The Independent View: Alabama's New Voter ID Law Turns Away 93 Year Old Voter

Willie Mims, 93, showed up to vote at his polling place in Escambia County Tuesday morning for Alabama’s primary elections. Mims, who is African-American, no longer drives, doesn’t have a license, and has no other form of ID. As a result, he was turned away without voting. Mims wasn’t even offered the chance to cast a provisional ballot, as the law requires in that situation.

Jenny McCharen of Empower Alabama, a progressive group that gave Mims a ride to the polls, recounted the story. McCharen said Mims’s voter file showed he has voted in every election since 2000, as far back as the records go.

The 11 percent of eligible voters who lack the required photo ID must travel to a designated government office to obtain one. Yet many citizens will have trouble making this trip.

In the 10 states with restrictive voter ID laws:

- Nearly 500,000 eligible voters do not have access to a vehicle and live more than 10 miles from the nearest state ID-issuing office open more than two days a week. Many of them live in rural areas with dwindling public transportation options.

- More than 10 million eligible voters live more than 10 miles from their nearest state ID-issuing office open more than two days a week.

- 1.2 million eligible black voters and 500,000 eligible Hispanic voters live more than 10 miles from their nearest ID-issuing office open more than two days a week. People of color are more likely to be disenfranchised by these laws since they are less likely to have photo ID than the general population.

- Many ID-issuing offices maintain limited business hours. For example, the office in Sauk City, Wisconsin is open only on the fifth Wednesday of any month. But only four months in 2012, February, May, August, and October, have five Wednesdays. In other states: Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, and Texas many part-time ID-issuing offices are in the rural regions with the highest concentrations of people of color and people in poverty.