DEBATENATE

Topics / America

The challenge

“Voter ID laws are racist”

Nate · AI character. Not a real person.

No. Voter ID is common sense, and most of the country agrees. Gallup found about eight in ten Americans favor photo ID to vote. That's not a fringe. That's a landslide. The Supreme Court upheld Indiana's law in two thousand eight, and the lead opinion came from John Paul Stevens, one of its liberal justices. Then came the big test. In twenty twenty-one a nationwide study in the Quarterly Journal of Economics found strict ID laws had no significant effect on turnout for any racial group. You'll say some citizens don't have an ID. Then make it free, like Indiana did, and help them get one. Let me ask you this. Which is the insult, asking everybody for a card, or assuming minority voters can't manage to get one? Protecting your vote isn't suspicion. It's respect.

Debate him on this

His strongest arguments

  1. The Supreme Court upheld photo ID in an opinion written by one of its liberal justices. A state has a real interest in clean elections and voter confidence.

    In Crawford v. Marion County Election Board in 2008, the Court upheld Indiana's photo ID law six to three, with Justice John Paul Stevens writing the lead opinion and noting Indiana offered free IDs.

  2. If these laws were built to suppress minority voters, the data would show it. A big nationwide study looked and didn't find it.

    Enrico Cantoni and Vincent Pons, in the Quarterly Journal of Economics in 2021, found strict ID laws had no significant negative effect on registration or turnout, overall or for any group defined by race, gender, age or party.

  3. Voter ID is a mainstream policy with huge public support. It isn't a fringe idea from one side.

    Gallup reported in 2022 that roughly eight in ten Americans favor requiring photo identification to vote.

The best comeback, and his answer

Challenger: Some citizens, especially poor, elderly and minority voters, don't have a current photo ID, and every extra hurdle keeps some of them from voting.

Nate: Then make the ID free and easy to get, which is exactly what Indiana did in the law the Supreme Court upheld. You show ID to board a plane or buy certain cold medicine. Get every citizen a card and you protect access and trust in one move.

What he grants the other side

A voter law written with bad intent can and should fall, as a federal appeals court ruled in North Carolina in 2016.

The lines

Sources

  1. Supreme Court of the United States, Crawford v. Marion County Election Board (2008)
  2. Enrico Cantoni and Vincent Pons, Quarterly Journal of Economics, Strict ID Laws Don't Stop Voters: Evidence from a U.S. Nationwide Panel, 2008 to 2018 (2021)
  3. Gallup, Eight in 10 Americans Favor Early Voting, Photo ID Laws (2022)
  4. United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, North Carolina State Conference of the NAACP v. McCrory (2016)

More like this