MR. KOJO NNAMDIFrom WAMU 88.5 and American University in Washington, welcome to "The Kojo Nnamdi Show," connecting your neighborhood with the world. Later in the broadcast, how one census bureau survey is meeting with opposition in the U.S. Congress and why. But first, voters in Virginia will have to show identification before their ballot will be counted under a new law signed by Gov. Bob McDonnell on Friday. The measure joins others passed by Republican-controlled state legislatures in the run up to the presidential election this fall. Republicans say the measures are needed to combat voter fraud, but Democrats insist the laws are intended to suppress the vote among young people, ethnic minorities and others who tend to vote Democratic.

MR. KOJO NNAMDIAs the presidential race intensifies, the question now is whether the voter ID measures will have any impact on turnout in key swing states and whether they will ultimately effect who wins the White House in November. Joining us by telephone is Robert Holsworth. Bob Holsworth is a long-time esteemed political analyst in Virginia. Bob Holsworth, thank you for joining us.

MR. ROBERT HOLSWORTHOh, always great to be on the show, Kojo.

NNAMDIAnd also joining us by phone is Michael McDonald. He's a professor of government and politics at George Mason University. Michael McDonald, thank you for joining us.

MR. MICHAEL MCDONALDOh, good to be with you again.

NNAMDIYou, too, can join the conversation by calling 800-433-8850 or by sending email to kojo@wamu.org. Bob Holsworth, this voter ID measure was a partisan battle in the general assembly and passed the evenly divided Virginia Senate only with the tie-breaking vote of the Republican lieutenant governor. What were the arguments on both sides?

HOLSWORTHWell, Kojo, the arguments have really mirrored the national arguments pretty significantly here in Virginia. But on one hand, the opponents of the bill, the Democrats in particular, have argued that there simply isn't evidence of systematic electoral election fraud in Virginia or elsewhere, but particularly in Virginia. They say the instances have been relatively isolated. And they suggest that the instances of voter fraud that we may have had really aren't related to have an ID or not having an ID at the polls.

HOLSWORTHOn the other hand, I think the Republicans argue that this law, they say, is one that will effectively combat fraud. They do mention that there have been some instances of late of voter fraud in Virginia. And then beyond that they say that this protects electoral integrity in the state. And given the interest of many people in doing exactly that, they say this is a reasonable law. They say it doesn't require photo ID. It actually expands the number of forms of identification that could be presented at the polls, but what you're seeing here in Virginia is a debate that's actually mirroring the national debate.

HOLSWORTHOne side arguing that it's protecting electoral integrity, the other side arguing that the impact will be voter suppression.

NNAMDIBob, did Gov. McDonnell support this tightening of the voter ID rules all along?

HOLSWORTHGov. McDonnell didn't support the entire tightening of these laws. That, in fact, what Gov. McDonnell did is that he basically suggested that he did support some form of voter ID law. He cautioned people not to put in laws that would be overturned by the Justice department, as we've already seen in a couple of states under the Voting Rights Act. And then, beyond that, he originally suggested that they allow electronic or they allow signature comparison, that they allow registrars to compare signature of a voter at the polls with the signature on file.

HOLSWORTHThat was rejected by the assembly. And so what the governor did last week is that he both signed the bill and then instructed the State Board of Elections to send new voter ID cards to all citizens of Virginia that could be used at the polls.

NNAMDIMichael McDonald, this measure does not require voters to show a government-issued or photo ID. And, as Bob Holsworth just pointed out, the government says new voter ID cards for all voters in the commonwealth of Virginia. Is that an effort to make it more palatable to the U.S. Justice Department and in practice, what does it mean for Virginia voters?

MCDONALDYeah, well, to start with, the Department of Justice does have a say here in whether or not this law can be implemented. In certain states, including Virginia, the Department of Justice will review laws before they can take effect to make sure that they have no discriminatory effect on minority populations. We've seen two laws in South Carolina and Texas that were recently passed which do require very specific photo identification that's issued by the state. And those laws have been objected to by the Department of Justice.

MCDONALDWe have yet to see how that's all going to play out because those objections are being appealed to the Supreme Court in what some observers think could be a major challenge to this provision in the Voting Rights Act which calls for the Department of Justice to review laws. Virginia's law is much different from these other laws because of the broad nature of the identification that can be provided at the polls. It's not necessarily a photo identification like in South Carolina and Texas. And so in some respects on the face value you will look it the Department of Justice would have difficulty objecting to this law versus the other laws because it's less stringent than those South Carolina and Texas laws.

MCDONALDIt also mirrors, in some respects the federal requirements, as well, for first-time voters to register by mail. They also have to provide some identification under federal law. And those identification are mirrored largely in the Virginia law as well. So I believe that this law would likely receive less scrutiny from the Department of Justice as these other laws. The major change with this law is that under the current law in Virginia a voter who doesn't have identification when they go to the polls can sign what's called an affidavit, swearing their identity and noting that under the perjury, you know, that they would be perjuring themselves to identify themselves as somebody other than the person that they claim to be and there would be substantial fines and penalties that would be associated with that.

MCDONALDThat affidavit is no longer valid under the new identification law. What I don't know -- and I tried to get some information from the State Board of Elections this morning -- is how frequently that affidavit's used. My suspicion is that it's very infrequently used. And so what we're talking about is really a handful of voters who no longer would be able use that affidavit. They could still cast a provisional ballot. And that's important for everybody in Virginia that's listening to this show understand. That if they still don't have the identification or they think that there's a problem with the registration, they can always cast a provisional ballot under the Help America Vote Act of 2002.

MCDONALDAnd then the election administrators would work with the voter and follow up to figure out if they really were the person they say they are and if they really are on the registration rolls.

NNAMDIIn case you're just joining us, Michael McDonald is a professor of government and politics at George Mason University. He joins us by telephone, along with Robert Holsworth, who's a long-time political analyst in Virginia to discuss Virginia's new voter ID law. Bob Holsworth, we know that other states have enacted voter ID laws. You mentioned that. What effect do you think they'll have on the presidential contest in November?

HOLSWORTHWell, I think that's an open question 'cause we have to see how they're eventually politicized. Certainly the opponents of these laws have basically argued and have pointed out a fact. And that is that when you do have photo ID, as Michael said earlier, as a distinguishing feature of these requirements, that those photo IDs are typically not had in the same percentages, they're not possessed in the same percentages often by young people, elderly people and by members of a variety of ethnic minority populations. So for that reason, the Democrats have often argued that these are a covert effort, you might say, at voter suppression.

MCDONALDWhat we've already seen last week, for example, at the end of last week, is the Obama campaign announced that it is engaged in a major effort in many battleground states, particularly those that have various new forms of voter ID laws, in order to organize in these states to ensure that people get to the polls. And I think what you're going to see out of the Obama campaign during the summer and through the fall is an argument, you might say, that's going to be intended to mobilize these voters by saying that the other side is trying to suppress your vote. We really need to make sure that we don't allow that to happen. So what we're going to have to see is whether those statistical tendencies that people have suggested exist, whether they actually dominate or at the end of the day is the Obama campaign going to be able to mobilize voters on the basis that the other side's trying to suppress the vote.

NNAMDIMichael McDonald, is there any evidence of widespread voter fraud or, conversely, any evidence that voter ID measures stifle voter turnout?

MCDONALDWell, on both sides of the coin, there's very little evidence of either widespread voter fraud or that these measures are going to stifle a large number of people from voting. Although, my personal position on this is that everyone should be allowed to vote so even one person not being permitted to vote is problematic for myself. But when we look at voter fraud, and a number of studies have been conducted, there have been tens of millions of dollars that have been spent by law enforcement and election administrators to discover vote fraud, what we find is that it's very infrequent, you know, on the order of being struck by lightning is about the probability of identifying somebody who has committed vote fraud.

MCDONALDWhat we do find, though, that where there are instances of fraud, it's primarily among absentee ballots, people who are casting absentee ballots for other individuals. It's not this sort of in-person impersonation which is what these photo identification or voter identification laws are really meant to tackle. Most recently there is a case in Texas of a son, a junior voting for a senior. So I mean, yes, it does happen very, very infrequently, but the balance of it is there are about 10 percent of the population, which Prof. Holsworth mentioned, don’t have the required photo identification. Now, this is really South Carolina, Texas that we're talking about.

MCDONALDAnd so the issue there is if you have 10 percent of your population without the required identification, and we know that it has disparate impacts on minority communities, do you really wanna implement something like that, even though that these are low propensity voting communities, some of those people in those communities will want to vote. And should you really deny them that opportunity?

NNAMDIBob Holsworth, will the Justice department end up reviewing Virginia's law and is it likely to stand up to legal scrutiny? What standards do these voter ID measures have to meet?

HOLSWORTHWell, I think, you know, Prof. McDonald was pretty clear before about that the Virginia law looks -- at least on the face of it -- certainly to be more acceptable than we've seen out of South Carolina and Texas where you had a photo ID not, you might say, leavened by other things. I think the fact that the governor is sending out new IDs to all voters is going to have an impact that's probably relatively positive in Virginia. As Michael noted as well, Virginia has attempted to tailor its law to some of the acceptable forms of identification that you see in federal legislation as well, though even in those cases it has to be clear that not everybody has them.

HOLSWORTHNot everybody has a utility bill. Utility bill often goes to one person in the family and not others. The same might be true of, you know, phone bills and car registrations and those kind of things. So even if you expand the acceptable forms of identification, there still will be some part of the population that wouldn't have access to most of those. But I think what Gov. McDonnell has tried to do here by sending a new voter ID registration card to every voter in Virginia at the cost of a little more than a million dollars, he's trying to insure that the Justice Department's standards are completely met here. So I think people would be relatively surprised if the Virginia law doesn't stand scrutiny given some of the modifications it has made from Texas and South Carolina.

NNAMDIRobert Holsworth, thank you so much for joining us.

HOLSWORTHAlways great to be with you, Kojo.

NNAMDIBob Holsworth is a long time esteem political analyst in Virginia. Michael McDonald, thank you for joining us.

MCDONALDGood to be with you.

NNAMDIMichael McDonald's a professor of government and politics at George Mason University. We're going to take a short break. When we come back, how the American community survey of the Census Bureau is meeting with opposition in the U.S. Congress and why. I'm Kojo Nnamdi.