‘Suppression,’ Debunked: Study Concludes Voter ID Laws Do Not Depress Voter Turnout – IOTW Report

‘Suppression,’ Debunked: Study Concludes Voter ID Laws Do Not Depress Voter Turnout

Townhall: One pillar of dogma among leftist activists is that voter ID laws, under which citizens are required to present a valid form of identification in order to cast ballots in elections, amount to insidious and racist forms of “voter suppression.”  That term deserves to be placed in scare quotes because it’s often employed as a catch-all phrase to describe any policy or idea that liberals believe would reduce their chances of winning.  Voter ID laws have been upheld by the Supreme Court as constitutional, and enjoy overwhelming public support — including approval from large majorities of racial minorities, who evidently don’t share the professional Left’s racialized hysteria.  We’ve written previously about how, if reducing turnout among certain populations truly were the goal of such laws, they’ve failed miserably.  This example out of Georgia comes to mind:

When Georgia became one of the first states in the nation to demand a photo ID at the ballot box, both sides served up dire predictions. Opponents labeled it a Jim Crow-era tactic that would suppress the minority vote…Turnout among black and Hispanic voters increased from 2006 to 2010, dramatically outpacing population growth for those groups over the same period…“I think the rhetoric on both sides has been overstated,” said Edward Foley, executive director of an election law center at The Ohio State University’s Moritz College of Law. “It hasn’t had the voter-suppressing effect that some people feared,” Foley said.

Far more useful details are available here. Speaking of Georgia and alleged voter suppression, and given the recently-raised profile of that state’s failed 2018 gubernatorial nominee, please read this primer on the wild allegations that arose during that election.  Now back to the immediate issue at hand — common sense voter integrity safeguards such as mandating identification aren’t about suppression, and they don’t achieve suppression.  A new academic study reviewed the data and reached important conclusions:  READ

6 Comments on ‘Suppression,’ Debunked: Study Concludes Voter ID Laws Do Not Depress Voter Turnout

  1. One of the few great things justice Roberts did was to single-handedly stop the ongoing fraud of the Voter Rights Act. In fact more blacks voted in the South than anywhere else in recent years, yet Congress kept punishment in place because everyone was afraid to vote against it.

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  2. If strict enforcement of voter ID requirements suppresses turnout, then the problem lies with those who self-suppress, not with the requirement to prove you are who you claim to be when voting. All jurisdictions in the US MUST have stringent ID requrements and very close audits and updates of voter registration rolls. Anything else is pure election fraud.

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  3. I’m sure it does suppress the turnout of people who can’t figure out or are too lazy to get a government ID card … but on the whole, that’s probably a good thing

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