Federal Databases Could Be Used To Protect the Voting Rights of the Poor and Elderly
The recent United States Supreme Court decision affirming that election officials can ask for a government photo I.D. at the time of voting has settled one question, but another remains on proving citizenship. A part of this controversy has always been the separation of powers between states and the Federal government. States have always had the duty to certify eligibility within constitutional guidelines, register voters, and carry out elections while the Federal government has the sole authority to grant citizenship which makes citizens eligible to vote.
There are proposals springing up requiring that voter registrants must show birth certificates or other records from the Federal government to prove citizenship in several states. Advocacy groups have claimed that the elderly and the poor will have difficulty obtaining these documents. Further, they say that these new requirements are in fact a form of “poll tax” to restrict voting.
Texas law requires a drivers license or social security number be given if they are available but if there is not then its possible a person could conceivable vote with just a utility bill with their name and address on it. This minimal requirements for documentation would seem to invite rampant fraud but amazingly every investigation for voter fraud in recent times has not revealed it exists to any significant extent.
Most of the poor and elderly will rightfully be receiving government benefits so that they are highly likely to be documented in government databases. Rather than requiring these folks to get the documentation themselves, it would seem easy enough for the Federal government to set up mechanisms of sharing information with local election officials while protecting their privacy. In fact, this would allow pro-active moves to be taken by local election officials to make sure that individuals they discover to be in their community who are eligible to vote are in fact registered. This is the only way to identify problems in the community where special needs groups might be being disenfranchised because it is a separate database not kept by the local government.