Study Finds Republican Voter Suppression Is Even More Effective Than You Think

[applegrove]

Study Finds Republican Voter Suppression Is Even More Effective Than You Think

by Scott Keyes at Think Progress

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2016/02/02/3745296/major-voter-id-study/

"SNIP.............


For example, the researchers found that in primary elections, “a strict ID law could be expected to depress Latino turnout by 9.3 points, Black turnout by 8.6 points, and Asian American turnout by 12.5 points.”

The impact of strict voter ID was also evident in general elections, where minority turnout plummeted in relation to the white vote. “For Latinos in the general election, the predicted gap more than doubles from 4.9 points in states without strict ID laws to 13.5 points in states with strict photo ID laws,” the study found. That gap increased by 2.2 points for African Americans and by 5 points for Asian Americans. The effect was even more pronounced in primary elections.

The study found that strict voter ID laws had little impact on younger voters as a whole, while there were “small indications” that poorer Americans were adversely impacted, though likely not to the same degree racial minorities were.

............

In a key finding, the study showed that “Democratic turnout drops by an estimated 8.8 percentage points in general elections when strict photo identification laws are in place,” compared to just 3.6 percentage points for Republicans. Even worse for the left is the impact on the ideology of the electorate. “For strong liberals the estimated drop in turnout in strict photo identification states is an alarming 7.9 percentage points,” researchers found. “By contrast, strong conservatives actually vote at a slightly higher rate – 4.8 points – in strict ID states, all else equal.”


..............SNIP"

[Gothmog]

1. Thanks for posting this

This is one of my areas of interest.

[applegrove]

2. It is so devastating that the GOP can get away with this.

[Gothmog]

8. I worked with the state party last year on this issue

The best that we could do is help a couple hundred people get ids

[Takket]

3. The DNC should really...

Have some sort of outreach program in place to make sure people are aware of the requirements they need to meet to vote so no one is caught off guard. Maybe some mailers need to go out in communities specifically targeted by these laws with a 1-800 number they can call if they have questions.

Unfortunately this is the field we have to play on so until an organized effort to challenge these laws in the supreme court (because they are an illegal poll tax in many cases) we should be doing everything possible to "deal" with it to maximize turnout.

[Gothmog]

9. In Texas, the Sec of State spent $2 million to educate people

That was a drop in the bucket. Wisconsin has not spent much either to educate people about their new law http://host.madison.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/state-s-low-key-educational-effort-on-new-voter-id/article_c8b9b94e-c0ee-5ec4-a832-0a9acfce946a.html

lThe state elections board has created a website, bringit.wisconsin.gov, to inform the public about voter ID. It also has crafted public service announcements that TV and radio stations may run, and has a staffer conducting voter ID presentations to advocacy groups that work with voters.

But the state elections board, the Government Accountability Board, has no funds available for advertising about the new requirement, according to its spokesman, Reid Magney.

Larry Dupuis is legal director of ACLU of Wisconsin, one of the groups that has challenged the voter ID law in court. Now that it’s clear the law will go into effect, Dupuis said he and other groups fear too many voters will be uninformed when they head to the polls.

“We are worried that there’s not a sufficiently robust effort at public education because there’s not the money for it,” Dupuis said.

Other states that implemented voter ID in recent years launched paid media campaigns to educate voters. Pennsylvania spent $5 million on an ad campaign, Alabama ran print ads and Mississippi won advertising awards for its voter ID spots. Wendy Underhill, an elections expert with the National Conference of State Legislatures, said Kansas ran billboards with the slogan: “Got Voter ID?”

The GOP does not want people to know about these laws because the GOP wants to suppress the vote

[Desktopgrass]

21. Get out the vote

Sounds like a get out the vote problem. If you offer help to get registered, and transportation to polls as part of your get out the vote effort, why not help people learn what id is acceptable and how to get said id.

I think this strategy would pay dividends at the polls and only cost you an issue.

[Gothmog]

22. The Texas law is designed to make it difficult to get a "free" id

Last year the Legis adopted a provision that you can get a free birth certificate if you go to the county clerk's office and provide several items of id that may be difficult to get. You can not get a free or cheap birth certificate by mail (the department is studying the regulations for this). Next you have to go to the DPS office and present the birth certificate and several other (often different forms of id) to get an id. My son in law was the first person in my county to get a "free" id and he had to pay $50 for an out of state birth certificate. You have to make two trips to the vote and these offices are only open during working hours. A poor person has to miss two days of work to get the required id

[Desktopgrass]

19. Excellent post

This is a get out the vote issue. Many voters can not afford transportation to and from the polls, the democrat party does an excellent and commendable job of getting this constituent group to the polls.

The voter id issue is no different. Its called get out the vote.

Why do you register a voter, drive them to the polls and never once address the id issue with newly registered voter. This is the conversation i would hope to take place.

Volunteer: I am here to help you register to vote.
Non voter: ok cool
Volunteer: Great. Do you know if you have the proper id to vote?
Non voter: I dunno
Volunteer: No worries, lets sort that out now.
Non voter: ok whatever
Volunteer: excellent

That sounds like a reasonable 3rd leg to a get out the vote stool

[Gothmog]

23. It is not that easy

There are only a limited number of acceptable ids and all of these forms of id require a birth certificate that you either have to pay for or take off a day of work to go to county clerk's office (assuming that the voter was born in Texas). If the voter was born in another state then they have to pay for that id and wait for it. To get the free id, you have to present several forms of id that some voters may not have.

After you get the birth certificate, then you have to go the Texas Department of Public Safety office (not all counties have a DPS office) during business hours and apply for the id. My son in law had all of the documents and it took him several hours to get the id because so few ids are issued.

The State of Texas want to make it hard to vote and did a great job.

A three judge panel of the 5th Circuit upheld a ruling declaring the Texas voter id law had an adverse impact on minorities but the State of Texas is delaying things with en banc appeals. It looks like we will have subject to the voter id law for the March 1 primary

[VOX]

30. Please don't use the code term "Democrat Party" here..

"Democrat" is not an adjective. "Democrat Party" is a right-wing code-dig put into use by Joe McCarthy, and it's now the calling card of every RW talking head, politician and partisan Republicans. This is the last place you'd use it. Surprised you don't know better, this being *Democratic* Underground.

[Gothmog]

34. Again, you are wrong

The evidence in the North Carolina voter id case shows that the GOP selected the approved forms of ID with the intent to hurt poor voters https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/north-carolinas-voter-id-shenanigans/2016/01/31/7d9f1090-c563-11e5-a4aa-f25866ba0dc6_story.html?postshare=2641454348809354&tid=ss_tw

More telling was the surgical precision with which North Carolina Republicans approved certain forms of photo IDs for voting and excluded others. In expert testimony for the plaintiffs, Allan Lichtman, an American University professor, pointed out that the legislation allows identification disproportionately held by whites, such as passports, motor vehicle department IDs, expired IDs for those over age 70, and veteran and military IDs. At the same time, Mr. Lichtman said, legislators excluded student IDs, government employee IDs, and, as Judge Schroeder noted, public assistance IDs from being used by voters at the polls; those are disproportionately held by African Americans.

[jpak]

4. But voter fraud dropped 123278399203792902390689279403%

yup

[Warpy]

5. It would have suppressed the reservation vote around here

which is why the tribes fought so hard against it and managed to get it defeated.

Now we need to focus on Democratic voter suppression, especially during midterms. "Business as usual" is not a selling point, guys.

[Desktopgrass]

6. Strict id law

My state has a strict I.D. law.
You must present identification to purchase beer, cigarettes, and lotto tickets.
My observations are not a "study" but I have never noticed a problem. Beer, cigarettes, and lotto tickets fly out of the convenience stores.

[Warpy]

7. It's a real problem for older folks without driver's licenses

Enjoy your stay.

[Gothmog]

10. You are not limited to a handful of GOP approved ids

You can use any ID for the above activities but to vote the GOP has a list of ids that are hard to get if you are poor. This is intentional

[Desktopgrass]

12. Id

To purchase those items in this state requires a Government Issued photo id, not just "any id."

Say, what are these "hard to get" forms of identification that are on the "gop list?"

[uppityperson]

15. No, you don't need a gvt id to buy beer, cigs, lotto tickets. I've not needed one for years

Poor people cannot afford a passport and even sometimes a drivers license is difficult to get.

[Desktopgrass]

16. Id

Your stores do not ask you for id when you buy beer?

[uppityperson]

18. Hell no. Not for the last 30 years.

[Desktopgrass]

20. What about the children?

I'm sorry. In my state we have a law, to protect the children, that requires government id from anyone, regardless of age, who attempts to purchase alcohol.

Upity, I guess your state sees no need for such sa law, to protect the children.

[uppityperson]

25. people in my state are capable of differentiating between a 8 yr old and a 60 yr old. Children

don't vote, which is what we are talking about. What state are you in that requires every person, regardless of age, to SHOW gvt id to purchase alcohol? Technically they can ask me but realistically they can see that I am obviously far far far beyond 21. I'd like to know what state you are in that requires everyone to always show their ID before buying beer. Thank you for letting me know.

Poor people cannot afford a passport and even sometimes a drivers license is difficult to get.
Gothmog has told you several times the issue with getting TX id.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=7581729
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=7581705

The Texas law is designed to make it difficult to get a "free" id

Last year the Legis adopted a provision that you can get a free birth certificate if you go to the county clerk's office and provide several items of id that may be difficult to get. You can not get a free or cheap birth certificate by mail (the department is studying the regulations for this). Next you have to go to the DPS office and present the birth certificate and several other (often different forms of id) to get an id. My son in law was the first person in my county to get a "free" id and he had to pay $50 for an out of state birth certificate. You have to make two trips to the vote and these offices are only open during working hours. A poor person has to miss two days of work to get the required id

[uppityperson]

33. So not everyone has to show ID when buying beer. Thanks for the link.

But after a year, she said, Tennessee's Legislature made a concession for older beer buyers.

"If the person purchasing the beer could reasonably be viewed as 50 or older, then there was no penalty to the clerk if they didn't card that customer," LeRoy said.

[librechik]

17. why defend them with a distraction?It's as if

you don't care that the same thing that allows beer sales is going to take a way someone's vote.

[Gothmog]

24. You are wrong again

The State of Texas has excluded many common forms of ids to keep people from voting. State and county govt. ids are not acceptable for voting nor are student ids from state schools because these groups have people who vote for democrats. The law is designed to keep groups who tend to vote for Democratic candidates from voting.

Read the posts on this thread. The ids on the approved list requires a birth certificate which the state makes hard to get. After you get a birth certificate you have to go to the Texas Department of Public Safety if your county has one during business hours. The DPS tries to make it hard to get these ids to keep their costs down and so only two hundred such ids were issued out of a potential 1.2 million voters who needed these ids.

[csziggy]

27. In Florida you have to provide a birth certificate which costs $15

In order to get a state photo ID which costs $25 or a driver's license which costs more. You also have to show a proof of residence and a Social Security card. If you have changed your name - such as most women do when married - you have to show proof of your name change. Women have to provide a copy of a wedding certificate, another cost to obtain. If they've been married more than once they have to provide divorce papers or death certificate for each husband along with the additional wedding certificate.

OP - the state ID is only good for so many years then it's another $25 to renew it. Fortunately once they have been provided with the other forms of ID they keep scanned copies so those don't have to be provided every time.

The last time I renewed my driver's license and had to provide all the proofs the idiot clerk did not believe that my Social Security card was real. It's the original one that my parents obtained for me when I was a kid and the dipstick clerk was so young she'd never seen one like it. At least I was smart enough that I never changed my name when I married so that kept the number of certificates I had to provide to a minimum!

[marble falls]

35. What strict state is that? In Texas those strict ID laws aren't strict....

if one is obviously over 21. Secondly I can buy cigarettes, lottery ticket and alcohol and pass them on to anyone, can't do that with a vote. Thirdly election fraud by voters is very,very rare, election fraud almost always happens AFTER votes are cast, by "officials" not individual voters.

The only ID really needed to vote should be a utility bill or a library card or a checkbook: something with the name and correct address of the registered voter.

Are you sure you're on the right site?

[Gothmog]

11. Study: Law Discouraged More Than Those Without Voter ID

The above study is consistent with and to a large degree validates the Rice University/Baker Institute study

The sole and only purpose for voter id laws is to suppress the vote and a new study out shows that these laws do suppress the vote. One Congressional seat went to the GOP due to the Texas voter id law according to this study http://www.texastribune.org/2015/08/06/study-law-discouraged-more-those-without-voter-id/

Texas’ strict voter identification requirements kept many would-be voters in a Hispanic-majority congressional district from going to the polls last November — including many who had proper IDs — a new survey shows.

And the state's voter ID law – coupled with lackluster voter education efforts – might have shaped the outcome of a congressional race, the research suggests.

Released on Thursday, the 50th anniversary of the federal Voting Rights Act, the joint Rice University and University of Houston study found that 13 percent of those registered in the 23rd Congressional District and did not vote stayed home, at least partly, because they thought they lacked proper ID under a state law considered the strictest in the nation. And nearly 6 percent did not vote primarily because of the requirements.

But most of those discouraged Texans had the proper documents to vote, says the study, which came one day after a federal appeals court ruled that the four-year-old Texas law has a “discriminatory effect” on Hispanics and African-Americans....

Researchers focused on CD-23 largely because of its demographics and the neck-in-neck congressional race it held. CD-23 is seen as the state's only U.S. House district that's competitive between Republicans and Democrats. Roughly two-thirds of the voting age population is Hispanic.

Just 118,000 voters cast ballots in the race that saw U.S. Rep. Will Hurd, R-San Antonio, edge incumbent Pete Gallego, a Democrat from Alpine. The difference was about 2,400 votes.

Of those who said the state ID law discouraged them from voting, four to five times more said they would have voted for Gallego.

“While the results of this survey do not allow us to conclude that Gallego would have been re-elected in the absence of the voter photo ID law, they do indicate that the law did have a disproportionate impact on his supporters, and therefore may have possibly cost him the election,” the study said

.
The Rice/Baker institute did a good job here. Voter id laws depress voter turnout and it appears that Pete Gallego is not in Congress now due to this law.

[Igel]

13. However, the biggest factor wasn't those without ID.

It was those who were convinced they didn't have IDs.

The news was clear as to what counted; most people had it, and those that didn't could get it (the question has always been, if you're 40, poor, and don't have some form of ID, how, exactly, can you get a job, pay taxes, collect benefits). What wasn't clear was all the gossip and innuendo and outrage that needed the false information--you needed to have just X form of ID, or they wouldn't accept Y form of ID.

All the "you're a victim, be upset" talk replaced "you probably have the necessary ID, check this list."

[Desktopgrass]

14. Is this study suggesting minorities aren't too bright?

"The voter ID law depressed turnout in the 2014 election, but it did so primarily through confusion, not through actually keeping people without IDs from voting,” said Mark P. Jones, a professor at Rice’s Baker Institute for Public Policy and an author of the study."

Sounds like mass confusion. Mass confusion is not discrimination
The article pointed out that the great state of Texas spent $2 million in an education effort.



The law requires most citizens (some, like people with disabilities, can be exempt) to show one of a handful of forms of allowable photo identification before their election ballots can be counted. Acceptable forms include a state driver's license or ID card that is not more than 60 days expired at the time of voting, a concealed handgun license, a U.S. passport, a military ID card or a U.S citizenship certificate with a photo."

Sounds like many forms of id are acceptable.

I just don't understand how producing an id discriminates against anyone. This study seems to suggest head up butt syndrome was the problem. Do you want me to believe minorities are just too dumb, because thats what it seems like you are saying.

[CBGLuthier]

29. Man, we are all gonna miss you

No,not really.

[marble falls]

36. Are you sure you are on the right site????????

[xfundy]

26. This should be national news.

[applegrove]

28. There was a time when it would have made national news.

I can remember that far back on US news.

[Gothmog]

38. National: New evidence that voter ID laws ‘skew democracy’ in favor of white Republicans | The Washi

The Washington Post is covering this story http://thevotingnews.com/new-evidence-that-voter-id-laws-skew-democracy-in-favor-of-white-republicans-the-washington-post/

Voter fraud is, for all intents and purposes, practically nonexistent. The best available research on the topic, by Loyola Law School professor Justin Levitt, found only 31 credible incidents of voter impersonation in an investigation of over 1 billion votes cast. But that hasn’t dampened Republican efforts to pass a spate of strict voter ID laws since 2008. And it hasn’t hurt the public’s overall enthusiasm for those laws, either. But the results of a new working paper from political scientists at University of California, San Diego suggest folks may want to consider. The researchers analyzed turnout in recent elections — between 2008 and 2012 — in states that did and did not implement the strictest form of voter ID laws. They found that these laws consistently and significantly decreased turnout not just among traditionally Democratic-leaning groups, like blacks and Hispanics, but among Republican voters too.

The findings are notable because they’re some of the first using data in elections that took place after some states implemented photo ID requirements to vote. Previous studies on the effects of these laws showed mixed results. A 2014 report by the Government Accountability Office examined 10 of these studies. Five showed no significant effect of voter ID laws on turnout, four found a significant decrease in turnout, and one found, paradoxically, that the laws increased turnout.

But each of these 10 studies was of general elections that took place before 2008. Most of the strictest ID laws were passed after that, so the ability of earlier research to gauge the impact of these laws is extremely limited.

[Gothmog]

39. Voter Suppression Is More Effective Than You Know

[Gothmog]

37. Study Shows That Republican-Backed Voter ID Laws Are Really Working for Them

Ari Berman points out that this study confirms the results of other studies http://www.mediaite.com/online/study-shows-that-republican-backed-voter-id-laws-are-really-working-for-them/

Ari Berman, author of Give Us the Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America, told Mediaite that the results of the new study, while “certainly dramatic,” recalled other studies that have shown voter ID laws are successful at dissuading certain demographics from voting. Specifically, he noted a 2014 study by the Government Accountability Office, which found that voter ID laws in Kansas and Tennessee reduced turnout by 2 to 3 percent, particularly among young, black, and newly registered voters.

“I believe that is why Republicans are so aggressively pushing these laws,” Berman said. “To reduce turnout among Democratic-leaning voters, especially considering there is scant evidence of voter impersonation fraud to justify them.”

[Todays_Illusion]

40. Of course it works then our propaganda as news does the cover story, Dems don't vote.

All you need is control of all the information sources and that is true now more than ever in our History how tightly the information is controlled especially in all those nice red states, and yes that includes the internet. When only a few big ISPs can provide access those same few can manipulate what is released in a very controlled way.

That is one reason they are now "feeding" facebook, and feeding only what is to be consumed, not what is needed to be an informed citizen.

[UTUSN]

41. k