Staff File Photo by Dan Henry/Chattanooga Times Free Press – Area residents enter the Hamilton County Election Commission building for early voting.Everyone would agree that it is unjust if the government denies a legitimate voter the right to cast a ballot.
But it is equally unjust if fraudulent voters are permitted to cast ballots, negating the votes of lawful voters.
It is for that reason that a number of states, including Tennessee, have enacted laws putting in place a commonsense requirement that voters present valid photo identification when they go to their polling places.
Such laws have not caused the widespread voting difficulties predicted by opponents. For instance, the Georgia Supreme Court upheld that state’s voter ID law after finding that the law had not disenfranchised anybody even after it had been in effect for years.
Court cases around the country have yielded similar findings. Hans A. von Spakovsky, a former civil rights staff member at the U.S. Justice Department, notes the common thread running through those cases: that the plaintiffs arguing against voter ID laws couldn’t produce voters who had actually been unable to vote on account of the laws.