Why South Carolina’s Voter-ID Law Didn’t Prevent Anyone from Voting

South Carolina held partisan primaries on June 10. At these primaries, the state tested a new type of government photo-ID law, in which anyone without an ID is still permitted to vote if the individual explains why he or she was unable to produce an ID. According to this story, no voter anywhere in the state was turned away from voting.


Comments

Why South Carolina’s Voter-ID Law Didn’t Prevent Anyone from Voting — No Comments

  1. Interesting. But hardly reassuring.

    First, it was a primary and not a general election. I suspect a much larger proportion of those voters who do not participate in primaries would present themselves without one of the “approved” documents than those who do.
    Second, lets see how lenient polling officials would be in a contested election, particularly in a state like PA, where the outcome of a national election has recently been in doubt until very close to the actual election.
    Third, we have to allow for the possibility that those who would like to suppress the vote among likely Democratic voters would love to produce “evidence” like this to support the theory that voter ID laws do not suppress the vote among that group of voters more heavily than among those who are likely to vote Republican. i.e., “psssttt…let them vote this time, guys.”
    Fourth, no one has proved the dubious theory that voter fraud takes place in any significant (i.e., not MINISCULE) numbers (another invitation to you, DEMO REP),

    How many Democratic legislatures have passed voter ID laws? Anyone have that number? Just curious.

  2. Baron –

    I think Rhode Island is the only one.

    As was observed in the article, we don’t know how many people did not bother to try to vote because they knew or feared they would not be able to vote because of lack of “proper” ID.

    Therefore, the assertion that the “law didn’t prevent anyone from voting” has no basis in fact.

  3. Always wise to take a skeptical attitude about the validity/ credibility of any news article originating in the Greenville News.

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