Action | Repeal of Virginia Photo ID Process |
Stage | Final |
Comment Period | Ended on 12/23/2020 |
Voter suppression is a massive reality, and as someone who has moved to three different states over the course of four years, the struggle to change addresses and photo ID’s are a burden. The hope of this repeal is to encourage the elderly, young, poor, and minorities to vote by giving them a broader range of documents to be considered. As someone who would not categorize herself as a disenfranchised voter, it was still very difficult for me to obtain the specifics to be able to vote in South Carolina during midterm elections. My experience was that I registered to vote 29 days before, and the requirement was 30. Quite often, information like this is not widely known unless you actively seek out the policies in your state. Add voter suppression onto this and we end up not engaging a huge percentage of our population. Especially in Virginia with in-person voter fraud being extremely rare, I do not find harm in the repealing of strict phot ID requirements. I would, however, suggest more security into absentee ballots, which poses a higher risk to voter identification. After its finalization, I hope that a long-term study be conducted to any immediate change following this proposal. I think that despite final adoption, the information regarding relaxed ID requirements need to make their way to marginalized voters, otherwise perhaps there will not be significant change.