Hans von Spakovsky, the Heritage Foundation expert who has spoken in favor of a voter identification law for North Carolina, uses a new National Review Online column to rebut claims about the alleged negative impacts of voter ID.

Among the many poorly researched articles that have written about voter-ID laws, one piece that appeared recently in Politico holds a special place.

Reporter Emily Schultheis opens with the claim that “at least 5 million voters, predominantly young and from minority groups sympathetic to President Barack Obama, could be affected by an unprecedented flurry of new legislation by Republican governors and GOP-led legislatures to change or restrict voting rights by Election Day 2012.”

Schultheis doesn’t say where she got the estimate of 5 million until well into the article — it’s from a Brennan Center report. And she fails to disclose the radical, left-wing nature of the Brennan Center or the fact that it is an advocacy organization that is litigating against voter ID.

As I have pointed out previously, that 5 million figure is completely speculative and not based on any substantive evidence. In fact, the experience of states such as Georgia and Indiana, whose voter-ID laws have been in place for years, as well as reputable surveys conducted by academic institutions such as American University, consistently show that the share of registered voters who don’t have a photo ID is less than 1 percent. This is a far cry from the high numbers the Brennan Center has been claiming since 2006.

Every state that has implemented a voter-ID law has also made free IDs available to voters who don’t have them. One might wonder how in the world 5 million people are going to be prevented from voting — and why so few people are receiving free IDs.

For instance, Kansas has a new voter-ID law. Through May of this year, only 32 out of 1.7 million registered voters have applied for a free photo ID because they didn’t already have one. In most of the six years that Georgia has had a voter-ID law in place, fewer than 0.05 percent of the state’s 6 million registered voters have received free IDs.

Schultheis also says, as if it is a proven fact, that these “laws tend to disproportionately affect young voters and minorities.” Really? Based on what evidence? Another Brennan Center study? The actual turnout of Democratic and minority voters went up, not down, in Georgia and Indiana after their voter-ID laws went into effect, and those increases were larger than in many states without voter-ID laws.

Von Spakovsky also shared his thoughts about voter ID with Carolina Journal Radio/CarolinaJournal.tv.