Stephen McGarvey’s argument for the necessity of voter ID laws to prevent voter fraud — published in Tuesday’s edition of The Daily Texan — rests on findings in a Pew Center on the States study. The study mentions the susceptibility of fraud once. Its primary purpose was to advocate for modernizing voter registration to increase voter participation. Regardless of this, the statistic that one in eight voter registrations in the U.S. are invalid or contain inaccuracies says absolutely nothing about fraud. According to this study, I fall into this category because I live in Austin but am registered to vote in Houston. There’s no logical connection between the two unless you believe, as I have to assume Mr. McGarvey does, that partisan operatives are impersonating registered voters. There is no evidence that is taking place. What there is evidence for is voter suppression: the Texas Department of Public Safety reports that 603,892 registered voters, nearly 30 percent of whom are Hispanic, would be ineligible to vote due to lack of proper ID under the Texas voter ID law. Voter ID is not about fraud; it is a politically motivated attempt to limit the number of voices in our democracy.

Thomas Houghton
UT alumnus