Complexity on top of complexity

A recent column piece from former U.S. Representative Pete Gallego, who served in the U.S. House from 2013-2015 and prior, the Texas House for over 20 years, reviews the confusing nature of Texas Voter ID laws and the implications that follows. In his Texas Tribune article, he cities a recent study by Rice University that details the impact of voter confusion and voter turn out.

Just to refresh what the Texas Voter ID law is, as quoted from the the study,

 "In 2011, the Texas Legislature passed Senate Bill 14 (SB 14) that created a new requirement for voters to show photo identification when voting in person." 

 After some back and forth between all three levels of the Courts, the photo ID law went into force on November 2014. Mr. Gallego mentions

 "The study focused on my 2014 campaign in the 23rd Congressional District. I lost that race by about 2,400 votes. But according to the researchers, the results likely would have been different if the voter ID law hadn't been in effect, or if voters had been provided more information about the law."

While the 2014 election is over, Mr. Gallego does bring a very important point I concur with. Registering to vote in Texas is confusing enough but why add more complexity to something already contorted? We are in the year 2015 and we have amazing technologies that can do extremely complicated operations with ease yet people in Texas still have to physically print out the forms, fill them out and mail them and wait for their forms to get processed and hope they don't get lost in the mail. This takes time-a luxury most hard working people don't have.

Even if some people do get to finally vote, they might not even understand what they voted for.

But heaven forbid one moves into a different county, you have to register again and lets hope your ID isn't expired, is in good shape and you haven't lost too much weight! You might have to get a new or renew your ID if that's the case, I hope you have a bit of spare change because that isn't free.

Mr. Gallego understands this very well and gives possible solutions in alleviating the confusing process however, even before we begin down that road, I believe we should look back and fix the starting line so that there are less stragglers from the start and create a voter registration system that doesn't seek to subtlety disenfranchise a demographic of voters through the use of confusing and restrictive laws. There is a reason Texas has some of the lowest turn outs in election and that's because people don't even understand how to or have the means to get started.

While yes, there is a legitimate concern regarding voter fraud, voter fraud is minuscule as the Washington-Post reports 31 credible incidents of voter fraud out of a billion cast. Clearly voter fraud isn't the genuine reason behind the push for these laws. Who knows what other requirements they'll have next.