Rajagopalan: Millions denied voting rights

In 52 weeks, we'll hit the polls in the next national election -- but more than 3.2 million may not make it past the check-in table.

By then, new laws may go into effect requiring voters to present a government-issued photo ID at polling stations in Kansas, Rhode Island, Wisconsin, Alabama, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas. Most other states -- including, for the time being, New York -- still accept signatures or utility bills, making it easier for would-be voters to verify their identities.

According to data from New York University's Brennan Center for Justice, an estimated 3.2 million potential voters don't have state-issued IDs in Kansas, Wisconsin, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas. Add in the other two states, and the number is sure to be higher.

Proponents claim the laws would prevent voter fraud and keep undocumented immigrants from trying to influence our political process. But Department of Justice research indicates that, not only have there been very few cases of documented voter fraud, but also that most of them have resulted from confusion in the registration process, rather than deception. Simple improvements in registration would be far more effective in preventing "fraud" than ID laws.

Some opponents to these laws claim that they're designed to limit votes for Democratic candidates, suggesting that the majority of people excluded by them -- the young, the poor, the elderly and minorities -- are likely to vote Democrat. Certainly, voter ID bills have almost exclusively been proposed by Republican politicians. The NAACP has announced that it will join several minority rights and labor groups in a national protest against these laws next month.

Regardless of the politics, any effort that will restrict voter access is unacceptable. As it is, voters often don't go to the polls. Turnout was low in several of this week's elections -- which included two closely watched gubernatorial races, critical legislative races in Virginia and New Jersey, and some weather-vane state ballot measures on abortion and collective bargaining. At 26 percent, New Jersey saw its lowest voter turnout ever, but Ohio reported its highest turnout in 20 years for an off-year election, with 46 percent of registered voters casting a ballot.

Local elections lay the groundwork for policy-making on all levels and help to determine national campaign strategies. But it's the federal elections that will determine who makes the big decisions, and on behalf of whom. And while it's troubling enough that so many of us sit out local elections, it's far more worrisome that some people who want to vote may be benched for the federal ones.

The seven states that have passed photo identification laws this year join nine that already require it. Before 2011, only Georgia and Indiana required photo IDs. According to a 2006 study, also by the Brennan Center, as many as 11 percent of Americans -- an estimated 21 million adult citizens -- don't have government-issued photo identification. The study extrapolated that elderly, African-American and low-income citizens were far less likely to have valid photo IDs. Voter registration and turnout are also lower among African-American and low-income citizens, so imposing restrictions on them can only further disenfranchise an already politically marginalized group.

Increasingly, significant policy decisions -- about how our country deals with crisis, whether we go to war and how, who is taxed and to what end -- play out on a dysfunctional political stage. A key theme that binds the tea partiers and the Wall Street occupiers is the desire to be heard, to be included in the political process.

Let's not, for no good reason, make the mistake of further excluding some of the people who show up to participate.

Kavitha Rajagopalan, a senior fellow at the World Policy Institute, is the author of "Muslims of Metropolis: The Stories of Three Immigrant Families in the West."