The first two Republican candidates to drop out of the 2016 presidential race have at least one thing in common — they both signed restrictive voter ID laws as governor that made it harder for people in their states to vote.
Both Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and former Texas Gov. Rick Perry signed laws in 2011 requiring voters to present a photo ID at the polls. At the time, Texas already required an ID to vote, but Perry’s law made the requirement stricter by requiring a photo ID.
Perry’s photo ID law disenfranchised approximately 600,000 registered Texas voters who do not have one of the limited forms of ID that the law allows, while Walker’s effort means that roughly 300,000 mostly-Latino and African American Wisconsin residents are disenfranchised. A recent study in Wisconsin found that 94 percent of eligible white voters had a valid identification, compared to just 85 percent of registered African Americans.
Texas’ current law allows a handgun permit as acceptable ID, but not a student ID. Wisconsin allows current student IDs, but the restrictions are so convoluted that state employees frequently had difficulty explaining the requirements to poll workers and voters.
Both the Texas and Wisconsin laws were challenged in court. Just weeks before the 2014 midterm, the U.S. Supreme Court ultimately allowed the Texas law to remain in effect. But Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrong a strong dissenting opinion in which she said the court’s action “risks denying the right to vote to hundreds of thousands of eligible voters.” She also wrote that “racial discrimination in elections in Texas is no mere historical artifact.”
This March, the Supreme Court turned down a challenge to Wisconsin’s voter ID law, handing a victory to Walker. The governor then tried to campaign on the issue, sending an email to his supporters announcing the “good news.”
“Our landmark photo ID law is a guard against fraud and protects every single voter who plays by the rules from those who don’t,” Walker wrote in a fundraising email. It’s a fact of life: There are cheaters who vote multiple times and they tarnish democracy’s most precious gift … the security of the ballot box.”
The effort — combined with voters’ lack of interest in his other positions — clearly did not work, and Walker announced Monday night that he was suspending his campaign, just over a week after Perry made the same announcement.
Many of the other Republican candidates have made efforts to restrict voting — former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush purged thousands of voters and signed a law that restricted early voting, while New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie vetoed legislation that would have expanded opportunities for voting. Many of the senators, including Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, have supported voter ID laws and federal legislation requiring “proof of citizenship” before a person casts a ballot.
Seventeen states currently have voter ID laws, and the number could increase before the 2016 election — the first presidential election since the U.S. Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act in 2013. Over 30 states have considered voter ID laws, but studies suggest that up to 11 percent of American citizens lack such an ID, according to the American Civil Liberties Union.