Bill Clinton Compares Voter ID Laws to Jim Crow

Former President Bill Clinton compared efforts to limit voter ID laws and block some convicted felons from voting to the Jim Crow laws and poll taxes.

"I can't help thinking since we just celebrated the Fourth of July and we're supposed to be a country dedicated to liberty that one of the most pervasive political movements going on outside Washington today is the disciplined, passionate, determined effort of Republican governors and legislators to keep most of you from voting next time," he said at a conference in Washington on Wednesday.

The former President specifically mentioned Florida Gov. Rick Scott's move to overturn the state's longstanding reenfranchisement rules, which allow convicted felons vote after their probations have ended. "Why should we disenfranchise people forever once they've paid their price?" Clinton said. "Because most of them in Florida were African Americans and Hispanics who tended to vote for Democrats. That's why."

Florida isn't the only state making it harder for its residents to vote. As VC noted last week at PostBourgie, Kansas, Wisconsin, Tennessee, Georgia, South Carolina, Indiana, and Texas all boast strict photo ID laws, and the Pennsylvania House recently backed a photo ID bill. But she notes that voter fraud almost never happens.

"Oddly enough, requiring a photo ID to cast a vote would only be effective in preventing individuals from impersonating other voters at the polls–an occurrence that is, according to a study released by the Brennan Center, more rare than getting struck by lightning," she writes. "From the Bush administration's five-year national 'war on voter fraud,' there were only 86 convictions of illegal voting out of more than 196 million votes cast. Of those 86 convictions, only 26 were attributable to individual voters, and most of those were misunderstandings about eligibility. What is more, connection to voter fraud in a federal election carries grave punishments, including a $10,000 fine and five years in prison, in addition to any state penalties. This is a risk that very few people are willing to take, particularly for the result of one incremental vote."

"Under the guise of protecting elections, the integral democratic right to vote is being transformed into a privilege and a prize," she added.

During the Jim Crow era, many states required black people attempting to vote to "prove" that they were eligible to vote by making them pay onerous taxes in order to vote, or to take "literacy tests" that required would-be black voters to cite obscure legal statutes. While black people were technically allowed to vote, the inability to meet the murky, impossible requirements needed to cast their ballots effectively disenfranchised most blacks in the South.

The requirement of state ID's to vote would have a similar effect: shutting out poor people who can't afford them or young people who don't have permanent addresses.

But Chris Jankowski, who heads the Republican State Leadership Committee, took issue with Clinton's characterization of the push for voter ID laws. "The Republican legislative majorities and their governors around the country are standing up for the integrity of the election process," he told Politico. "We support everyone who is entitled to vote to vote. And to take issue with that, to be opposed to that principle means you're actually supporting illegal voting."