Erik Guterman

Laws requiring voters to present identification, photo or otherwise, have been plagued with controversy ever since they began to be enacted following the Supreme Court’s 2008 ruling in Crawford v. Marion County allowed individual states to enact such laws. One argument used by opponents against these laws is their potential to disenfranchise voters who cannot afford photo identification, a significant civil rights concern due to higher rates of poverty amongst minorities in the United States. In spite of the intuitive theoretical background to support this argument, however, previous research has found mixed results due in large part to the difficulties inherent to surveying those who have “fallen through the cracks”. Using data from voter registration files to provide a much broader understanding than a survey could provide, I found evidence to suggest that voter identification laws indeed have an effect on the rates of voter turnout, but inconclusive evidence to suggest a specific racial bias in that effect.