The 2000 vote debacle in Florida is ingrained in the national psyche.

Who can forget the butterfly ballots, hanging chads, seemingly endless recounts, court challenges and U.S. Supreme Court decision that ultimately decided the presidential election in favor of George W. Bush?

In Washington, citizens were stunned again by a close gubernatorial election in 2004, which raised questions about voter eligibility and ballot tabulation.

The two high-profile elections have spurred election reform throughout the country and could be behind the results of an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll that shows 81 percent of the country supports a photo identification requirement at the polls. Seven states require photo ID now. Meanwhile, U.S. House Republicans tapped concern about voter fraud last week to pass a bill that requires voters to show a government-issued ID card before voting in federal elections. The bill passed on a 228-196 vote, with 98 percent of Republicans in favor of it, 98 percent of Democrats opposed. A vote by the Senate probably won’t take place until next year.

On the surface, Republicans seem to be doing something to increase voter confidence in election results. However, Democrats and the National Conference of State Legislatures have good reason to worry that this legislation might erect a barrier that will keep some citizens from voting. Or that it will create another costly layer of state bureaucracy while doing little to address a relatively minor problem.

The perception of growing voter fraud doesn’t line up with reality.

A League of Women Voters study was cited recently by the Associated Press as an example of how little voter fraud occurs. The study examined every election in Ohio from 2002 to 2004. It found that only .00004 percent of those who voted were ineligible to do so. Also, the American Civil Liberties Union told the AP, only 86 people have been convicted of federal crimes related to election fraud out of 196,139,871 ballots cast nationwide since October 2002.

Dan English remembers hearing of only one instance of voter fraud in Kootenai County in his 11 years as clerk, involving a Spokane resident who used a Lake Coeur d’Alene home address to vote. “Once in awhile,” English commented on Huckleberries Online, a Spokesman-Review blog, “we will have a person (who) appears to be attempting to vote when our records show they have already voted. This is usually a case of an elderly person (who) appears to have ‘forgotten’ they have already voted. We reassure them they have … and all is well.”

Many who support the photo ID reform say they won’t be inconvenienced because they routinely show their driver’s license to cash checks. However, those who live on the nation’s fringe might not have a driver’s license. U.S. Rep. Juanita Millender-McDonald of Carson, Calif., the ranking Democrat on the House Administration panel, told the AP that 40 percent of the seniors in Georgia don’t have any form of identification, including a birth certificate, to meet the proof-of-citizenship requirement for obtaining a proposed voter ID card. She maintains the voter-ID bill is nothing more than “a 21st-century poll tax.”

The presidential election in Florida and Washington’s last gubernatorial election show that election laws and practices deserve scrutiny. But neither detected widespread voter fraud. The voter-ID law is an overreaction to a minuscule problem.