The Politics of Voter ID Laws

After a 2014 election that featured controversial difficulties for student voters due to the state’s new Voter ID law, it appears the North Dakota Legislature won’t be making any changes during the ongoing legislative session.This is despite a North Dakota State University study that found 689 college students were unable to vote because of residency issues.

The only pending changes to the law are contained in House Bill 1333, which was passed by the House and is awaiting a vote in the Senate. The bill would invalidate student housing certificates as proof of voter residency -- a change Democrats vigorously oppose. But it would allow nursing home certificates to be used as proof of residency, as well as utility bills or any type of bill showing a voter’s address as long as it’s older than 30 days and accompanied by a valid North Dakota ID. This would affect people who didn’t have time to change their ID but moved within the state. Anyone who moved here from out of state would still be unable to vote until they acquire proof of residency. HB 1333 is expected to pass the Senate.

“By removing the student housing certificate, you have guaranteed one thing: that you will never have to worry about someone not using the student housing certificate right,” said Rep. Corey Mock (D-Grand Forks). You’ve also guaranteed that unless the student goes through the process of obtaining a current North Dakota ID or they have a North Dakota ID from an existing address and utility bill, they won’t be able to vote, and right or wrong, that’s the change. I think it’s going to continue to add confusion.”

A bill that passed the Senate unanimously this session, Senate Bill 2330, would have would have required colleges and universities to add a student’s date of birth and residential address to the student ID and made it an acceptable form of identification for voting. It was defeated handily in the House because of concerns about costs and privacy. It was backed by student groups but opposed by university administrators.

“That would have been, at minimum, a good solution if for nothing else for the next couple of years while we review the election laws,” Mock said. “If we are going to require that you have a form of ID, we do need to respect and appreciate all of the complex living arrangements for all of North Dakota’s residents. We do so with nursing home residents.”

The study on student voting habits was conducted by the Upper Midwest Regional Center on Public Policy at NDSU. It was a web survey of 1,800 students that found the highest percentage of residency voting issues from the 2014 election occurred with those who attended Bismarck State College, NDSU and UND.

“We found that of the people we contacted a little over 3.2 percent of respondents tried to vote and they were unable to do so because they had confusion with the new residency requirements,” said Nick Bauroth, an NDSU political science professor. “Other people were trying to participate and couldn’t participate because of issues having to do with absentee ballot problems or they thought the voting would be extended later or some such thing. But by far the biggest group of people that were having issues were those who wanted to vote but couldn’t because of the changes to the requirements that they had to be in that district in 30 days.”

Bauroth has a theory as to why BSC, NDSU and UND students had the most address problems of ND college students trying to vote:

“What we think is going on is that in a lot of the schools it seems most people are local people going to schools that aren’t moving. But UND and NDSU, a lot of times people are in fact moving from their parent’s household and they are in a new place. And so these are the people who have changed their address and therefore are going to be the most vulnerable if they don’t change their registration before the election itself.”

One other proposal in this year’s legislative session, which has passed the House, is a study of voter registration. North Dakota is the only state in the nation to not have voter registration. Mock, who proposed the study, believes with the current Voter ID law and the reliance on the DOT database, North Dakota has created a de facto voter registration system.

“We need to know, do we have a voter registration system, and if we do not, are we that close that maybe we should,” Mock said. “We need to take that step where if we’re one step away from having a voter registration system, maybe we as a state need to make that commitment.”

Of course any of these changes will not be in effect for the special Fargo city election in April, but HB1333’s changes could have an impact on the 2016 elections if it passes the Senate and gets Gov. Jack Dalrymple’s signature. Other changes would have to wait until the 2017 legislative session -- at the earliest -- and that might upset some student voters.

“We are going to continue to see confusion on the interpretation of election laws, yes, especially for the Fargo city election,” Mock said. “None of these problems are going to be addressed. It is going to be the exact same set of election laws that govern the late-April Fargo special election as they governed the November election last year. There has been little done to address many of the challenges we saw in 2014.”

While Senate Republicans have been open to changes, such as with Senate Bill 2330, which was sponsored by Senator Ray Holmberg (R-Grand Forks), House Republicans have been more averse to changing the Voter ID law.

“We’re piecemealing an election system that needs comprehensive review,” Mock said. “We need to take a step back, take a look at this law, figure out if it is doing what we really hoped it would achieve, and what we can do to adequately achieve that. Right now, I don’t feel that we’re doing an adequate job.”