Editorial: Student-voter rights challenged by photo ID laws

As students at Pitt of the legal voting age, we experience a relative amount of convenience. All it takes is simply filling out a voter registration form — one you can easily receive from a member of a student political organization roaming around campus during election season.

This convenience was nearly jeopardized in 2012 when the Corbett administration passed a law requiring voters to produce a state-approved photo ID at the polls. But, in January of this year, Judge Bernard L. McGinley  struck down the law as unconstitutional. In his decision, he said, “Voting laws are designed to assure a free and fair election … The voter ID law does not further this goal.”

Thus, out-of-state college students in Pennsylvania were once again able to vote in the state in which they live eight months of the year without obtaining a “state-approved photo ID.”

Our experience is not synonymous with that of all college students across the country. There are currently eight, mostly southern, states that maintain strict voter ID laws — Pennsylvania would have been included in that bunch had the 2012 law not been struck down.

These states make voting particularly difficult for many college students, not to mention minorities. This is the case the U.S. Justice Department is bringing up against the state of Texas in its most recent lawsuit regarding voter ID.

The trial, which began Tuesday, highlights the recent struggle between preventing voter fraud and ensuring fair elections.

The federal Justice Department and civil rights groups argue that the Texas law disproportionately excludes many minorities and college students from voting. According to the law, voters must present at the poll a photo ID — a Texas driver’s license, U.S. passport, a state-issued ID card, a state-issued election certificate, military ID, citizenship certificate with a photograph issued by the federal government or a concealed handgun license. A student ID does not count.

Texas insists that these regulations effectively prevent voter fraud, which Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott has called an “epidemic.” But after 13 years in office, Abbott cites two fraudulent votes that might have been stopped by the ID law — that’s one out of every 18.7 million votes cast in Texas.

According to the logic of the states argument, even though 796,000 Texans — including students — lack an approved ID, the law is apparently justified in stopping the scant number of fraudulent votes that might occur.

The U.S. Justice Department’s argument appears to be much more sound: this law unfairly discriminates against students and minorities.

The 26th Amendment to the Constitution, the one that shifted the voting age to 18, says the right to vote, “shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any state on account of age.”

To ask students — a demographic that cast almost 20 million votes in 2012 — to obtain a state-approved photo ID does just that. Not only are many students at public universities from other states, but many do not have the time or the resources to go through the process that is required to obtain a state-approved photo ID.

So, whether it was intentional or not, the Texas law specifically targets college students because it puts an unnecessary burden on them when it comes to voting — one that does not belong to other demographics besides, arguably, minorities.

Of course, Texas is not the only state that has voter ID laws like this. North Carolina also recently passed a similar law  — scheduled for 2016 — that would restrict students from using college IDs or out-of-state licenses when voting at the polls.

If the case in Texas is won by the U.S. Justice Department, the decision could reverberate in other states, such as North Carolina, that also have strict voter ID laws for students — hopefully, setting the stage for similar lawsuits.

This case provides an important first step in ensuring that college students are properly represented in our democracy — a step that will hopefully lead to the opportunity for all college students to participate in elections, both on the state and federal levels.