library. we'll leave it to bring us a live from the national press club where the newsmaker committee is hosting this event. speakers include washington legislative office. the civil justice. currently 31 states have voter i.d. laws with eight states currently enacting or toughening their laws last year. >> good morning everybody. welcome to the national press club. we are a global body of more than 3,000 members. if you're not familiar, much familiar, please do visit our website press.org and become a member. if you are in d.c., you have amazing benefits. and with that i'll shift to the

subject today and that's the new voter i.d. laws which are coming up in all the states one by one. and we have to two major experts here. we have laura murphy, director of the washington legislative office of the american civil liberties union and we have hand von scape. i hope i pronounced it right who doesn't need much introduction because he's now with the heritage foundation but has been in the field for quite some time. without waeflting much time on my blah, blah, i will ask him to

introduce his opening remarks. >> that's not that tough of a name for somebody born and raised in alabama. i know it's a little unusual. laura and i are here today opposing each other on voter id although we're not always on opposite sides. in fact, we were in the same side in the citizens united decision where i filed a brief along with other commissioners and the aclu filed a brief on the same side. on voter i.d., i think the aclu is wrong and let me tell you why. one of the key principles of any fair election is making sure the person who casts a vote is legally eligible to do so. and the fairest way to do that is by making sure that individuals auth end kate their citizenship when they register to vote and authenticate their identity when they appear at the

polling place to vote. those kind of requirements also increase public confidence in our election process. lincoln chafee who is an independent governor of rhode island when he signed rhode island's new voter i.d. law sponsored by democratic legislatures and passed in a state where the democrats control the state four to one in the state legislature said requiring i.d. of the polling place is a reasonable request to ensure the accuracy and integrity of our elections. now, unlike what opponents say, which is that, well, this only can prevent impersonation fraud and that, well, sometimes they'll admit it. they'll say it rarely happens. others like "the new york times" say it doesn't happen. that's incorrect. it can also prevent people from voting on fictitious voter registration names or voting in the names of other individuals like people who are dead and we know because of a pew study last week there's almost two million

people deceased still on voteer registration roles. it can prevent double voting by people registered in more than one state. i can give you a good example of that and how i was deterred by a voter id law. frankly, it can prevent illegal aliens from registering and voting. there are examples of that that have occurred around the country. when justice john paul stevens, not exactly a conservative justice, in fact, one of the liberal stallworths of the court, wrote the majority opinion that upheld indiana's photo id law he made the point that examples of such fraud have been documented throughout this nation's history by respected historians and journalists, not only is the risk of voter fraud real, but could affect the outcome of a close election. now, the idea that this will prevent individuals from voting, the claim is it is intended to suppress the vote, has been

disproven in the courtroom and disproven in the polling place. the aclu filed a lawsuit against the state of georgia back in 2005 when georgia passed its photo i.d. law. there was two years of litigation. the exact same claims being made today by the aclu and others that there are literally hundreds of thousands of people who will be unavailable to vote because they don't have a photo id and won't be able to obtain the free photo id that every state has provided as part of their law, it turned out and the reason their lawsuit was dismissed by the federal judge was because -- i don't want to give you a lot of quotes. this quote is worth giving to you. this is from the georgia federal district court that dismissed the acl's lawsuit. although plaintiffs claim to know of people who claim they lack photo id, plaintiffs have

failed to identify those individuals. the failure to identify those individuals is particularly acute in light of the plaintiff's contention that a large number of georgia voters lack acceptable photo id. the fact that plaintiffs, in spite of their efforts, have failed to uncover anyone who can attest to the fact that she or she will be prevented from voting, provides significant support of conclusion that the photo id requirement does not unduly burden the right to vote. the fact is you can find almost the exact same quote from the federal dikt court judge in the indiana case because a lawsuit was also filed against indiana's photo id law. there when the case was dismissed, the judge said despite apocalyptic assertions of voter disenfranchisement, plaintiffs produced not a single piece of evidence of any identified registered voter who would be prevented from voting. now what happened in the polling

places in indiana and georgia since these laws went into effect? they've been in effect now for five or six years in each state we've had two federal elections. we've had numerous local elections, and contrary to the assertions this would depress the turnout, particularly of minority voters, the exact opposite happened. in 2008 when turnout went up generally across the country, we had one of the highest turnouts in a presidential election in decades, the turnout of democratic voters increased by over six percentage points over 2004 when there was no photo id law in effect in georgia. in fact, they had the largest turnout in any election in georgia in history, and that was the fifth largest increase in voter turnout of any state in the country including many states that don't have photo id. the same thing happened in indiana.

they had an increase in democratic turnout of over eight percentage points. that was the largest increase of any state in the country. for those who say, well, 2008 was a special election, that doesn't work. if you look at turnout in the 2010 election, you also had a big increase in the turnout, for example, of african-american voters. it went up by seven percentage points from 2006, the last mid-term congressional election when there was no photo id law in effect. in fact, in indiana in 2010, the black share of the vote in the mirm election was larger than the black share of the vote in the 2008 presidential election. much is made of this that there isn't voter fraud.

there have been cases prosecuted for problems and election crimes. there's a case going on right now no troy, new york, where at least 46 voters have testified that they did not vote in the election and yet ballots were cast in their name. now, that case involves absentee ballot fraud. in fact, photo id, combined with changes in absentee ballot laws can help reduce that kind of fraud, also. in october arthur davis, former congressman from alabama, former member of the black congressional caucus, wrote a commentary in the montgomery advertiser newspaper. he said i've changed my idea on foeter id laws. i think alabama had the right idea in passing one. when i was a congressman i took the path of least resistance on this subject for an african-american politician without any evidence to back it

up i lapsed into the rhetoric of various partisans an activists. he goes on to say that for those who say there is no voter fraud, he saw it in his elections in alabama. he was approached by vote brokers who for the right amounts of money would manufacture the ballots needed in the polling place or through absentee ballots. in fact, he said some of the worst victims of voter fraud were, in fact, in the african-american community. i certainly saw that in a case that i wrote about of a federal prosecution of the mid 1990s in greene county, alabama where local commissioners and city councilman were stealing votes and winning elections by doing that. the people they were stealing votes from were other democratic challen

challengers, people who wanted to clean up local government. the right to work in the united states is just as fundamental a right as the right to vote. under federal law if you want to get a job, you've got to authenticate your identity and authenticate your citizenship or your work visa to be able to work as a noncitizen. that is no different than what states want to do in the voting context. and i would end with a quote from rhode island democratic state representative john brian who said voting is one of the most important rights and duties we have as americans, and it should be treated accordingly. i certainly agree with that. thanks. >> hi, my name is laura murphy director of the aclu washington legislative office. well, you know i couldn't disagree with what hans has said. first, i need to point out his statistics on the state of georgia and indiana are very

flawed. and several election law scholars around the country in the nonpartisan brennan center have debunked his assertion that there is no relationship between the photo id laws in georgia and the electoral turnout that increased in the 2008 elections. the methodology he's used has been analyzed, and it shows that it doesn't control for certain other factors. for example, there has been a huge migration of african-americans to the south that was documented in a "washington post" series. and so there isn't -- he wants to say that voter id hasn't caused a lower turnout. we don't know the relationship to the top of the ticket in 2008, and we don't know whether

or not turnout would, in fact, have been greater in 2008 but for voter photo id requirements. i just want to get back to some of the fundamentals. the supreme court has described the right to vote as the right that is preservative of all rights. hans talks about the right to work. but the voting is a much more cherished right and a much more upheld right in our constitution than any other right. it is protected by the first, the 14th, the 15th, the 19th and the 24th and the 26th amendments to the constitution. unfortunately there's a tragic history of american political parties using the electorate for partisan advantage. after the 15th amendment was passed in 1870, newly freed slaves were allowed to vote and able to elect several african-american republicans to the house and the senate. the democratic party at that

time became enraged and energized itself to alleged fraud by black voters. so then barriers like poll taxes and literacy tests were erected to virk vent the 14th and 15th amendment and there was a resistance to fundamental constitutional rights that ushered in nearly a century of jim crow laws. those laws were not addressed again until 1965 with the passage of the voting rights act. the people had to be beaten, fire hosed, bitten by police dogs and sometimes killed in order to win the right to vote. so finally lyndon johnson and others said that we need sterner and more elaborate measures. that's how the voting rights act of 1965 came about. now we'll fast forward to this era. hans was quick to point out that some democrats supported photo

id legislation. the vast majority of state legislatures that are enacting photo id laws and other barriers to voting are republican controlled legislators who may fear that low-income people, students, the elderly, the disabled and racial minorities are taking aim at their political power. so as to -- so to regain or strengthen electoral advantage, largely republicans and in some small cases democrats are foisting upon us the largely baseless and abstract allegations of voter fraud as the rationale for a whole series of voter suppression laws. in the 2011 legislative session, regressive and burdensome measures were introduced in more than 30 states with 16 states advancing new or expanded barriers to voting. the most common barrier was the

voter id law. the others include requiring proof of citizenship when registering to vote, shortening the time allowed for early voting, eliminating same-day voter registration, making it more difficult for third party organizations like the league of women voters to conduct voter registration and rolling back criminal enfranchisement laws. while these tactics are different, the impact is the same. which is to push more people out of the electorate by making it more and more difficult to vote. so with respect to voteer id in particular, 31 states have laws requiring voters to present some form of identification to vote in federal, state and local elections. some laws or ballot initiatives passed in 2011 have not yet gone into effect. some also must be pre cleared by the justice department under section five of the voting rights act. in 16 of those 31 states, voters

must or will soon be required to present a photo id that in many states must be government issued in order to cast a ballot. voter id laws deny the right to thousands of citizen voters who do not have or cannot obtain the limited forms of identification that states accept for voting. many of these americans cannot afford to pay for the required documents needed to secure a government issued photo id. so while in some states, the photo id is provided free of charge, the supporting documents, the birth certificates, the marriage certificates, the passports can add up to significant costs especially for low income people. more than 21 million americans of voting age lack documentation that would satisfy these photo id laws. these americans are disproportionately low income, racial and ethnic minorities, the elderly and disabled voters.

to put this in perspective, as many as 25% of african-americans of voting age lack a government-issued photo id compared to only 8% of their white counterparts, and nearly one in five americans are over the age of 65 do not have a government-issued photo id. in texas, for instance, the pending new photo id law permits an individual to show a license to carry a concealed firearm but will not accept a college student's id as sufficient to cast a ballot. furthermore, no eligible citizen should have to pay to vote. the aclu believes that requiring voters to obtain a government-issued photo id in order to vote is tantamount to a pole tax. although some states issue ids for free, the supporting

documents, birth certificates, passports and other things i said earlier required to obtain a government-issue id costs money. many americans simply cannot afford to pay for them. more over, states incur sizable costs, millions of dollars when providing ids to voters who do not have them. given the financial strain many states already are experiencing, this is truly an unnecessary allocation of taxpayer dollars. also, what about the additional time and resources it will take to check ids at the polling places. aren't the lines already long enough? and people say, okay f you don't have a photo id, what should you do? well, states should allow people to sign an affidavit attesting to their citizenship and identity and face prosecution for perjury or other criminal offenses if they turn out not to

be who they say they are. stopping voter fraud is the positive rationale for these laws. in fact, there is no credible evidence that in-person voter fraud, the only type of fraud that photo ids could prevent is even a minor problem. in part, this is because in-person fraud by individual voters is such an ineffective way to influence an election. at most it yields one additional vote. and with federal and state criminal penalties for election fraud in all 50 states, there are severe and effective mechanisms for deterring and prosecuting the rare cases of actual individual voter fraud. there is much more evidence, however, that citizens are disenfranchised by these measures than there is evidence of individual voter fraud. these anti-fraud laws are the real threat to our constitutional rights. our nation should be expanding the franchise.

we should end practices which actually threaten the integrity of elections such as improper purges of voters, voter harassment and the distribution of false information about when and where to vote. none of these issues, however, are addressed or can be resolved with the photo id requirement. by raising the unsubstantiated specter of voter fraud, proponents of these measures are imbuing the lech torlt and election process with unjustified fear. that is the true harm being perpetrated on the american peop people. the widespread voter suppression measures through ballot initiatives is nothing short of a crass power grab by certain groups of lawmakers and interest groups to stop people from voting against those in power and the ideas they support. the effect of these new laws is broader than diminishing the

power of african-americans and other racial minority groups, even though racial minority groups will be affected disproportionately. these laws burden constitutional rights of many other groups. for example, local registrars in college town haves often pressured students not to vote and young people don't have the resources to fight back. there are citizens in rural areas who cannot get an id because they do not own a car to get to the dmv and public transportation is not accessi e accessible. people who cannot afford to leave their hourly wage jobs to get to the appropriate state offices during normal business hours. for those with disabilities voting is already challenging and these laws interfere with their constitutional rights as well. should these issues interfere with such a fundamental right of sit zin ship? these state photo id bills have been keeping the three prongs of the aclu's work in full tilt,

the aclu lobbies, voting laws and state legislatures that we find suppress sive, we educate our members and others. we've done briefings and provided testimony on capitol hill. we're also challenging the laws in court. for example, in wisconsin, the national aclu and its affiliate and the national law center on homelessness and poverty filed a federal lu suit charging that wisconsin's voter id law is unconstitutional. we're challenging the law under the 14th and the 24th amendments on behalf of 17 eligible voters who may not be able to vote under the law. they include ruth l. frank, 84, who has been an elected official on her village board since 1996. she cannot produce her birth certificate to get the state-required photo id because she was born at home in 1927.

it also includes carl ellis, 52, who is an army veteran whose veteran's id card is not acceptable in wisconsin. it also includes anthony sharp who is 19 who is a young african-american man who does not have his birth certificate and cannot afford the $20 to get a certified copy of his birth certificate. i look forward to your questions. but i want to end by saying that our country has come a long way since the passage of the voting rights act. and voter id requirements are a major step backwards in our on going quest for a more democratic society. elected officials should be seeking ways to encourage more voters, not inventing excuses to deny voters the ability to cast their ballots. right now there's the looming

possibility that many voters will be denied their most fundamental and most ultimate expression of and participation in democracy that's voting. i look forward to your questions and i look forward to a vigorous debate with hans. thank you. >> thank you very much. that was quite a bit of information, and i would like to add now that when you ask a question, please state your name, organization and please do not start a political discourse. just keep your question to the point. is there a first question? >> pam fesler with npr. i have one question for each of

you. first, laura. if so many people don't have id, we do keep hearing of cases and elections where it does not seem to be a problem. we just had the wisconsin primary this week by all reports, by all accounts. there were few, if any problems with the new id requirement. that's my question for you. and hans, if somebody -- the cases that we have seen of voter fraud often have been very organized. they're often by either one party or another or by election officials. if somebody is intent on committing voting fraud, why don't they just use fake id? we have fake id all around this country. these election officials aren't going to be able to determine what is or isn't fake id. my question to you is how is id really going the -- that requirement going to stop those efforts? >> the wisconsin vote only

demonstrated those people who were able to get photo ids and come out and vote. it didn't demonstrate the people who did not have the resources to purchase a photo id or the resources to get one. so i don't think that you can judge the outcome of the effect of the wisconsin photo id law unless you look at the cases and the individuals that we're bringing forward and see the barriers that were erected in their participation in that election. >> just a quick comment on that. look, the same claims have been made now for five, six years, and in every election of states that have photo id, none of these claims have materialized. on your question, no one says photo id is a perfect solution to this kind of security problem. i'm actually an election official, county elect official in virginia. i can tell you there's a whole

series of steps you have to take to provide security in the election process. yes, if somebody gets a fake id, then perhaps they'll be able to vote. but that makes it much tougher to do that. and a great example of this is in new york city, brooklyn, kings county, mid 1980s, a state grand jury report was released there. and the state grand jury report detailed a 14-year long organized foeter fraud conspiracy that cast thousands of fraudulent votes in democratic primaries. one of the ways they did it was they had crews of people who went from polling place to polling place voting in the names of people who were dead but still on the list, voting in the names of individuals who had moved out of the jurisdiction who were still on the list. yeah. they could have perhaps gotten fake ids for lots of people to stop doing that, but that would have been much tougher for them

to do. it's not a perfect solution. but there's no security that perfect in anything you do, including in the voting process. >> i just want to add one thing about evidence where we have -- we do have how -- that id laws have interfered with voting. three years after indiana passed its 2005 voter id law, about 1,000 people showed up at the polls without identification, and most of their ballots were not counted. that's not a huge number compared to the 2.8 million indiana voters who voted in that election. but it also doesn't include an unknown number of people who did not vote, knowing they lacked id. the guess the question is what is our default position? our default position should be that if you're 18, that if you're a u.s. citizen, you should be allowed to vote. we do have a problem in t