State Senate will take up new bill on voter ID

"I Voted" stickers sit on a table, Monday, Feb. 24, 2020, at the Cambridge City Hall annex, on the first morning of early voting in Massachusetts. (AP Photo/Elise Amendola)
"I Voted" stickers sit on a table, Monday, Feb. 24, 2020, at the Cambridge City Hall annex, on the first morning of early voting in Massachusetts. (AP Photo/Elise Amendola)

A bill that would tighten Arkansas' voter-identification law by removing a provision allowing voters without IDs to sign their names in order to have their ballot counted will head to the Senate floor, over the objections of lawmakers and community groups that said it would make it harder for certain populations to cast ballots.

House Bill 1112 by Rep. Mark Lowery, R-Maumelle, cleared the Senate Committee on State Agencies and Governmental Affairs, an eight-member panel consisting of seven Republicans and one Democrat, in a voice vote after more than an hour of testimony and discussion Tuesday afternoon.

"The intent of this bill is not to disenfranchise. It is not to suppress. It is to have an absolute standard of verification," Lowery said, noting the importance of people having faith in elections.

Lowery was also a leader of the effort to enact voter ID in Arkansas, a law that the Legislature passed in 2017. Arkansas voters also approved voter ID as an amendment to the Arkansas Constitution in 2018.

In 2017, Lowery said, people from both sides of the political spectrum had persuaded him to add the provision allowing voters without IDs to sign their names. County election officials are required to verify the signature. However, Lowery said, there is no uniform standard for verifying those signatures.

Opponents of the bill, including committee members Sen. Breanne Davis, R-Russellville, and Sen. Clarke Tucker, D-Little Rock, said it would create difficulties for people who are elderly or disabled. Those people may not have a driver's license or may find it difficult to return to their polling place a second time if they initially forgot their identification.

Tucker referred to data showing that about 2,700 votes were cast in Arkansas by that method, and there were no allegations of fraud.

"It threatens election integrity just as much to disenfranchise lawfully registered citizens as it does for someone to fraudfully vote," Tucker said.

The bill has an additional 49 GOP co-sponsors in the House and four in the Senate.

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