Voter ID Laws in Action: ‘Looks Like I Don’t Get to Vote Today’
When voters across America hit the polls yesterday, many eyes were on Texas, which has faced recent criticism that its new voter ID law could make it harder for women to vote. But plenty of other states have passed restrictive voter ID laws recently. Legislators claim the laws clamp down on voter fraud—there were only 13 credible cases of in-person voter impersonation between 2000 and 2010—by requiring voters to present various forms of identification. Poor, elderly, and minority voters, along with women, are hit particularly hard by these strict voting requirements, and voters of all stripes were feeling the effects as they tried to vote yesterday.
While some Americans headed to Twitter to express their support for the new voting regulations, others used the medium to complain about not having their votes counted or being forced to jump additional hurdles, such as signing a sworn affidavit. And to underscore the confusion that these laws have wrought across the country, some voters didn’t know what kind of identification, if any, they needed. There are also reports of poll workers requiring IDs in states like New York and Iowa, which don’t have voter ID laws on the books. Mother Jones is tracking voter complaints across the United States, through both Twitter and organizations that run help lines, to determine which states were having trouble. Here’s what we’ve found:
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