Kori Clay, Kat Cua, Jack Harvel, Kyle Veidt COLUMBIA, Mo. October 27, 2016
An amendment to the Missouri Constitution that would require photo identification to vote would also make the government shoulder the cost of providing the IDs to those without a government-issued drivers or non-driver’s license.
This comes ten years after the Missouri Supreme Court struck down a similar voter ID law because it made citizens pay for their ID and therefore placed an undue burden on the citizen. The usual challenge to these laws is that having to pay for an ID creates an unconstitutional financial barrier to voting.
“This basically takes care of all of the concerns that the courts have made,” Rep. Bryan Spencer, one of the voter ID bill’s co-sponsors, said.
The state will now have to provide free identification to those looking to vote, which will both cost them money to produce and will cut off a source of revenue from the sale of driver’s and non-driver’s licenses.
Indiana, which has a similar population size to Missouri, spent over $10 million from 2007-2010 on the production and distribution of free IDs.
The Committee on Legislative Research estimated that 379,291 Missourians would be eligible for a free non-driver’s license and they predicted half of those eligible would apply within the first year of implementation. The estimated net cost of all of these measures is over $10 million taken from the general revenue fund, which is made up of collected sales and income taxes that is allocated by the legislature to certain functions like education, healthcare, social services, and criminal justice.
The state would incur other expenses to provide IDs. A voter outreach campaign to inform people of the new voting requirements and the path to gaining a photo ID would need to be implemented. This will include television ads, new government websites and programs that reach vulnerable populations like seniors in assisted living facilities and voters with disabilities.
“We encouraged everyone to get registered to vote and we had an on-site voter registration drive,” Whitley Jones, director of administration at Urban Empowerment, said.
The state will have to create similar outreach programs to inform voters of the new requirements as well as the process of obtaining a valid ID.
The state will then have to create and print new pamphlets, update absentee ballots, and produce more provisional ballots according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. In turn, poll workers will have to be trained about how to implement the new laws on the ground, costing the state more.
The voter ID measure would mean the re-allocation of funds to support it. Some think there are more important issues at hand.
“I don't see that $17 million to prevent voter impersonation fraud as worth us not feeding children, not educating our children, not fixing our roads and bridges. We have many other areas of our state that would benefit more from $17 million than putting it into to solve an issue for a problem that doesn't exist,” Rep. Deb Lavender said.
The $17 million is a relatively small amount of money in the fund that collects over $10 billion a year, but the measure’s opponents have taken a moral stance in criticizing the bill over a financial argument.
“I found it so despicable that people would go to these measures to prevent someone who is otherwise lawfully able to vote,” U.S. Rep. Lacy Clay said.
The law will most likely be challenged in the court if it passes the referendum, which would require the state to pay even more into the process of enacting this law. In South Carolina the state spent over $3.5 million defending their controversial voter ID bill.
The decision to enact voter ID ultimately rests with the people, who will vote on November 8, 2016.
