What Baker-Carter Got Right

Rob Richie and Steven Hill
September 27, 2005



Rob Richie is executive director of FairVote. Steven Hill is an Irvine Senior Fellow with New America Foundation and author of Fixing Elections: The Failure of America's Winner Take All Politics.

Last week’s release of the report of the election reform commission headed by Jimmy Carter and James Baker has drawn fierce fire from civil rights and electoral reform organizations for recommending that voters be required to present photo identification at the polls. Because the ID recommendations in isolation would shrink the electorate, many reformers have pronounced the Baker-Carter recommendations DOA.

We believe it a mistake to condemn the entire report because of the understandable voter ID objections. Dominated by aging politicians of the creaky two-party duopoly, the Commission on Federal Election Reform certainly was less than bold in many important areas. But building on his vast experience observing elections around the world and experiencing elections in the South, Carter earned bipartisan support for several forward-looking recommendations.