Voter ID laws ‘skew democracy’ in favor of white Republicans

[wildeyed]

I have been arguing against voter ID for..... I dunno, since they passed the first one in GA so many years ago. And now it has come to my state. It just GALLS me that we are still fighting this battle. We should fight harder. For the morality of it and for the people who fought before and the sacrifices that were made. And because once we make the electorate free to vote, THEN we can pass really liberal stuff. And screw the swing voters because they won't be able to do anything about it.

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.

......

After controlling for all these factors, they found "substantial drops in turnout for minorities under strict voter ID laws." Their analysis suggests that turnout for Latino voters was suppressed by 10.8 points in states with strict photo ID laws, compared to states without them. For multiracial Americans, the drop was 12.8 points.

The laws also increased the participation gap between whites and non-whites. "For Latinos in the general election, the predicted gap from whites doubled from 5.3 points in states without strict photo ID laws to 11.9 in states with strict photo ID laws," the study found. For black voters in the primaries, the strict photo ID laws caused the gap with white voters to almost double to 8.5 points.

More......

[randys1]

1. There is only one reason for the laws, to stop POC and students from voting.

I say at birth we receive a chip in our head or whatever, and then we dont have any problems

Teaparty OK with that?

[yeoman6987]

2. Why can't a nonprofit buy IDs for voters?

I don't understand that and I don't understand why they don't throw a picture on voter ID cards. This would be a win-win.

[randys1]

3. Why cant anti democracy people stop trying to destroy democracy. There is virtually no need

for voter id.

I suggested what I did as mostly a joke because we know righty is never going to go along with a chip in the forehead or wherever, or any kind of national ID.

[gollygee]

4. IMO, if the government wants to reqire voters to have picture IDs to vote

Then the government should find a way to make that happen and make sure every single voter has one. If they can't or won't do that, it's a poll tax.

[The Polack MSgt]

5. THIS... THIS RIGHT HERE

This is the flat out truth.

RWers love the Constitution except for all those pesky amendments that aren't the 2nd and the 10th.

The 24th gets no love at all in Wingerville.

[wildeyed]

8. YES

Make it a separate card and EVERYONE must apply.

In my state, you need an ID to vote in person, but not absentee, even though absentee is more vulnerable to fraud. Guess why.



Because Reps vote absentee in much higher numbers than Dems. Excuse me for a moment while my eyes bug out in rage......

[wildeyed]

6. It is a poll tax.

No one should ever have to pay to vote. It is particularly ugly in this country because of the racial history of poll tax in the South as a tool to disenfranchise black voters. The new ID laws are just a reincarnation of that same old racist, nasty BS.

[JustAnotherGen]

14. Adding to my agreement with other responses

To your idea -

Can you guarantee me that the pictures will not be housed at the state level?

Black people who have traditionally been the target of race based voter prevention laws - we can't trust state governments to get ahold of the pictures and not purge us from the rolls.

Trust, faith, American Exceptioalism, Fairness etc etc

Black people can't rely on those things - they have never applied to us.

Poll workers in the state can see the picture when we show up - and continue to compare signatures - but they should t have access to those images.

Besides - they might use it (a bad employee) to pretend to be someone else and steal their identity. E Commerce - you sometimes have to fax or scan in ID proving who you are - my company does this for large consumer purchases. Let's face it -

There are lots of crooks in government.

[Number23]

7. This will come as a big "Duh!" to everyone in this forum

And it's still so maddening and depressing.

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.

[wildeyed]

9. But a bit more for Dems and particular POC.

Look at my state, NC, in the 538 flip-o-matic interactive. We are 49.1%/49.7% Dem to Rep with turnout rates from the last GE (no voter ID), modeled on current demographics. In a close race, the ID law could shave just enough to push our EC votes into the other column. Could be FL in 2000 all over again.

We already understood all of this, but I am glad they have some more definitive studies. That will help in court cases, and there are still a bunch wending their way through the system. And I am glad the WaPo and others are speaking up. Finally. Took them long enough. They all cowered when the laws were being made.

[Number23]

10. "That will help in court cases"

One could only hope.

And I truly want to see more national attention given to this and more attention from the DOJ.

[wildeyed]

11. Rev. Barber and Moral Monday begin marching on the statehouse again

this month to protest voter suppression laws and other unjust laws that our General Assembly has passed recently. We are getting some traction with articles like this one. NC is supposed to be a "New South" state of equality and economic prosperity. Instead, they are bringing back Jim Crow. The optics are, um, problematic for them

It is going to feel so good to beat these guys. Apparently, "winning" non-violently means making your enemies your friends. I struggle with the finer points of non-violent philosophy. My temperament is a bit too fiery, I guess.

[Gothmog]

12. This is only the latest study that confirms that voter id laws suppress the vote of minorities

The only reason for these laws is to help republicans steal elections by suppressing the vote

[wildeyed]

13. The only logical reason

is voter suppression. This is true. When I heard about the first one in GA all those years ago, I rushed over here to inform the revolutionaries of the assault on our coalition members so we could plan our defense. And they were like, Oh, doesn't everyone have an ID? What's the big deal? It was a that point that I knew we were in trouble on this issue.

But I do feel like we are getting some traction and that "progressives" might be buying a clue, finally, about the nature of these assaults. So the plan is for the activists to continue to humiliate them as hard and as often as possible about their blatantly racist polices, and on the other end, keep pushing the court cases.

It really is a shame about the other really shitty Supreme Court ruling that no one ever talks about. The one where they dismantled key provisions of Voting Rights that would protect most of the South from this BS. And absolutely proves they were wrong to do it, that we still require that level of supervision to keep the racists in check. Sigh....