Gov. Mike Beebe is butting heads again with Arkansas lawmakers, this time over voting rights.
On Monday, he vetoed recently passed legislation to require voters to show photo identification to election officials whether voting early or at the polls.
The veto may not survive the week. Plans to override are in the works, with votes expected as early as Wednesday in the state Senate and Thursday in the House of Representatives.
As Beebe said in his veto message, the citizens who have the most difficulty voting in the first place - the elderly and the poor - could have their voting rights impaired. He spoke, too, to the likelihood that minorities would be adversely affected.
Minorities have been targets of efforts to bar or discourage them from voting in the past (think poll taxes) and could be again, the governor suggested.
The legislation is another black eye for Arkansas, which will suffer from this and other legislative priorities set in this session. Beebe’s veto at least temporarily saves some embarrassment.
People who have no trouble voting or who have never felt disenfranchised may not understand why this legislation offends those who have been.
The truth is most Arkansas voters voluntarily identify themselves when they vote, producing a driver’s license or some other photo ID when asked by a poll worker.
But the law has allowed those who couldn’t or wouldn’t show an ID to vote a provisional ballot, which might still be counted.
Now, election officials check the provisional ballots against voter registration.
Nothing more is required of the voter. That’s what would change as a result of Senate Bill 2 by state Sen. Bryan King, R-Green Forest.
Under King’s proposal, a voter could still vote provisionally but the vote would not count until the voter provided an ID to county election officials or signed a timely affidavit asserting indigence or religious objection to being photographed. There are seven pages of such particulars in the bill.
All of this jumping through hoops would, in King’s eyes and those of other lawmakers who passed the bill, allegedly eliminate voter fraud.
The senator surely isn’t arguing that voter fraud is a problem among his own constituency in Green Forest or the rest of his Senate district. But he and other Republicans around the nation have for years wanted stricter laws controlling voting access elsewhere.
This year, with Republican majorities in both houses of the Arkansas Legislature, they seized a rare opportunity in Arkansas to pass just such a law. They will certainly try to override Beebe’s veto.
It might not be quite as easy to override as the abortion-related bills the governor vetoed earlier in the session. King’s bill passed the Senate solidly but barely managed a majority in the House. They can still override but only if 51 House members stay hitched to the bill.
Beebe has given them reason to rethink the earlier votes.
No voter fraud problem, according to the governor, has been demonstrated. This law is simply unnecessary and would, he said, negatively impact the right of some Arkansans to vote.
Plus, in an appeal that should carry some weight with conservative lawmakers, he pointed out that they’re increasing government bureaucracy and expenditures even as these same people argue for reductions in both. He’s talking about the estimated $300,000 necessary to implement the law, providing for a way to issue photo IDs for prospective voters.
That’s a side issue. The real problem is voter access - who gets access and who benefits from the change.
As opponents of stricter voter ID laws predict, this law would discourage the elderly and the poor, including minorities, from voting. The benefit would presumably inure to Republicans since the most affected voting groups are more often aligned with Democrats.
That brings us right back to the Republican majorities in the Arkansas Legislature.
Interestingly, Senate Bill 2 passed in the House with 50 Republican votes and one Democratic vote. House Speaker Davy Carter, a Republican who owes his speakership to Democratic allies and has further political ambition, didn’t vote on the bill.
So, even if partisans might persuade that lone Democrat not to support the override, Carter could weigh in - or not. Stay tuned for this week’s drama in the Legislature.
BRENDA BLAGG IS A FREELANCE COLUMNIST AND LONGTIME JOURNALIST IN NORTHWEST ARKANSAS.
Opinion, Pages 5 on 03/27/2013