The Republicans in Missouri are trying to put up another barrier to keep poor people from voting. In the wake of the Supreme Court's decision allowing Indiana's voter ID law, they have pushed a ballot initiative that would amend the Missouri constitution so that they could require people to prove they were citizens before they could register to vote.
Even worse, the issue will be on the primary ballot, so a lot fewer people will be voting, since the presidential primary has already happened. Once a constitutional amendment is passed, the legislature can write it into law, my understanding is that just having it in the constitution would not in itself change how people registered until there was legislation to back it up.
That may be our saving grace.
No question, it would cause a lot of havoc. Missouri is already the hardest state to register to vote in. A new voter have to be registered by someone who went through training at the county courthouse. You have to show that person a picture ID. I recall the process taking at least 5 or 10 minutes, though I may have been helped by someone who was just slow at it. This makes it very difficult to do voter registration drives, because you can't really use volunteers. Someone who is a dedicated volunteer might go to the training at the courthouse, but you can't just bring in volunteers, give them 10 minutes worth of training in the office, and send them out canvassing or to a shopping mall to register voters.
Asking for ID at the polls is bad enough. It's all well and good for the white middle class people that are rarely more then a couple of rooms away from their driver's license. So many people don't realize how many people don't have valid picture ID. I've talked about that previosly But poor people often don't have current ID, after all, if you don't drive, you may not have a drivers license. Or, if you are a nun. Or living in a senior home. Or a student. Or old enough to have been born at home and never issued a birth certificate. Or you just turned 18 but don't have a drivers license yet.
But asking people to prove citizenship is far worse. Frankly, there aren't a lot of documents that prove citizenship, and none of them are the kind most people carry around with them. In fact, the only people who normally carry proof of citizenship with them are immigrants that have become citizens. The only common documents for natural born citizens are a birth certificate and a passport. Only %21 percent of Americans have a passport, and most of those people are probably already registered to vote. The other is a birth certificate. My family keeps the birth certificate in a safe deposit box, and I imagine most people don't have it all that easily accessible, even if they keep them at home. People are also going to be a little hesitant to pull out a document that important for someone at the door. Not to mention, women who change their name when they get married often do not have a birth certificate with their current name.
Right now, only one state required documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote, Arizona. And my understanding is that Arizona driver's licenses say if someone is a citizen. Most, if not all, states require you to check a box on a voter registration swearing that you are a citizen.
I think it is possible this law, if put into effect, would backfire. At least I desperately hope so. People are a lot more willing to deal with restrictions on voting when they don't personally have to do them. Plenty of people think it is a fine and dandy idea to require people to prove they are a citizen, until someone asks them. I think that if the constitutional amendment passed and some Republicans were actually inconvenienced, then they might fight back. To many suburban housewives who can't vote because they don't have a passport or a birth certificate in their current name and someone may rethink how good an idea it was.
I have this real desire to wander around with a camera in Missouri and interview people on the street. I'd ask them if the supported the proposed amendment. If they said yes, I'd ask them to prove they were a citizen. My guess is that almost no one could if they were not at home. I also want to do that whenever anyone talks about having random stops from police to check if people are citizens. Somehow, the people advocating that don't ever seem to think they will get stopped themselves.
The insanity is, there have been almost no cases of people who were here illegally actually trying to vote. People who are here illegally want to stay hidden. They are not very likely to give their name, address, birthday, and other information to someone who is then going to give it to the government. People who are here legally don't want to do something illegal that could jeopardize their chances of becoming a citizen.
If this passes, our best hope is that it is such a pain for everyone (not just those people that Republicans are constantly trying to disenfranchise with voter ID laws) that it does not stay on the books for long.