The South Carolina House advanced a bill to require voters to show photo ID before voting at the polls. According to the Associated Press this afternoon, “the measure requires another perfunctory vote before heading to the Senate.”
The deeply partisan issue has been the subject of many debates in recent years, but now raises real concerns about the bill’s hefty yearly fees in a budget crisis.
The bill waives the state’s $5 fee for photo ID for voting-age residents and reportedly would “cost the Election Commission $460,000 in one-time money for voter education, training and camera stations, plus an additional $260,000 yearly for additional absentee ballots and photo ID supplies.”
“Where are we getting the money from?” asked Rep. Bakari Sellers, who also “notes the state would also lose out on revenue from the photo ID fee, which goes toward road maintenance.”
In addition to the state being home to 178,000 voters who don’t have a state ID or driver’s license, there are no reports of rampant voter impersonation in South Carolina, the only kind of fraud that would be prevented by a voter ID measure.
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