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Should residents be required to prove they are U.S. citizens in order to vote?
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A sharply divided US Supreme Court heard arguments Monday in a case examining whether Arizona can require residents to present proof of US citizenship before being allowed to register to vote.
At issue is a measure adopted by statewide ballot in 2004, Proposition 200, that requires applicants for voter registration to present documentation proving their citizenship. Acceptable proof includes a driver’s license, a naturalization ID number, or a photocopy of a birth certificate, passport, or naturalization document.
Critics of the measure say it erects a barrier to potential voters. More specifically, they say the state law clashes with the more limited demands of the federal voter registration law.
The National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) requires only that an applicant to register to vote affirm his or her US citizenship under penalty of perjury. Congress did not require applicants to present documentary proof of citizenship. But Congress also did not explicitly bar states from seeking additional proof of citizenship while registering potential voters, according to Arizona.
Do you think residents should be required to prove they are U.S. citizens in order to vote?
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yes. Maybe it isn’t as big of issue in Iowa but other cities and states it is. No one should be offended if asked for proof of citizenship.
” . . . other cities and states it is.” Your credible source(s) to back up that statement ?
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As far as a drivers license, I’d think that’s questionable proof of citizenship unless the other proofs are required to obtain the license. Sounds like a majority of us would have to provide the equivalent documentation required to obtain a US
” . . . other cities and states it is.” Your credible source(s) to back up that statement ?
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As far as a drivers license, I’d think that’s questionable proof of citizenship unless the other proofs are required to obtain the license. Sounds like a majority of us would have to provide the equivalent documentation required to obtain a US passport (I’d think a valid passport should also be an option (you can enter the country with one)). Are the majority in favor of having to present such proof before voting ?
By the way, can anyone describe just what is accomplished by insuring everyone voting is a citizen — what difference is it likely to make ?
no, it is just the republican way to try to control the vote so as to better their odds of winning. if they can keep the poor and miniority people from voting, they have a better chance at winning. It is like redistricting, they have to arrange funny boundaries to insure their winning. they can never win the poor or minorities vote on the issues.
Yup, if the poor and minority people were voting Republican you wouldn’t hear a peep out of Republicans in proposing stricter voter identification requirements.
Of course we should provde proof of citizenship if asked! Voting is a right reserved for citizens only. An Iowa driver’s license/ID card are now part of the federal ID system that is being instituted by Homeland Security. I see non-citizens every week, so Iowa has a problem along with the rest of the country. I suggest that the Gazette confirm the driver’s license comment. It’s effective starting January of this year.
It is a requirement that voters are citizens. No other transaction I can think of works only on affirmation. The people are within their constitutional powers to require proof that a voter meets all legal requirments.
Williamson,
No other transaction works only on affirmation? How about testifying in court or taking an oath of office. If I had all day I’m sure I could come up with some other examples
When you say “the people” are you talking about the abstract concept “the People” or are you talking about individual persons. There is a difference you know.
And where in the Constitution does it say that individual persons or the People have the Constitutionally granted power to require proof of eligibility to vote?
What the Constitution says, Article I, Section 4, clause 1, is that “The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations . . .”
Seems pretty clear the such power resides in elected representatives (aka the People) and not in individual persons (aka people).
The Constitution itself does not require voters to be citizens. It does, however, require office holders to be citizens. The citizenship requirement is in the 14th Amendment but only applies to federal elections.
Federal law trumps state law. Arizona’s law violates federal law which requires only affirmation on penalty of perjury.
Given that the number of ineligible voters in any given state is less than .01%, the current system of affirmation seems to be working just fine.
Ms Bell I dont know why you insist on busting my chops and exposing your ignorance and inability to comprehend simple words
swearing an oath of office and the promise to not lie in legal proceedings are the only options, and are not analogous to affirmation, in place of providing proof.
The people as represented by those they elect. Its the way a representative republic works. That this is somehow something you dont grasp speaks volumes.
The people (yes through their elected representatives,geesh) are within their constitutional rights, both state and federal, to require voters be citizens.
Arizona? What ever.
The number of ineligible voters has no bearing.
Your sense of whether something is working or not is also irrelevent, and by example very inaccurate. You declared the 2cnd amendment is not working, but dont know what it is supposed to do.
Williamson,
I am very sorry that you think that people who disagree with you are busting your chops.
However
1) when taking an oath of office, one can swear or affirm. When testifying in court, one can swear or affirm. Affirming is not analogous to swearing. It is, for all practical purposes, the same thing.
2) people indeed are represented by those they elect. I never said they weren’t.
3) number of ineligiible voters is irrelevant? You mean laws don’t have to be based in reality? I thought conservatives didn’t like unnecessary and needless laws and restrictions and laws for the sake of laws
4) the issue is constitutionally granted powers. The Constitution limits the right to vote to citizens in the 14th Amendment but only in federal elections. Minor v Happersett (1874) ruled that state and local governments can extend voting rights to non-citizens in state and local elections if they wish and, in fact as of 1900 half the states and territories did so. By 1928, none did.. However, non-citizens in the State of Maryland (depending on the district) and the City of New York (up until 2003) can vote in school board elections.
You insist on a literal reading of the Constitution and I’m going to hold you to that.The Constitution grants states the power to set times, places and manner of holding elections. (Article I section 4) It says nothing about determining qualifications to vote.
Now if you want to go state constitution by state constitution, that’s your choice.
As for the right or power of individuals to challenge the right of other individuals to vote, that’s not constitutionally garanteed. In fact, if the challenger is found to be intimidating voters or disrupting elections, that’s illegal. It’s a felony
As for the 2nd Amendment not working, i suppose you take as evidence of it working to insure domestic tranquility and so on and so forth the fact that Adam Lanza was able to get his hands on just about any firearm he chose.
” Affirming is not analogous to swearing. It is, for all practical purposes, the same thing”
Huh?
Analagous, .Synonyms
1. similar, alike, like, comparable, akin.
“And where in the Constitution does it say that individual persons or the People have the Constitutionally granted power to require proof of eligibility to vote?”
I never said individuals. That would you be your reading comprehension problem. And to repeat the people (by their Elected representatives, geesh) The people are within their constitutional powers to require proof that a voter meets all legal requirments. you are so distracted by the chip on your shoulder you have never presented anything that disproves my ‘simple’ original post
You keep repeating the same figures about the small percentage of effected people. that means nothing. The percentage of homosexuals that want to get married is just as insignificant, as compared to the total population of those eligible to be married. SO?
“4) the issue is constitutionally granted powers”
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
I wonder how the word ‘people’ is meant to be defined????
Of course this is from the Bill of Rights, and you declare some of those amendments as too old, or something. no longer considered.
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people
Theres that word ‘people’ again hmm what does it mean???
yes I know the 2cnd, 9th, and 10th, have been deleted by judicial fiat……..according to you.
Yes a very hard time understanding simple words.
Oh, I almost forgot!
March 20, 2013
“The Constitution itself does not require voters to be citizens.”
March 21, 2013
“The Constitution limits the right to vote to citizens in the 14th Amendment”
You accuse “busting your chops” and then you immediately say ” . . . . exposing your ignorance and inability to comprehend simple words.” That clearly is an Ad hominem attack. Furthermore, from my observations Ms. Bell does not display much ignorance nor the inability to comprehend “complex words” let alone simple, whether you agree with her analysis or not.
Smith,
Thank you
Same could be said about the Democrats needing the poor and minorities votes to win. But I won’t. Why can’t the poor and minorities get proof of citizenship? SS card, DL, or everyone has a birth certificate if they wee born here.
Hogan
I used to work for the Salvation Army. I once had to help a homeless man whose wallet, with all his ID papers, had been stolen. You would not believe how difficult it was to replace this man’s papers. And a birth certificate was only the first hurdle. He was born in California but he couldn’t remember which county. And the cost of getting his birth certificate, assuming we had the right county, was, if memory serves, $50. Which he didn’t have and the Salvation Army wasn’t willing to pay. So it turned into a search for a local non-profit that would pay if they still had funds in their petty cash for the poor box. And it went downhill from there.
And not everyone born in this country has a birth certificate. My mother (born 1919) didn’t have a birth certificate. When she had to get one in order to get an Illinois teaching certificate in 1962, she had to cobble together a duplicate based on baptism records and a newspaper notice in the town where she was born. Lucky for her, those records were still there.
This process isn’t as easy as you think
As for your examples, Social Security cards are not identification cards. It’s printed right on them. The number may be attached to all kinds of records but you can’t use the card to prove who you are. And driver’s licenses may be valid as ID but they are not proof of citizenship.
And besides that, not everybody has a driver’s license. Which, by the way, you don’t have to be a citizen to get And also, the same applies to Social Security cards. Betcha didn’t know that one, didja.
How, exactly, does one prove citizenship? What kind of paper trail would a person seeking to register to vote have to provide? And how do we know the paper trail is valid?
Check out “The Hunt for Noncitizens” Stanford Law Review Oct 31, 2012.
Two examples provided were Florida and Colorado:
“In September, Florida announced that it had identified 207 noncitizens registered to vote (.0018% of the electorate of nearly 11.5 million registered voters); Colorado identified 141 noncitizens (.004% of the electorate of about 3.5 million registered voters).”
There were two states with high immigrant populations that did an intense search and this is all they found.
Most non-citizens who register to vote do so in error. They are filling out paperwork at, for example, a DOT office and inadvertently fill out a voter registration card mistakenly thinking it’s just another form they have to check off and sign. It happens.
The penalities for non-citizens registering to vote are so steep that a non-citizen would have to be nuts to do it on purpose.
So what is the purpose here? There just aren’t enough non-citizens attempting to vote to threaten any election. Or is it just more Republican hysteria
On a side note, while non-citizens have always been barred from voting in federal elections, such has not alway been the case for state and local. Check out this one–”Right of foreigners to vote” Wikipedia.Minor v Happersett (1874) the Supreme Court ruled that non-citizens were not necessarily barred from voting in state and local elections. In 1900 half the states allowed non-citizens to vote. By 1928, no state allowed this. Alabama was the last state to ban non-citizen voting.
The world didn’t end. Our democracy wasn’t destroyed. My Aunt Elsie who came to the United States as a small child, participated in every election for nearly thirty years before she decided she actually wanted to vote in one and took out citizenship papers. Was anybody hurt by this? No. Was any election compromised? No. Would the world have come to an end if she had decided to vote as a non-citizen (which she didn’t)? Highly unlikely
So what’s the deal?.
Papers Please? Could this be the Republicans pushing that neo-nazi agenda again?
There was a time when a social security number was enough to prove you were a US citizen who could vote. But the laws have changed, and a social security number is the province of the Social Security Administration.
If you look at voter registration forms in Iowa, it requires the last four digits of your SS# and your driver’s license number. Anyone seeking a driver’s license after having recently moved to Iowa from another state, knows that you need to bring along your birth certificate or other proof of US Citizenship. I have a high confidence that these voter registrations are checked against lists provided by the driver’s license bureau and that non-citizens are weeded out in that manner. So in a sense, the Arizona law is already active here in Iowa, you just don’t see the workings at the polls.
Williams,
The voter registration form is on-line courtesy of the Office of the Secretary of State.
It says “You are required by law to provide your current and valid Iowa driver’s license or Iowa non-operator ID number. If you do not have an Iowa driver’s license/non-operator ID, provide the last 4 digits of your Social Security number.
Check this box only if you DO NOT have a current Iowa license/ID or a Social Security number.”
Which means a driver’s license/non-operator ID and/or Social Security number is not required in order to register to vote. These identifying numbers are required only so county auditors can make sure they’ve got the right John Smith. If you don’t have either document, the Auditor will figure out another way to cross check your registration
I also checked Iowa DOT web site for the documentation needed to get a driver’s license. And guess what. You don’t need a birth certificate. And guess what. You don’t need to be a citizen either And guess what. You don’t need to be a citizen to get a Social Security number.
The Arizona law is not active here in Iowa. Arizona requires proof of citizenship. Iowa takes your word for it on a trust but verify basis. There’s a world of difference between how we do it and how Arizona wants to do it
Try fact checking before you post. It doesn’t take that much time
The following link to the Iowa DOT appears to contradict your “You don’t need . . . ” statements. (The requirements shown are for new license 18 and over.) Am I missing something ?
http://www.iowadot.gov/mvd/realid/success_2.html?age=I%27m+18+or+older&submit=Next
Smith,
What you are missing is that the driver’s license you’re referring to is the RealID which will be phased in starting in 2014. You may continue to use your current not Real license until it expires or you can rush down to DOT and get a Real one now. The only significant difference is that you will need a birth certificate and documentation of name changes, if any.
Driver’s licenses still won’t be able to be used to prove citizenship because you won’t have to be a citizen to get one. And if memory serves, efforts to stamp citizenship and residency status on driver’s licenses was brought up and rejected some time ago
And there is no indication on the Secretary of State or DOT sites that the RealID is going to have any effect on voting.
Asking people to provide documents proving anything when they register to vote is a violation of the National Voter Registration Act of 1993. (upheld Wesley v Cox 2004) People who register are only required to affirm that the information they give is accurate. That information is then used to verify the registration. Most of the verifying is done by cross checking DOT records, but other methods can be and are used.
The number of non-citizens actually registering to vote is less than .001% of total registrations. So it would seem that the current system works pretty well.
If I search “Iowa driver license requirements” and look for requirements for obtaining a new ( NEW as in “first time” ) Iowa drivers license and select over 18 and new license the link is what I get. If I then click on “Real ID Home” it states the DOT will begin issuing on Jan 15 2013. I find no “non-real ID” option. That’s the only issue I had with your post I was responding to.
Smith,
The non-real option is the driver’s license you already have in your wallet. You didn’t need a birth certificate to get that one.
If you were born before 1964, you don’t have to worry qbout the RealId until 2017. If you were born after that, the deadline is 2014.
If you want a RealID now, you can go to DOT and get one but you don’t have to.