voter ID laws – Sandy Rosenberg

A Voter ID Compromise

June 18, 2021 | by delsandy | Uncategorized | No Comments

Maryland already has a voter ID law.

After the Florida recount in the Bush-Gore election, Congress passed the Help America Vote Act.

Compromise was easier to reach on Capitol Hill in 2002 than it is today.

That law requires that an individual applying to register to vote must provide his or her driver’s license number or at least the last four digits of his or her Social Security number when registering to vote.

If an applicant does not have those forms of identification, he or she can use a copy of a current and valid photo identification; any other State or federal government issued ID card; or a copy of a current utility bill, bank statement, government check, paycheck or other government document that shows the individual’s name and address.

Under Maryland law, when someone is voting for the first time or his or her right to vote is challenged at the polls, those same means of identification can be used.

I introduced the bill which made that our law. I simply copied the federal law for voter registration to our law for challenges at a polling place.

Perhaps the Congress can apply its compromise of 2002 to the voting rights legislation now before it.

Time well spent and a Big IF

January 26, 2017 | by delsandy | Sandy's 2017 Legislative Diary | No Comments

Sometimes, I follow my own advice.

Co-sponsorship is the biggest waste of time in Annapolis, I’ve declared in this diary more than once.

A committee chair made that point this week. He advised that more cosponsors on your bill won’t be of much help if it’s heard at 8:00 at night on a Friday in March because you delayed introducing it to spend time obtaining co-sponsors.

I have a bill that would extend the criminal harassment law to actions on the Internet that are directed at a group of people, instead of just one individual.

Better to put the bill in the hopper today, I decided, than to waste time getting several co-sponsors.

—

IF President Trump’s voter fraud investigation is a valid scientific study (a very big IF), it will debunk (for a significant majority of the public) his “3 to 5 million people voted illegally” claim, as well as the argument for voter ID laws.

A fake justification

January 24, 2017January 24, 2017 | by delsandy | Sandy's 2017 Legislative Diary | No Comments

Why does it matter that President Trump said that the illegal votes of millions of unauthorized immigrants denied him a popular vote majority?

Voter fraud is the fake justification for voter-ID laws, whose purpose is to make it difficult for people to vote who are likely to vote Democratic.

Elected officials who support these infringements on the right to vote must be held accountable.

Under North Carolina law election law, forms of identification that were disproportionately held by African Americans were unacceptable, but the forms of identification that were disproportionately held by whites were acceptable. Since this distinction had a disproportionate impact on certain groups of people, it violated the 14th Amendment and the Voting Rights Act, the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in North Carolina State Conference of NAACP v. McCrory.

—
When it comes to bill drafting, I’m very conservative.

If it’s been done before, don’t reinvent the wheel.

Today is the last day to request that a bill be drafted and be guaranteed a public hearing.

I asked how another state had funded an administrative unit that I hope to replicate.

A court settlement addresses the same problem as another bill I’m requesting. The settlement applies only to the parties in that case. My legislation would apply certain provisions in the settlement to everyone engaging in certain real estate transactions.

Protecting, not suppressing, our most sacred constitutional right

October 20, 2014 | by delsandy | featured, Sandy's 2014 Legislative Diary | No Comments

I agree with former Governor Robert Ehrlich that voting is “our most sacred constitutional right.” (“Middle class value claims are a joke” http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bs-ed-ehrlich-1019-20141018-column.html)

“The removal of ineligible names (mostly the deceased) disenfranchises nobody,” Mr, Ehrlich wrote. No dispute there.

However, the so-called voter reforms that he and the Republican Party support are intended to make it more difficult for many citizens to exercise that sacred right.

These voter-ID laws require that an individual show a government-issued ID in order to cast a vote. If you don’t own a car, you likely don’t have such an ID. If you don’t own a car, you likely are poor or young and vote Democratic.

In Texas, for example, a concealed handgun will allow you to vote but not a student ID.

In Maryland, a voter can prove identity with a photo-ID from an employer, or a current utility bill, bank statement, government check, paycheck, or other government document that shows the name and address of the voter.

Justice Ginsburg, dissenting from the Supreme Court’s order allowing the Texas law to be enforced, declared, “The greatest threat to public confidence in elections in this case is the prospect of enforcing a purposefully discriminatory law, one that likely imposes an unconstitutional poll tax and risks denying the right to vote to hundreds of thousands of eligible voters.”

Voting is a sacred constitutional right. It needs to be protected against partisan efforts to suppress its exercise.

Identifying and Protecting the Fundamental Right to Vote

September 14, 2012 | by delsandy | featured, Sandy's 2012 Legislative Diary | No Comments

Florida has a lot of snowbirds.

They spend winters there and summers up north.

Wendy Rosen is one of them. The Democratic “candidate” in Maryland’s 1^st Congressional District lives in Cockeysville and St. Petersburg, Florida.

She has voted in both places.

When this story broke, I knew that my Republican friends would use this incident to try to make the case for their voter ID laws.

But those statutes aren’t directed at snowbirds. They’re targeted at individuals who don’t have government-issued IDs.

They’re overwhelmingly elderly, students, or people of color. They can’t afford two residences.

“What steps can be taken, by statutory, administrative, or software change, to prevent an individual from voting in state or federal elections in Maryland and another state, as Ms. Rosen did?” I emailed the Maryland State Administrative Board of Election Laws, on the morning that the story broke about Ms. Rosen’s dual voting.

There is a database that matches information from voter registration files, motor vehicle administrations, and vital statistics from participating state, I was told. Maryland participates, but Florida does not.

If Florida did share its records, both states would have been alerted to Ms. Rosen’s dual registration. If Maryland deemed her active registration to be Florida, her registration in Maryland would have been cancelled.

This wasn’t my only encounter with voting rights this week.

Former Governor Robert Ehrlich supported voter-ID laws in his Baltimore Sun op-ed column on Sunday.

“For anyone interested in visiting Washington to discuss this highly controversial issue with the Attorney General Holder,” wrote Mr. Ehrlich, “be aware. You will need to produce proper photo identification in order to board the plane, secure your room at the hotel, rent a car, and enter the Justice Department.”

How have we addressed this issue in Maryland?

If your right to vote is challenged, you can use the following forms of identification:

* your voter’s card, Social Security card, or Maryland driver’s license;

* any identification card issued by the federal, state, or local government; and

* an employer-issued photo-ID; or a copy of a current bill, bank statement, government check, paycheck, or other government document that shows your name or current address.

Where did we come up with this list? It’s copied from the Help America Vote Act, passed with bipartisan support by the Congress in the wake of the Florida election debacle in 2000.

Our law strikes the proper balance between preventing voter fraud and denying people their fundamental right to vote.