo identification would have to show two other identifying documents, such as citizenship papers, a library card or a hunting license.

People without the required ID would be allowed to cast a provisional ballot and then return later with the needed verification.
"Every person walking into a public place will be allowed to vote," Fraser said.

Twenty-four states have broad voter identification laws, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Of those, seven require voters to show photo identification.

State Sen. Tommy Williams, R-The Woodlands, read from news reports and court affidavits about accounts of voter impersonation in a school board election last year in the Rio Grande Valley.

"We must prevent fraud, and we must prevent the disenfranchisement of legitimate voters," Williams said.

Democrats said, though, that most voter fraud cases in Texas have involved mail-in ballots and would not have been prevented with photo identification.

"This is a solution in search of a problem," said state Sen. Royce West, D-Dallas.

The Republican push for photo identification at the polls, they said, is not about preventing fraud but about the GOP maintaining political dominance in Texas.

They said most voters who would have trouble providing the identification required -- old people, low-income people and minorities -- tend to vote for Democrats.

"Sadly, a voter suppression agenda still exists in 2009," said state Sen. Leticia Van de Putte, D-San Antonio.

The measure next moves to the House, where its passage is less certain.

The House approved a voter ID bill in 2007. That chamber, though, is more balanced now with 76 Republicans and 74 Democrats.

State Rep. Norma Chávez, D-El Paso, said she and other Democrats in the House would work to alter the bill to ensure that voters are not left out.

Chávez said her biggest concern was for elderly voters in her district who have never driven and were birthed by midwives or at small clinics where birth certificates were not provided.

"How do they get a state-issued ID or driver's license if they don't have the birth certificate," she said.

Patti Apostolides, a real estate saleswoman who lives in Central El Paso, said she worried that additional requirements would discourage people from voting.

Current procedures that allow voters to present their voter registration card or a photo ID work just fine, she said.

"The more people who vote, the truer picture of what the citizens want you're going to get," Apostolides said.

But Tom Holmsley, who lives near Kern Place, said photo identification at the polls was necessary to prevent voter fraud.

"I think that it's an overstatement that it will be a disenfranchisement," Holmsley said. "Everywhere you go, you've got to show an ID."

http://www.elpasotimes.com/newupdated/ci_11937239