As he said in his amazing dissent last week "There is only one motivation for imposing burdens on voting that are ostensibly designed to discourage voter-impersonation fraud, if there is no actual danger of such fraud, and that is to discourage voting by persons likely to vote against the party responsible for imposing the burdens." He absolutely destroyed every single Right Wing talking point.

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My guest is long-time investigative journalist and election-watchdog, Brad "BradBlog" Friedman. Welcome back to OpEdNews, Brad. Today we're going to talk about the infamous Photo ID. Can you give us some background on that, please?

BF: As I've been covering it now for more than a decade (unfortunately, long before most Democrats even understood how they were being set up by Republicans for this monumental scam), which background are you looking for? The fact that the GOP has been pretending for years that there is an epidemic of voter fraud by Democrats that required polling place Photo ID to prevent?

The fact that the mainstream media has helped the GOP to pull off their monumental fraud by failing to report that it's a con, that there is little or no polling place voter impersonation (the only type of fraud that could even possibly be deterred by such Photo ID restrictions?) The fact that while the Republican Party enjoys pretending there are such cases of fraud, when pressed they can actually cite none? Or the fact that such laws violate both the federal Voting Rights Act and the U.S. Constitution, which the same Republicans who support laws like this -- which could disenfranchise more than 21 million Americans, if enacted in all 50 states -- pretend to support?

There is, of course, much more. So you'll need to be specific.

JB: You have definitely been on top of this topic and we mindful voters are grateful for that coverage. Courts have upheld or dismissed the validity of Photo IDs in various cases over the years. Where do we stand at this very moment? How many states have Photo ID laws and how many voters and which voters are most at risk from these nonsensical and nondemocratic laws?

BF: In truth, the bulk of the courts who have looked at these laws in full trials have struck them down, though that hasn't kept folks like Greg Abbott in Texas and Scott Walker in Wisconsin from lying about what the courts have said.

There are nine states, at this point, that have either implemented, or attempted to implement strict polling place Photo ID restrictions. The majority of states already require ID when voting (and federal law already requires it when registering in all 50 states), but they allow for identification other than a very small set of state-issued Photo IDs that they know many legally registered (Democratic-leaning) American voters do not have.

For example, Wisconsin allows for concealed-carry weapons permits to be used as voting ID, but not all state-issued student IDs. Texas allows for active military Photo ID, but not veterans IDs. I suppose those who actually fought and died to protect democracy in this country can f*ck off if they want to vote in the state of Texas. (Though, luckily, the state's Photo ID law was just struck down last week by a federal court. It's about the fourth or fifth time, I've lost count, that the same Republican Photo ID law has been found illegal and unconstitutional by federal courts.)

In Wisconsin, the trial determined -- and the state did not contest -- that some 300,000 legally registered voters do not have the very narrow type of ID that would now be required to vote under their law. In Texas, the number was 600,000 at a minimum.

JB: That's huge!

BF: The even more shameful side of those numbers is that, all told, during the trial, Wisconsin was able to cite ZERO cases of voter impersonation that might have been deterred by their law, while Texas was only able to cite two over the last 15 years or so. In the Lone Star State's case, that was out of some 20 million votes cast during the same period, as determined during the full trial on the merits which wrapped up in late September.

JB: The Voter ID laws disproportionately target the elderly, the poor, students - all segments of the population which tend to vote Democratic. This goes to explain why Voter ID laws have been so attractive to Republicans. At some point a while back, there was a realization that demographics were not trending their way and this has led to various ruses to disenfranchise massive numbers of legal voters. Do you want to comment on that before we move on?

BF: Not really. Other than to say you're exactly right. Republicans seem to have given up on winning elections by, ya know, presenting better ideas to the electorate. So, rather than do that, their strategy now seems to be to lie the public into submission with propaganda and otherwise try to keep as many Democratic-leaning voters from voting as possible. (They're now trying to keep them from even being able to register, in Arizona, Kansas, Georgia, etc.) It's pretty awful. But, apparently, they must feel that's all they can do, at this point.

JB: Sigh. Judge Richard Posner was in the news last week. Who is he, what did he have to say and why was it so memorable?

BF: Posner is the Reagan-appointed 7th Circuit Court of Appeals federal judge who is, according to the Journal of Legal Studies, the most cited legal scholar, by far, of the 20th century.

He's also the judge who upheld the first-in-the-nation Photo ID voting restriction in Indiana back in 2008, which was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court. Most importantly, at this point, he is also the judge who has just absolutely DESTROYED Wisconsin's Photo ID restriction, and pretty much every other one that's ever been enacted, included the Indiana law. Given the years that have passed since he first approved of the Indiana law (Crawford v. Marion County), it is clear that he's come to understand these laws are meant to suppress the vote by Republicans. Period.

As he said in his amazing dissent in the Wisconsin case last week (which you can read in full here: "There is only one motivation for imposing burdens on voting that are ostensibly designed to discourage voter-impersonation fraud, if there is no actual danger of such fraud, and that is to discourage voting by persons likely to vote against the party responsible for imposing the burdens."

It can't really be spelled out any clearer, though Posner did in that remarkable opinion (which I strongly suggest everyone who ever cared about this issue actually read. Again, here it is. He absolutely destroyed every single Right Wing talking point meant to support the unsupportable notion of keeping legally registered voters from being able to cast their legal vote with the use of these type of Jim Crow laws.

JB: Now that Judge Posner has "come out" emphatically and decisively against the Voter ID voting restriction, how will that affect the status quo? He's changed his mind. So what? Hasn't a lot of damage already been done?

BF: Yes, a lot of damage has been done. But the worst damage is still to come, by far, if these laws are not found unconstitutional -- which they clearly are -- by the Supreme Court. Posner's opinions are very influential with the Court. So his opinion in the Wisconsin case, as extraordinary as it is, will likely have an effect on the Court, at least on Roberts and Kennedy who will be the deciding voices on any Photo ID cases that come before them. And it will come before them, probably sooner rather than later, as Wisconsin, Texas, North Carolina, Arkansas and other federal challenges to those state's laws finally get to the High Court.

It should be noted, by the way, as Posner did, that every single state that has passed a strict Photo ID law of this type has a Republican-majority House and Senate and Governor. (The one exception is Arkansas, where the Democratic Governor vetoed the law, but was overridden by the GOP majority legislature.)

The original Indiana case that made it to SCOTUS was determined only on the level of whether the law, on its face, violated the Constitution. Plaintiffs did not show mass disenfranchisement at the time. But the Court said -- including Roberts and Kennedy -- that they will revisit the matter, and determine the constitutionality of such laws "as applied" in the future.

So, that is the decision that still lies ahead, and that's where Posner's opinion will be critical. While Indiana, for example, had only 1% of its voters lacking the requisite type of ID, Wisconsin would disenfranchise some 10% of the electorate with their law. They are also much stricter as far as what type of ID they will accept, and what are the consequences to voters if they do not have such an ID.

So there is much more to come on this matter, unfortunately. But Posner's devastating opinion -- along with the recent, critical rulings finding that these laws are unconstitutional and violations of the Voting Rights Act in U.S. District Courts, such as in Wisconsin and Texas -- should play a huge role in leveling the playing field that has been so distorted by Rightwing bullshit and lies for so many years.

Speaking of which, I've got to end with just one more quote from Posner, since it's so amazingly good. He points out that RWers are now left to claim that, while there may be little or no fraud that could be deterred by Photo ID restrictions, we need them anyway, because the public thinks there is fraud that could be stopped by them, and the public lacks confidence in elections. Posner shows that there is no more confidence in elections by the electorate in states where strict Photo ID has been enacted. And he then goes on to respond to one of the opposing judges who claims that even if there is no need for it, the Wisconsin state legislature decided there was, and so did SCOTUS back in 2008, so the court must defer to those fact-free findings.

His response was killer:

The panel is not troubled by the absence of evidence. It deems the supposed beneficial effect of photo ID requirements on public confidence in the electoral system "'a legislative fact'-a proposition about the state of the world," and asserts that "on matters of legislative fact, courts accept the findings of legislatures and judges of the lower courts must accept findings by the Supreme Court." In so saying, the panel conjures up a fact-free cocoon in which to lodge the federal judiciary. As there is no evidence that voter impersonation fraud is a problem, how can the fact that a legislature says it's a problem turn it into one? If the Wisconsin legislature says witches are a problem, shall Wisconsin courts be permitted to conduct witch trials? If the Supreme Court once thought that requiring photo identification increases public confidence in elections, and experience and academic study since shows that the Court was mistaken, do we do a favor to the Court-do we increase public confidence in elections-by making the mistake a premise of our decision? Pressed to its logical extreme the panel's interpretation of and deference to legislative facts would require upholding a photo ID voter law even if it were uncontested that the law eliminated no fraud but did depress turnout significantly.

Love that guy!

JB: I'm with you on that, Brad!

BF: Oh, and as Posner pointed out, and as I have been trying to for some time: No, you don't need a Photo ID to board an airplane or to open a bank account or to buy a beer or a gun either.

JB: Thanks so much for talking with me once again. Celebrating its tenth anniversary, BradBlog is definitely the go-to site for election-related and all sorts of other news you won't read about in the mainstream media. When we next get together, let's talk about Citizens United and McCutcheon v. FEC and their effect on upcoming and subsequent elections.

BF: Fine. Thanks, as ever, for having me, Joan!

***

some of my previous interviews with Brad:

BRAD BLOG Exposes CA Law Restricting "Recounts" To the Wealthy 6.30.2014

Brad Friedman Shines Spotlight on CA Bill to End Federal Testing of E-Voting Systems 9.21.2013

Brad Friedman Discusses Role of Diebold in Critical MA Special Election Tuesday 1.17.2010

Brad is an independent investigative journalist, blogger, broadcaster, VelvetRevolution.us co-founder, expert on issues of election integrity, and a Commonweal Institute Fellow.

Authors Website: http://www.opednews.com/author/author79.html

Authors Bio:

Joan Brunwasser is a co-founder of Citizens for Election Reform (CER) which since 2005 existed for the sole purpose of raising the public awareness of the critical need for election reform. Our goal: to restore fair, accurate, transparent, secure elections where votes are cast in private and counted in public. Because the problems with electronic (computerized) voting systems include a lack of transparency and the ability to accurately check and authenticate the vote cast, these systems can alter election results and therefore are simply antithetical to democratic principles and functioning.



Since the pivotal 2004 Presidential election, Joan has come to see the connection between a broken election system, a dysfunctional, corporate media and a total lack of campaign finance reform. This has led her to enlarge the parameters of her writing to include interviews with whistle-blowers and articulate others who give a view quite different from that presented by the mainstream media. She also turns the spotlight on activists and ordinary folks who are striving to make a difference, to clean up and improve their corner of the world. By focusing on these intrepid individuals, she gives hope and inspiration to those who might otherwise be turned off and alienated. She also interviews people in the arts in all their variations - authors, journalists, filmmakers, actors, playwrights, and artists. Why? The bottom line: without art and inspiration, we lose one of the best parts of ourselves. And we're all in this together. If Joan can keep even one of her fellow citizens going another day, she considers her job well done.


When Joan hit one million page views, OEN Managing Editor, Meryl Ann Butler interviewed her, turning interviewer briefly into interviewee. Read the interview here.

While the news is often quite depressing, Joan nevertheless strives to maintain her mantra: "Grab life now in an exuberant embrace!"


Joan has been Election Integrity Editor for OpEdNews since December, 2005. Her articles also appear at Huffington Post, RepublicMedia.TV and Scoop.co.nz.