This week in the War on Voting: Reassessments and recriminations

Voter-ID impact on election not so big this time around

Strict voter-ID laws spurred massive opposition this year as GOP-dominated legislatures sought to prevent fraudulent voting that foes said happens so rarely that it's not even a statistical blip. What the initiators of these laws were actually trying to do was suppress the votes of people who are more likely to cast ballots supporting Democrats: minorities, low-income people, young people. But the courts, state and federal, sometimes with the Voting Rights Act of 1965 as a backstop, blocked most of the laws from going into effect, at least for the 2012 elections.

The fear among citizen advocates was that even though the laws weren't in effect, some voters would stay home out of confusion over whether they needed a photo ID and whether some poll workers would ask for IDs despite court rulings. We'll never know how many people may have stayed home because they were fearful, confused or poorly informed about the laws. We do know that some poll workers asked for ID even though they weren't supposed to, but that the instances of this occurring were apparently not frequent.

Suevon Lee at the Pulitzer-winning investigative website ProPublica reported:

Experts agree that much-assailed voter ID laws were less an issue in this election than limited early voting hours, lengthy ballots and precincts shuttered after Hurricane Sandy. These issues contributed to long wait times, prompting some to simply throw up their hands and give up on voting.

'Of all the issues relating to voting rules, voter ID got the most attention but was probably the least significant, mainly because we didn't have it in Pennsylvania,' said Rick Hasen, a professor at the University of California-Irvine who specializes in election law.

In Pennsylvania, where some feared the state's continuing efforts to advertise the new law would confuse voters, election officials were required to ask voters for ID , but were not allowed to prevent anyone from casting a ballot for failure to produce one.

'On November 6, it was a dry run just as it was in the (April 24) primary,' said Ellen Kaplan, vice president and policy director at the Committee of Seventy, a non-partisan voter education group in Philadelphia. 'We don't know how many people might have been confused and didn't show up. Among the people that did show up, there was certainly some confusion out there. But I wouldn't characterize it as so overwhelming that it disrupted the voting process.'

There were anecdotal reports that voter suppression, including efforts to impose those strict ID laws, actually spurred black and Latino voters to turn out more than they would have otherwise. But ProPublica found evidence of this to be "spotty," at best. For instance, in Philadelphia, where the population is 57 percent African American and Latino, turnout dropped from 61.6 percent in 2008 to 59.7 percent this year. Barack Obama received some 5,300 fewer votes in the city in 2012 than he did four years ago.

Rep. George Miller proposes plans to speed voting

Democratic Rep. George Miller of California has proposed legislation to speed up voting:

'Americans shouldn't have to wait for hours and hours to cast a ballot ' and the fact that they had to do so in the 2012 election is absolutely unacceptable,' Miller [said]. 'Voting is one of the most fundamental rights in our democracy and we must ensure that that right is protected. What we're proposing here is a very simple solution. We're saying give voters in every state the opportunity to vote early so that they won't be left out on account of a last minute illness, a change in work schedules, or unavoidable emergencies, and make sure that there are enough resources on Election Day so that voters casting their ballots in person are not forced to choose between waiting hours to vote or not voting at all.'

The proposed legislation:

' Requires all states to provide for a minimum of 15 days of early voting in federal elections.
' Requires states to ensure that each voting precinct has sufficient poll workers, voting machines and other resources to ensure that voting lines do not exceed one hour, whether on Election Day or during periods of early voting.
' Requires states to have contingency plans in place to resolve situations in which long lines nevertheless develop.

In the Senate, Democratic Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware introduced legislation to provide Justice Department grants to the states as incentives for upgrading their voting procedures. Democratic Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia signed on as co-sponsor, taking note as he did so the long lines at the polls in his state last week.

'In Prince William County, folks waited for up to three hours. In Chesapeake, Va., folks waited up to four hours. It was remarkable that it was five days after the fact before we even knew the results in Florida,' Warner said on the Senate floor.

No amount of funding was specified.

The Justice Department is also looking into ways to deal with long voting lines.

(Please continue reading about the War on Voting below the fold.)