Hans von Spakovsky, writing at the Heritage Foundation’s newly launched Daily Signal, writes about the biggest hardly told story coming out of the Mississippi primary last Tuesday, The Biggest Non-Story in Tuesday’s Elections? Mississippi Voter ID Implemented With No Problems:
It wasn’t the biggest story following Tuesday’s elections in various states, but it was the biggest and most-ignored non-story.Mississippi’s new voter ID law got its first run in the June 3 primary, and the sky did not fall. Despite the tiresome and disproven claims by opponents that such laws cause wholesale voter disenfranchisement and are intended to suppress votes, Mississippi “sailed through” its first test of the new ID requirements, according to The Clarion Ledger, the newspaper of Jackson, Miss.Aside from being able to use any form of government-issued photo ID, like every other state with ID requirements, Mississippi provides a free ID for anyone who does not already have a government-issued photo ID. Contrary to the claims of those who say large numbers of Americans don’t have an ID, Mississippi estimated that only 0.8 percent of Mississippians lacked an ID. In fact, even that may have been an overestimate since the state had to issue only about 1,000 voter ID cards. All those who forgot their ID on Tuesday also could vote by an affidavit as long as they returned and showed an ID within five days.
Ballotpedia has a state-by-state guide to Voter I.D. laws, many of which are under judicial attack as disenfranchising minorities.
Perhaps the Mississippi experience will be Exhibit A in the next court challenge to Voter I.D. laws.
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