James Carville Calls On Democrats To Cave On Voter ID

The SAVE America Act, which would mandate proof of citizenship along with valid ID for federal elections and tighten mail-in voting rules, remains stalled in Congress due to the Democrats' filibuster in the Senate, even though the underlying idea is among the most popular in American politics.

Gallup found 84 percent of Americans favor requiring photo identification at the polling place, and 83 percent favor proof of citizenship for first-time registrants - including 98 percent of Republicans, 84 percent of independents, and 67 percent of Democrats. Pew Research Center put photo-ID support at 83 percent, with 95 percent of Republicans and 71 percent of Democrats behind it and only 16 percent opposed. Rasmussen found 77 percent of likely voters calling photo ID a reasonable measure to protect election integrity. Thirty-six states already request or require identification for in-person voting.

As CNN's Harry Enten put it: "The bottom line is this: Voter ID is NOT controversial in this country."

A bill with that kind of consensus isn't controversial, yet Senate Democrats keep blocking it. Now longtime Democratic strategist James Carville is looking at those numbers and has decided his own party needs an exit ramp. On his podcast, Politics War Room, he told Democrats to stop fighting voter ID and find a way out of a fight he believes is already lost.

The trigger for the conversation was New Jersey. Carville's co-host Al Hunt opened by noting the right had seized on Gov. Mikie Sherrill's disclosure that roughly 6,600 noncitizens were registered to vote in the state, fewer than 400 of whom cast ballots.

"Voter fraud in the United States is an infinitesimal problem," Carville said. "I don't even... to the extent, I guess you could say it exists, anything could exist, it exists on such a minuscule scale, and it's been proven time and time and time again."

That is where most Democrats stop - the problem is too small to bother with. Carville kept going.

"But I don't know if we're not better off saying, okay, we'll take that alternative ID, bring your gas bill or your light bill or something," he said. "Because for whatever reason, it polls at 75%."

He pointed to his home state of Louisiana, where voters already have to show a driver's license at the polls, and asked why the national party keeps treating that standard as an emergency. A rule allowing alternative documents such as a gas or electric bill still polls at 75 percent - a number that should give pause to a party that has spent a decade calling identification requirements a modern poll tax.

"We are not gonna win the war" on some kind of ID, Carville said. "I never had a problem with it. I'm just saying of all the things... if every poll shows 75 or better, saying we should have some kind of ID to vote... just quit fighting it and go along with it and move to the next thing."

Hunt pushed back, arguing that most states already have ID requirements and criticizing the SAVE America Act directly. Carville was quick to draw the same line. "I'm not talking about the SAVE Act, I'm not talking about the SAVE Act at all," he said. His proposal was narrower: "Whatever the law in Louisiana is, make it the national law."

It is worth being precise about what the New Jersey episode actually was, because it is not quite the case for the policy Carville is conceding. Those 6,600 people had pressed "no" when a Motor Vehicle Commission keypad asked whether they were U.S. citizens, and a software defect registered them anyway. They held valid state identification - that is why they were at the MVC. An ID check at the polling place catches someone voting under another person's name. It does not catch a state agency overriding what an applicant told it.

Which is rather the point of Carville's argument. He is not claiming voter ID would fix anything. He is saying it costs Democrats nothing and they are losing the fight anyway - that a party cannot win by declaring war on a basic expectation shared by nearly every voting bloc, and that the energy would be better spent on arguments it can win.

The concession is notable coming from this particular program. Politics War Room has hosted the Brennan Center's Michael Waldman to argue that widespread voter fraud is a myth and to pick apart the SAVE Act. Carville still believes the first part. He has simply stopped believing it matters.