South Carolina Statehouse Blog

Election laws are a hot topic this year in many of our country’s state legislatures. South Carolina is no exception with a voter ID bill being just one of the many election oriented bills that will be debated in the coming months. This bill, H. 3418, would require voters to present picture identification at the polls. Representative Dan Hamilton is one of the sponsors of this bill and the following is based on an interview with him.

First off, this bill would make it so voters wouldn’t be able to solely use their voter registration card to vote when at the polls. Representative Hamilton said that right now, anybody who shows up with a voter registration card can vote without any extra verification. If H. 3418 passes, voters at the polls will have to produce photo identification and voter registration card in order to receive a ballot.

Representative Hamilton pointed out that several changes have been made to this bill in order to improve it over previously proposed voter ID laws. The big change is that this law waives the $5 fee to obtain an acceptable ID, allowing those who might not be able to normally afford an ID to still vote.

H. 3418 is patterned after voter ID laws found in several other states like Georgia and Indiana. Both of these state voter ID laws have been challenged in court with Indiana’s ultimately being upheld by the US Supreme Court last April and Georgia’s being upheld by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in January.

For proponents of this bill, Georgia is an important case study because its law was passed and implemented before the 2008 election cycle. When Georgia’s voter turnout was analyzed after the election, the results were very different than what opponents of these ID measures predicted.

“One of the arguments against this is that it suppresses voter turnout,” Representative Hamilton explained, “but we saw Georgia, which has one of the strictest [voter ID laws], experience an increase in turnout.”

In fact, Hamilton said that Georgia actually saw an increase in minority voters and a decrease in Republican and white voters, almost the exact opposite of what some opponents of this bill anticipated.

When asked whether he thought the implementation of this law would negatively affect voter turnout in South Carolina, he replied that he didn’t think it would.

“You have to have identification to cash a check, to buy cigarettes, [and] to buy alcohol,” Rep. Hamilton explained. “I just don’t see how it can adversely affect voter turnout in South Carolina. Most people have some type of identification as outlined in this bill.”

Rep Hamilton continued to explain that this bill isn’t trying to make it difficult to vote but instead trying to protect the voting institution of “one man, one vote.”

This will not be the only bill dealing with elections that will reach the South Carolina General Assembly this session. Early voting laws along with fusion ballots (ballots where the same candidate is listed as running for more than one party, office, etc.) will also be addressed.

To conclude, Representative Hamilton stated that this bill was basically about two things: security and confidence.

“In the end, it is just about having safe and secure elections and making sure people feel confident in the way our elections are run.”