Should proof of citizenship be required for voter registration? Two views

Yes: Legal residents feel no hardship, get protection from fraud

By KAREN HANDEL

Last week, the Legislature passed common sense legislation requiring voter registration applicants to provide proof of their United States citizenship. The positive effect of this legislation will be twofold. First, this law will protect the security and integrity of Georgia’s elections by preventing non-citizens from registering to vote and casting a ballot. Second, it will streamline the process by requiring proof of citizenship at the time of registration.

The majority of Georgians I speak with support this legislation, and some are even surprised that requiring proof of citizenship when applying to register is not already the law.

Opponents of this law concede that only citizens should be able to vote in our elections, but they think an individual’s signature on a voter registration card is enough of a deterrent to prevent fraud. Unfortunately, that is simply not the case.

The reality is that my office knows conclusively that non-citizens have registered to vote and cast ballots in previous elections in Georgia. We’ve identified more than 2,700 individuals who attempted to register to vote after previously telling the state they were not a U.S. citizen. Each of these 2,700 individuals was sent personalized letters requesting information to verify their status. Many of those letters were returned undeliverable. The others went unanswered. But, what is clear is that without a verification process many, if not all, of these could have cast fraudulent votes. In addition, the State Election Board fined a county commissioner $80,000 for attempting to fraudulently register illegal aliens in his district in an attempt to influence an election in 2006.

There are additional examples of potential fraud that are currently under investigation by my office. My office even received a letter from a legal resident alien stating that she had been actively voting for years. In spite of this evidence, opponents of this legislation cling to the same arguments used during the debate over Georgia’s photo ID law, but the lessons from the photo ID controversy are especially useful here.

In spite of the lawsuits, name-calling and rhetoric, not a single person has come forward claiming that they could not vote because of the photo ID law. In fact, turnout has increased in elections since voters have been required to show a photo ID. Requiring proof of citizenship should have little to no impact on those who legally want to participate in our elections.

Our office has implemented and successfully defended numerous initiatives to protect Georgia’s elections at each step of the registration and voting process. These initiatives include the state’s system to verify the information provided on a voter registration application; the voter identification requirement for in-person voting; and the triple signature check requirement on absentee ballots. While we’ve taken these steps to combat fraud, we’ve increased citizens’ opportunities to vote through expanded early voting periods, no-excuse early voting ballots and more early voting locations.

It is because of the sacrifices made by our predecessors in the fight for civil rights that laws like photo ID and citizenship verification are important. The state has the responsibility to ensure that those who gave so much in securing the right to vote do not have their sacrifices made in vain because of fraud.

• Karen Handel is Georgia Secretary of State.

No: Don’t add obstacle to ballot box when proof

By ALAN ABRAMOWITZ

In the name of protecting the state from vote fraud, the Georgia Legislature has just made it harder for law-abiding citizens to register to vote.

Last week both the House and Senate passed a bill that would require Georgians registering to vote for the first time to provide proof of citizenship. For most people this would mean presenting a birth certificate, passport or naturalization papers at the time of registration.

Sounds reasonable, doesn’t it? After all, it’s already illegal for non-citizens to vote. Why not require those registering to vote to provide proof of their citizenship? And the bill has the strong support of Georgia’s chief election official, Secretary of State Karen Handel.

The problem, and it’s a big one, is that this law would make it harder for all citizens, and nearly impossible for some, to register.

Who routinely carries a birth certificates or passport? Anyone who wants to register to vote will have to go out of his or her way to locate one of those documents and bring it along to register.

This law will also make it difficult if not impossible to conduct registration drives in high schools and on college campuses, a time-honored tradition that has added thousands of young people to Georgia’s voter rolls.

But the problems with requiring proof of citizenship go beyond inconvenience.

Many Georgians, especially those who are poor or elderly, don’t have a birth certificate or a passport. And if you don’t have one of these documents, you’re going to have to go out of your way to obtain one.

This can involve considerable time, effort and expense. A passport costs $100. A birth certificate usually costs $10 to $15. And naturalization papers cost $380 to replace if they have been lost or damaged. So requiring proof of citizenship to register would amount to a hidden poll tax.

Despite these concerns, the law might be justified if non-citizen voting were a serious problem. But it isn’t. There is almost no evidence of non-citizens attempting to vote in Georgia elections.

In fact, there have been almost no documented cases of non-citizens voting anywhere in the U.S. This is not surprising, since voting by non-citizens is against the law and any person breaking this law would risk being jailed or deported.

Nevertheless, some Georgia politicians seem eager to use this issue to advance their own careers by exploiting fear of immigrants.

If our Legislature and secretary of state are serious about protecting the integrity of elections in Georgia, they should focus their attention on absentee voting, which almost all experts agree presents a much greater potential for fraud and abuse than non-citizen voting.

Requiring proof of citizenship will do nothing to prevent vote fraud. What it will do is make it more difficult for law-abiding citizens to register.

House Minority Leader Dubose Porter (D-Dublin) was exactly right when he said that “this is targeting average Americans who do not need one more obstacle that keeps them from participating in the political system.”

• Alan Abramowitz is the Alben Barkley Professor of Political Science at Emory University.