As voting rights advocates predicted loud and often, new voter ID laws seem to be hitting Democrats harder than Republicans.Republican turnout is up while Democratic turnout is down.
Eight out of the 16 states that have held primaries or caucuses so far have implemented new voter ID or other restrictive voting laws since 2010. Democratic turnout has dropped 37 percent overall in those eight states, but just 13 percent in the states that didn't enact new voter restrictions. To put it another way, Democratic voter turnout was 285 percent worse in states with new voter ID laws...
There is also "mounting research" that shows voter ID laws "affect voter turnout and disproportionately affect certain types of voters," said Jennifer Clark, a lawyer for the Brennan Center's Democracy Program at New York University. African-Americans and Latinos are the most likely to be hurt by the new restrictions.
In other words, research suggests that voter ID laws suppress Democratic votes more than Republican ones. A recent study from the University of California, San Diego, looked at election behavior before and after states enacted stricter voter ID laws. It found that Democratic voter turnout dropped by 8.8 percent while Republican turnout fell by only 3.6 percent. The change was most apparent among minority voters.
I'm curious, how are these "African-Americans and Latinos" who are "hurt by the new restrictions" able to access Obamacare, get a drivers license, open a bank account, purchase prescription drugs or alcohol, etc., without the identification necessary to vote?
Let's be honest, the issue for lefties was never about disenfranchisement. When you rely on the adage "vote early, vote often", and when you rely on the votes of dead people, then yes, voter ID laws are going to hamper your ability to cheat--and that's why the left in general and the Democratic Party in particular have been against voter ID laws for decades.
The family of a close relative lived in a completely Democratic-controlled city and the pols knew who voted, when they came to the polls and how they voted. His grandfather retired just prior to a particular election, so came to his polling place much later than his expected, very early hour - to discover that he "had already voted" and "must have forgotten" he did so - the poll workers thought he had died.
ReplyDelete