Politics
Election 2012: ID laws could disenfranchise minority voters
Young minority voters, Cohen and Rogowski said, tend to be poorer and more transient, which means they are less likely to have a current address on their driver’s licenses or other ID. Their licenses may be suspended or revoked due to unpaid fines, or they may not have access to the documents they need in order to get valid identification. Even if young voters are able to pull the necessary documentation together, the extra steps they must take to get an acceptable ID might prove discouraging, Cohen said.
“They have to find the appropriate office, bring the needed paperwork and pay the required fee, all to get an ID many don’t know they need,” she said. “It turns out that significant numbers of young people don’t even know about these new photo ID requirements.”
The analysis by Cohen and Rogowski was released this week by the Chicago-based Black Youth Project, a nonpartisan effort launched in 2004 to examine the political participation of African-Americans aged 15 to 25. It estimated that new photo requirements potentially could turn away:
—170,000 to 475,000 young black voters.
—68,000 to 250,000 young Hispanic voters.
—13,000 to 46,000 young Asian-American voters.
—1,700 to 6,400 young Native American voters.
—700 to 2,700 young Pacific Islander voters.
