On Tuesday's All In, MSNBC host Chris Hayes devoted a segment to the recent announcement that Alabama will be closing a significant number of the state's DMVs -- some in majority black counties -- as he fretted that Alabama may be making it more difficult for black voters to get the required voter ID cards.
To his credit, Hayes brought on Alabama Republican Secretary of State John Merrill as a guest to discuss the impact of the closings, but, even after Merrill related that each of the state's 67 counties will still have a Board of Registrar office where the voter IDs can be obtained free of charge, the MSNBC host still showed worry that there would be "pain" in having to spend time visiting such an office.
After Merrill informed Hayes that it is much more convenient to get a voter ID from the Board of Registrar office than a DMV because the wait time would be much less, and they are open longer hours than some DMVs, the MSNBC host still seemed unconvinced, and requested assurances that there would not be a "disparate racial impact" caused by the closings.
During the opening tease for the show, Hayes hyped the situation as possibly causing black voters to be "disenfranchised." Hayes:
Then, are black voters being unfairly disenfranchised in Alabama? Tonight, my exclusive interview with Alabama's secretary of state.
In a second plug, before a commercial break, he related:
Later, Alabama, a state with a strict voter ID law, shutters DMVs in several heavily black counties.
Then came a third plug:
Up next, I'll talk to Alabama's secretary of state about recent DMV closures and allegations they could disproportionately affect the ability of black voters to vote.
After recounting that the Voting Rights Act used to require pre-clearance of Alabama's recently enacted voter ID law before the U.S. Supreme Court ruling back in June 2013, Hayes brought up the DMV closings and fretted that the state's most heavily black counties would be without a DMV:
And while 22 of the 31 offices are in majority white counties, according to AL.com columnist John Archibald, quote, "Every single county in which blacks make up more than 75 percent of registered voters will see their driver's license office closed," every one.
Secretary of State Merrill soon brought up the availability of the Board of Registrar offices that supply free voter ID cards. Merrill:
First of all, Chris, we have a location in each one of the 67 counties that is open each and every day that the courthouse is open where people can go and get a qualified government-issued photo ID at no cost, and then we have the local unit-
Hayes jumped in:
CHRIS HAYES: Mr. Merrill, let me just talk about that for a moment, right? These voting IDs, these are voting only IDs. They allow you to vote, you can get them, they''re free of cost.
JOHN MERRILL: That's correct.
The MSNBC host moved on to suggest that some potential voters may not be willing to go through the "pain" of visiting the Board of Registrar office instead of a DMV:
HAYES: What kind of ID do you have?
MERRILL: Oh, I have a driver's license, and that's what I show when I vote, just like most of the people in the state do.
HAYES: That's right. And the pain of going to get a, to spend a day to get an ID is paid off by the fact the driver's license is a useful document.
Merrill corrected him:
Oh, no, wait, wait, wait. There's no wait when you go to the Board of Registrar's office. There's no wait. When you go to get a driver's license, in some of our counties, there's a tremendous wait. But all the counties that you're talking about, Chris, were all limited in the number of hours that were offered in a particular time. And not all of them were open each and every day. Some of them were only open once or twice a month for that period of time for people to go in and to have a driver's test administered.
Undeterred, Hayes continued to press:
HAYES: Here's the issue, right? Let's assume for the moment that the intentions are pure here. Can you assure people watching that there will not be a disparate racial impact of this effect, that fundamentally, the-
MERRILL: Oh, absolutely, and let me tell you why-
HAYES: You can guarantee that in America?
The Alabama Secretary of State explained:
Because this is not a black-white issue, this is a rural issue. If you look at the closures that have occurred, All of the counties that were affected in our state were all rural. If you look at the demographic nature for our state, you would see that, by standard, 52 of the 67 counties in Alabama are deemed rural. So, obviously, it's going to be a rural issue. And 11 of those counties that are affected do have predominantly black populations.
Still unconvinced, Hayes demanded:
The question is, can you, I mean, this is the question, right, can you say here, "Look, we're going to keep track of these numbers, and we will be able to show if we were subjected later on to Voting Rights Act scrutiny about impact, that there was not a disparate impact of this closing"? You can be confident of that?
Below is a complete transcript of the segment from the Tuesday, October 6, All In with Chris Hayes on MSNBC:
CHRIS HAYES, IN OPENING TEASE: Then, are black voters being unfairly disenfranchised in Alabama? Tonight, my exclusive interview with Alabama's secretary of state.
(...)
HAYES, BEFORE COMMERCIAL BREAK AT 8:11 P.M.: Later, Alabama, a state with a strict voter ID law, shutters DMVs in several heavily black counties.
(...)
HAYES, BEFORE COMMERCIAL BREAK AT 8:35 P.M.: Up next, I'll talk to Alabama's secretary of state about recent DMV closures and allegations they could disproportionately affect the ability of black voters to vote.
(...)
HAYES: Last week, the state of Alabama shut the doors at 31 DMV locations, The move came after deep cuts in the state's budget. The closures are just not about DMVs or money. They are about voting. Because, you see, in 2011, Alabama's Republican-controlled state legislature passed a voter ID law that made it illegal to vote in the state without a government-issued photo ID. The law was slated to go into effect three years later. Only one problem: Alabama hadn't submitted the law for pre-clearance at the Justice Department, which was required at the time by the Voting Rights Act. But then, the summer of 2013 everything changed when a county in Alabama won a landmark case.
THOMAS ROBERTS, MSNBC ANCHOR, DATED JUNE 25, 2013: Breaking news from the Supreme Court where justices have just struck down a key provision of the Voting Rights Act, the mos important civil rights law in the country. The Court's 5-4 ruling in Shelby County V. Holder, free states and municipalities with a history of racial discrimination from having to clear changes in voting procedures with the federal government, effectively ending the practice.
The same day, literally within hours of the Supreme Court striking down the heart of the VRA in Alabama officials announced the 2011 voter ID law that now no longer needed preclearance would be going ahead as planned. Which brings us to today, to the closing of 31 DMV locations, many in the state's historic Black Belt region. According to political commentator Paul Whitmire, "Depending on which counties you count as being in Alabama's Black Belt, either 12 or 15 Black Belt counties soon won't have a place to get a driver's license."
And while 22 of the 31 offices are in majority white counties, according to AL.com columnist John Archibald, quote, "Every single county in which blacks make up more than 75 percent of registered voters will see their driver's license office closed," every one.
And, of the 10 counties that went most heavily for Obama during the last election, a whopping eight -- all but two counties -- had their DMV locations closed this past week. Alabama's secretary of state has said the closures "will not leave citizens without a place to receive the required ID card t vote," noting that "All 67 counties in Alabama have a Board of Registrars that issue photo voter ID cards.
For Alabama Congresswoman Terry Sewell, those assurances are not enough. Yesterday, she wrote a letter to the Justice Department asking for an investigation into the closures. Joining me now, from Birmingham, Alabama, is Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill.
Mr. Merrill, than you for joining us. I got to start with this. You understand, given the history of voter suppression in the South, given the fights the Voting Rights Act, why people might look at this and be very, very suspicious about just what is going on there.
JOHN MERRILL, ALABAMA SECRETARY OF STATE: Certainly I understand that, without a doubt. However, one of the things we have to make sure that people understand is that we are being very aggressive in reaching out and trying to touch each and every person that is eligible to vote but may not be registered. And if they're not registered to vote, we want them to be registered to vote, and we want them to have a qualified government-issued photo ID.
HAYES: How are you doing that? What does that mean, being "very aggressive"? You have a mobile unit, right, that's going around into different counties?
MERRILL: We do. First of all, Chris, we have a location in each one of the 67 counties that is open each and every day that the courthouse is open where people can go and get a qualified government-issued photo ID at no cost, and then we have the local unit-
HAYES: Mr. Merrill, let me just talk about that for a moment, right? These voting IDs, these are voting only IDs. They allow you to vote, you can get them, they''re free of cost.
MERRILL: That's correct.
HAYES: What kind of ID do you have?
MERRILL: Oh, I have a driver's license, and that's what I show when I vote, just like most of the people in the state do.
HAYES: That's right. And the pain of going to get a, to spend a day to get an ID is paid off by the fact the driver's license is a useful document.
MERRILL: Oh, no, wait, wait, wait. There's no wait when you go to the Board of Registrar's office. There's no wait. When you go to get a driver's license, in some of our counties, there's a tremendous wait. But all the counties that you're talking about, Chris, were all limited in the number of hours that were offered in a particular time. And not all of them were open each and every day. Some of them were only open once or twice a month for that period of time for people to go in and to have a driver's test administered.
HAYES: Here's the issue, right? Let's assume for the moment that the intentions are pure here, can you assure people watching that there will not be a disparate racial impact of this effect, that fundamentally, the-
MERRILL: Oh, absolutely, and let me tell you why-
HAYES: You can guarantee that in America?
MERRILL: -because this is not a black-white issue, this is a rural issue. If you look at the closures that have occurred, All of the counties that were effected in our state were all rural. If you look at the demographic nature for you state, you would see that, by standard, 52 of the 67 counties in Alabama are deemed rural. So, obviously, it's going to be a rural issue. And 11 of those counties that are affected do have predominantly black populations.
HAYES: The question is, can you, I mean, this is the question, right, can you say here, "Look, we're going to keep track of these numbers, and we will be able to show if we were subjected later on to Voting Rights Act scrutiny about impact, that there was not a disparate impact of this closing"? You can be confident of that?
MERRILL: Absolutely, because one of the other things that we're doing, Chris, is that we are sending that mobile unit to each and every county and making sure that everybody has an opportunity outside of the county seat to register to vote. We're sending them to festivals, we're sending them to schools, we're sending them to churches, we're going on Saturdays and Sundays, we're sending them to Wal-Mart. We're doing it to ensure that each and every person is exposed to the opportunity with publicity so they know far in advance that they're coming. And we're doing it to make sure that people are aware that, when they have that opportunity, they can take advantage of it.
HAYES: Let me ask you this: That mobile unit, how many IDs has that mobile unit issued this year?
MERRILL: That mobile unit has only issued 29 IDs this year. In total this year, in the entire state, we've issued 1,442 units.
HAYES: My understanding is there are about 250,000 eligible voters without IDs in your state. Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill, thank you much for joining me. I really appreciate it.
MERRILL: Yes, sir, it's good to be with you.
