Among Hispanics, strong support for voter ID

by Byron York

Washington Examiner:

A sign concerning today's elections is pictured on a bulletin board in an empty polling place during early voting at the Oklahoma County Board of Elections in Oklahoma City, Monday, Aug 8, 2011. The election for a vacant Senate seat that includes portions of southern Oklahoma County and northern Cleveland County is the first state election since nearly 75 percent of Oklahoma voters approved the voter ID law in November. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)

In recent months, the Obama Justice Department and Democrats on Capitol Hill have mounted a full-scale assault on state voter identification laws. Accusing Republicans of trying to return to the days of Jim Crow, Democrats allege that the laws, many of which require a photo ID for voting, discriminate against blacks and Hispanics. But an extensive new poll of Hispanic voters in the key electoral states of Florida, Colorado, and New Mexico shows strong support for those very photo ID laws.

As part of a broad survey of Hispanic attitudes on a variety of political issues, the poll, conducted for the conservative group Resurgent Republic, asked a sample of 1,200 voters the following question: "As you may have heard, many states are considering laws that would require registered voters to present photo identification, such as a driver's license, in order to cast their vote. Do you support or oppose those laws?"

In Florida, 88 percent of those surveyed said they support the laws, while just ten percent oppose them. In Colorado 71 percent support the law, while 26 percent oppose, and in New Mexico, 73 percent support the law, while 25 percent oppose. In general, Hispanic voters in Colorado and New Mexico are more liberal than those in Florida. But strong majorities in all three states favor photo ID laws.

The overwhelming support for photo ID contrasts sharply with the intense opposition to such laws in the Justice Department, the Democratic party, and the civil rights establishment. In June, Democratic National Committee chairman Debbie Wasserman Schultz called voter ID laws the work of Republicans "who want to literally drag us all the way back to Jim Crow laws and literally -- and very transparently -- block access to the polls to voters who are more likely to vote Democratic."

Also in June, a group of Democratic senators, including Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet, asked the Justice Department to investigate state photo ID laws. "These measures have the potential to block millions of eligible American voters," the Democratic lawmakers wrote. The senators asked the Justice Department to use its authority under the Voting Rights Act to "closely monitor the legislative process" in states that have passed or are considering passing photo ID laws and to "track any unlawful intent" of proponents of the laws. The laws "must be subjected to the highest scrutiny as states justify these new barriers to participation," the senators wrote. Testifying at a Senate hearing on September 13, Justice Department Civil Rights Division chief Thomas Perez said the Department has begun those investigations and is scrutinizing not just the laws themselves but the motives of those who passed them to discover whether "there is a discriminatory purpose that underlies any action in any state."

And now comes word that strong majorities of Hispanic voters, at least in three key states, support those laws. That's unlikely to change anything; given the institutional power behind it, the fight against photo ID laws will undoubtedly continue for years. But the new polls shows that among Hispanic voters at least, Democrats don't have the public on their side.