In discussing the news this week that federal judges rejected the Texas voter ID law, I noted a fact from the Houston Chronicle‘s report: “nearly 80″ Texas counties have no Department of Public Safety drivers’ license office. I found this astonishing and troubling. What I didn’t realize was that it’s also misleading.
Spurred on by a commenter, I checked that number against the offices on the DPS website. Only 14 counties are listed as having no driver’s license office at all, though there are 12 other counties with offices open only one day a week, and far more than that open only 2-3 days a week. The disparity with the Chronicle report may come from the fact that many counties have state driver’s license services housed within a county or city office, not strictly speaking in a DPS-operated building.
I am obviously now less astonished and troubled than I was when writing that earlier post.
Below is a list of the 14 counties without offices, their populations, their percentages of non-Hispanic white population (the remaining percentage therefore indicating the number of racial minorities), and percentages of those living below the poverty line. Remember that the judges’ objection to the voter ID law is largely based on its disproportionate effect on minorities and the poor. All these numbers come from 2011 U.S. Census estimates.
| County | Pop. | Non-Hispanic Whites | Living in Poverty |
| Aransas | 23,374 | 69.4% | 17.4% |
| Delta | 5,212 | 81.8% | 14.5% |
| Dimmit | 10,118 | 12.4% | 36.4% |
| Falls | 17,944 | 52.5% | 23.4% |
| Kenedy | 437 | 19.2% | 14.9% |
| King | 255 | 84.7% | 0.0% |
| Loving | 94 | 74.5% | 0.0% |
| Marion | 10,507 | 71.1% | 23.2% |
| Mills | 4,848 | 80.7% | 15.7% |
| Newton | 14,454 | 73.6% | 16.2% |
| Potter | 122,285 | 48.4% | 22.7% |
| San Augustine | 8,874 | 68.7% | 27.1% |
| Somervell | 8,451 | 77.1% | 10.8% |
| Willacy | 22,095 | 9.9% | 43.3% |
For reference, Dallas County has about 1.4 million people, 32.8% non-Hispanic white, and 17.6% living in poverty.
The obvious outlier on the above list is Potter County, with by far the largest population: 122,285. Amarillo is the Potter County seat, and its inclusion here only comes on a technicality, since a portion of Amarillo sits in the adjacent Randall County and that’s where the DPS office just happens to be.
Still, since that is the only DPS office in the entirety of those two counties, it’s debatable whether we should consider 14, or only 13, counties with reasonable driver’s license access. I think 13 may be more accurate. Â Or, actually, 25 counties, since to many people an office that’s open only one day a week is just about as useful as an office that’s not open at all.
We can (and in the comments to the earlier post we certainly have) argue what constitutes reasonable access, but I’m satisfied that it’s not quite as bad as I thought it was the other day. Â Though still bad enough that I don’t understand the drive behind an ID law (which all sides acknowledge will reduce the number of voters casting ballots) without evidence of significant voter impersonation fraud.
Make getting a photo ID nearly as easy and inexpensive as getting registered to vote is now, however, and I’ll be all for it.
14 comments
How about making it as easy to get a photo ID as it is to get a passport, but without the cost? Mail your information plus a picture to the correct office with the accompanying form and in a few weeks you get legal ID. If you want to drive then you can go to DPS to prove your ability to do so.
Funny more people seem not to have noticed that the only one who gives a damn – a damn at all – about color anymore is the gummit. The rest of us moved on long long ago. I wonder when the gummit will cease and desist with adding race or color into everything they do?
The number of Texans without photo ID is very small. It would cost the state less than $2,000,000 to provide IDs to poor. The GOP would be happy to cough up the dough if the state wasn’t willing to help everyone vote.
Eric has it. No one cares about race but the government.
Also, who decides what is “significant” voter fraud? Are you saying that there is an acceptable amount? Lots of elections are decided by just a few votes.
To get an idea of what voter fraud can do look at LBJ’s “victory” in 1948 where he stole the election when 202 Mexican-American voters, some deceased or not in the county on election day, lined up in alphabetical order in Alice, Texas just before the polls closed giving LBJ an 87 vote victory. Had he not won that election, he may have not pursued politics.
@Phelps: Voter fraud is already a crime punishable by law, and we should take all reasonable measures we can to reduce it to being as close to nonexistent as we can.
But the question before us is: how many incidents of proven voter impersonation fraud does it take to justify preventative measures with the potential of removing hundreds of thousands of legitimate voters from the upcoming election?
Think of this way: DWI is a crime punishable by law, and we should take all reasonable measures we can to reduce it to being as close to nonexistent as we can. What if the government were to decide that all cars must have breathalyzers installed in them, into which drivers must exhale before the engine can be started? Man, I bet we’d see a huge drop in DWIs. However, all reasonable people would agree in that case that the costs would far outweigh those benefits. DWIs are not so prevalent as to justify such extreme measures.
Voter impersonation fraud is not so prevalent (10 proven cases over 10 years involving 15 million voters is practically non-existent) as to force through these measures when the government has not done what it can to prepare our photo ID system to ensure that we don’t lose thousands of voters from our democratic process.
@Jason – Are there any proven incidents of legitimate U.S. citizen voters being unable to obtain a photo id that they can show to prove who they are when they make it to the polls to vote? If we have 15 million eligible voters in Texas and a couple hundred that can’t manage to get an id is it worth leaving the door open for politicians as pathetic as LBJ to steal elections, especially run offs.
@Dubious Brother: We’re not talking about hundreds of votes. We’re talking about thousands, possibly tens or hundreds of thousands nationwide. I’ll refer to my comments on the previous post on this subject for the reasons why these estimates are plausible. And even were we talking about only hundreds of votes, that’s far more than the number 10 in 10 years.
As for LBJ, i’m going to need to see examples more recent than 1948, a time when our election system was so different than it is today that poll taxes were still considered legal across a broad swath of the country.
@Jason – 1960 when JFK defeated Nixon – voter fraud in Illinois and Texas delivered the election to Kennedy. Mayor Dailey held back the vote count in Chicago until he could deliver enough votes to carry Illinois. LBJ delivered Texas. Those states going Republican would have made Nixon President.
2008 – Minnesota – voter fraud delivered the election to Al Franken on the 2nd or 3rd recount giving the Dems a filibuster proof Senate and Obamacare.
So the federal judges said a voter ID law would deny minorities and the poor their right to vote because their counties had no DPS office. Hence, they are obviously driving without a license, riding a horse or walking.
And the headlines read:
“Federal Judge Panel Strikes Down Texas Voter ID Law”
Wrong headline. It should have been:
“State Robs Quarter Million Texans of Right to Drive”
Based on your non-white numbers in the 14 counties you listed, there are 242,794 residents in those counties who do not have a driver’s license.
Really?
Jason, you cited the fact that Potter and Randall Counties are adjacent to one another and that the DPS office is in Randall County. So that’s 63,099 Texans who probably do have a driver’s license.
Let me cite another case. I was raised in the lower Valley–in Hidalgo County. Tiny Willacy County has but one real town, Raymondville. Willacy County’s population is 90.1 percent non-white–19,907 people. Folks in Willacy County do their grocery shopping in Raymondville. But, if they want to get a deal on a new pair of shoes, they drive the 24 miles to the Harlingen Target store, in Cameron County.
There is a DPS office in Harlingen.
Fact is, for the average Texan the right (indeed, the need) to drive is a hell of a lot more important than the right to vote. Show me a non-voter and the odds are great that I’ll show you a Texan who was too lazy or uninformed to drive his car to the polls.
Those three federal judges were dealing in BS and I anxiously await the case reaching the Supreme Court.
@Dubious Brother: 1960 still belongs to that much earlier era of election practices.
And even if claims of fraud in the Minnesota 2008 election had any validity, the ID issue wouldn’t apply. With voter ID laws, the issue is voter impersonation. If the fraud had been perpetrated by people pretending to be other people, then Franken could have won the election outright, not have had to deal with a recount.
@Jason – I am just giving you high profile examples – you asked for examples. Voter fraud is hard to prove and by the time it is proven it is too late. Local elections that can be won by a few fraudulent votes don’t get any publicity. In Franken’s case, more convicted felons voted in Minneapolis and St; Paul than the margin of “victory” that Franken claimed.
By the way, if you plan to attend the Democrat Convention this week be sure to take your picture id or you will not be allowed to enter. Is that being hypocritical of the party of the disenfranchised or is that being wise knowing that the person that enters is the one that registered?
Actually, the DNC is open to the public. Unlike the RNC, which wasn’t even open to black camerawomen.
@Dani K. – Actually the DNC is begging people to show up so it doesn’t look empty but when they do show up, they better have a picture id with them.