Charles Ashby, THE DAILY SENTINEL
Republicans pulled out all the stops Wednesday, but still couldn’t persuade a Democratic-controlled House committee that requiring photo identification cards to register to vote was a good idea.
In the end, six Democrats on the 11-member House State, Veterans & Military Affairs Committee voted against two measures to make that a requirement, one of which would have referred the idea to the 2016 ballot.
“With the passage of our election laws and same-day voter registration, there’s questions of are we conducting a fair election,” said Rep. Don Coram, R-Montrose, who introduced one of the measures. “I don’t know the answer, so I thought we should refer this to the voters and let them decide.”
Coram and other supporters of the idea argued that photo IDs should be required to register to vote, and not for actually voting, in the final weeks before an election because it would offer a protection that the person registering is legally eligible to vote.
His measure, HB1140, and a similar one, HB1169, were aimed only at those final weeks before a primary or general election.
They did that because of a new law that called for so-called same-day registrations that now are allowed during early voting and on Election Day.
County clerks argue that prior to that time, people still can register without a photo ID, saying it works because they have time to verify the home addresses voters give and to see if they are in one of several state databases that prove their residency, including motor vehicle licenses.
Secretary of State Wayne Williams told the committee having photo ID during those final days would help prevent voter fraud, which should be everyone’s goal.
“We had an individual who turned in five separate registrations through voter registration drives,” Williams said. “Because we received these registrations in advance of the election, we were able to discover that this individual had turned in five separate registrations at different addresses.
“When we contacted that individual to investigate, he then wisely chose not to vote five separate times,” Williams continued. “That’s an important safeguard. That safeguard doesn’t exist under the current (same-day registration) law.”
Regardless, Democrats and opponents of the measure said it placed too onerous a burden on voters to get an identification card, which isn’t that easy to do for low-income residents, especially if they have to obtain expensive supporting documents, such as birth certificates, adoption records or name-change records in other states.
“There was a recent analysis done by Project Vote based on the 2012 American National Election Study that found that low income citizens, young people and communities of color are most likely to not have a state-used ID,” Elena Nunez, executive director of Colorado Common Cause, told the committee. “You have heard a few examples of potential fraud, but I think it’s important to note that the examples given were in the context of voter registration drives. That’s not who this law would impact,” she said.