Voter IDs' return gets Arkansas panel's OK

An Arkansas Senate committee advanced legislation Tuesday that would require voters to show a photo identification before casting their ballots.

With no audible dissenting votes, the eight-member Senate State Agencies and Governmental Affairs Committee recommended Senate approval of House Bill 1047 by Rep. Mark Lowery, R-Maumelle.

In 2014, the Arkansas Supreme Court struck down a similar law enacted in 2013.

But Lowery said his legislation is aimed at surviving a legal challenge.

Amendment 51 of the Arkansas Constitution sets up the voter registration process "and all you are doing is verifying voter registration through the use of photo ID," he told the Senate committee.

Amendment 51 authorizes lawmakers to amend voter-registration measures if at least two-thirds of both houses of the General Assembly approve the changes. The 100-member House earlier voted to approve the bill 74-21. A two-thirds vote of the 35-member Senate is 24 votes.

"The problem is there is an eroding confidence in the electoral process," Lowery said.

"People just don't turn out to vote in the numbers that we really would hope we would have in a democracy, and many times because there is not a confidence that the electoral process has integrity," he said. "This bill will help significantly with integrity because voters would have to present a photo ID to vote, and this is not something that is out of the mainstream."

Under the original version of his bill, "if you did not have photo ID on the day of the election or early voting, you would cast a provisional ballot and then you would have until the Monday of the following week after the election to produce your photo ID for that ballot to count," Lowery said. "Well, that is a significant burden on the people."

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He said his amended bill would allow a person without photo ID to sign a sworn statement "attesting under the penalty of perjury that you are who you say you are, and the provisional ballot will then be counted upon verification of the signature.

"I think any argument that there is going to be disenfranchising of the voter, we have significantly mitigated and the trade-off is we get a better electoral process that has more integrity, creates more confidence by the voters and hopefully will create more voter turnout," he said.

Barry Haas of Little Rock, who described himself as a longtime poll worker in Pulaski County, warned that the bill has the potential to disenfranchise 240,000 Arkansans.

The legislation's purpose is "to take away the right to vote" from blacks, Hispanics and the elderly, as well as low-income and disabled Arkansans, he said.

Under HB1047, identification that would be accepted includes: driver's licenses, photo identification cards, concealed-handgun carry licenses, U.S. passports, employee badges or identification documents, student identification cards issued by accredited Arkansas colleges and universities, U.S. military identification documents, public-assistance identification cards and free voter-verification cards. The secretary of state's office purchased equipment for each county to provide the free cards after the 2013 voter identification bill became law. Lowery has said there should be no additional cost.

A House subcommittee Tuesday afternoon endorsed four proposed constitutional amendments, including a proposal that would mandate that the Legislature pass laws requiring absentee voters and voters at the polls to provide valid photo IDs in order to cast ballots. It's House Joint Resolution 1016 by Rep. Robin Lundstrum, R-Elm Springs.

A Section on 02/22/2017