Relying on the tiebreaking vote of Republican Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling, the Virginia Senate on Monday passed legislation that would force voters who come to the polls without identification to cast a provisional ballot.
Senate Bill 1, sponsored by Sen. Stephen H. Martin, R-Chesterfield, generated the Senate’s longest partisan floor debate of the 2012 session, with Republicans saying the law is necessary to combat voter fraud.
Democrats invoked the shame of the state’s former Jim Crow laws, criticizing the measure as a thinly veiled attempt by the GOP to suppress voter turnout among the elderly, students and the poor.
“This bill would turn the clock back 50 years,” said Sen. John S. Edwards, D-Roanoke.
“This bill, and so many others like it, is so 1866,” said Sen. Mamie E. Locke, D-Hampton.
Under current law, voters who arrive at the polls without identification can sign an affidavit attesting to their identity and cast a ballot that is counted with the rest of the votes cast on Election Day.
The proposed legislation would allow such a voter to cast only a provisional ballot and make it the voter’s responsibility to verify their identity before the vote is certified in order for their ballot to be counted.
The measure does not require photo identification. It also expands the forms of identification that may be produced to verify identity, including utility bills and identification from a four-year Virginia college.
Supporters said that in an age in which identification is required for nearly everything, producing an accepted form of ID should not be a burden.
“I don’t think that this limits voting,” said Sen. John Watkins, R-Powhatan.
Sen. Mark D. Obenshain, R-Harrisonburg, a co-sponsor of the legislation, said the bill is “geared toward one thing — that is fraud. It’s not going to stand in the way of one single law-abiding citizen from casting a vote,” he said.
But Democrats countered that there is no evidence of widespread voting fraud, citing statistics that only 108 convictions have been recorded nationwide out of 213 million registered voters.
They pointed out that in Virginia, about 16,000 voters signed affidavits, under penalty of perjury, to cast ballots last year.
“If there’s any voter fraud out there, they’re voting for you guys over there,” said Sen. Richard L. Saslaw, D-Fairfax.
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