In an editorial last Monday we criticized the Republican-dominated Legislature for passing a law requiring voters to produce a government-issued photo ID in order to vote, and for making voters pay the state to obtain such an ID card if they didn’t already have one. We criticized that new requirement as an unconstitutional poll tax on voters’ rights that likely would doom the bill when it was contested in court.
Our statements in that regard were accurate when we published them Monday morning, but that changed when the governor signed an amending bill into law later that day authorizing the state to issue free photo IDs for the purpose of voting. We’re happy to acknowledge the late legislation that immediately changed the poll-tax status of the new voting law.
The late amendment, however, does not cure all of the new voting act’s defects, nor does it mitigate the partisan motive behind its passage: the national Republican agenda that prompted nearly half the states across the country to pursue similar laws to dampen voting by likely Democrats.
Voter surveys, for example, show that squeezing voting rights makes it harder for certain segments of voters – the elderly, the handicapped, the poor, new immigrant citizens and students – and thus hinders the Democratic Party more than the GOP.
The timing and nature of the amendment have an irregular history that suggests that Gov. Bill Haslam and the Legislature’s Republican leaders finally realized, however late, that the poll-tax effect would sink the voter-ID bill. That’s the only part they wanted to fix.