They needed a study for this, apparently:
States that stiffened their voter identification laws saw drops in election turnout, with disproportionate effect on blacks and younger people, according to a nonpartisan congressional study released Wednesday.
As of June, 33 states had enacted laws obligating voters to show a photo ID at the polls, the study said. Republicans say that requirement will reduce fraud, but Democrats insist the laws are a GOP effort to reduce Democratic turnout on Election Day.
The report by the Government Accountability Office was released less than a month before elections that will determine which party controls Congress.
The study found that election turnout in Kansas and Tennessee — which tightened voter ID requirements between the 2008 and 2012 elections — dropped more steeply than it did in four states that didn’t change their identification requirements.
The report found that in those two states, reduced voter turnout was sharper among people aged 18 to 23 than among those from 44 to 53. The drop was also more pronounced among blacks than whites, Hispanics or Asians.
Young people and blacks generally tend to support Democratic candidates.
That’s why Republicans are moving the heavens and earth to try to pass and enforce voter id laws. Their base is shrinking and dying off, so they are trying to keep the blahs and other minorities from voting.
West of the Cascades
Studies like this are really, really helpful in court, so, yes, they needed a study. Is there a link, thanks?
chelsea530
As well as scaring off voters of a certain persuasion.
Howard Beale IV
Fuck the GOP with a 20 ft. long barb-wire wrapped curare-tipped telephone pole with no lubricants.
(The scary part? Some of them would enjoy it.)
Omnes Omnibus
@West of the Cascades: Studies like that also show that what seems like it should be so, actually is.
Elizabelle
I’d like to know if voter suppression efforts stiffen Democratic-leaning spines to vote.
I think it might. Unintended consequences.
Howard Beale IV
@West of the Cascades: HuffPo states it’s from a GAO study per an AP wire report.
Omnes Omnibus
@Elizabelle: I am pretty sure that the people who the GOP is trying to disenfranchise can see what is happening. I am also pretty sure that a whole shitload of them are pissed off about it too.
jl
Youth is a minority? I can see the sick and twisted logic to keeping African-Americans, (and maybe next will be Asian-Americans since they are not minding their place and being a model minority either, partisan-wise)
But youth? Fine, I suppose the GOP feels it can do its own very special Donner Party outreach to youth all the way through college graduation, and then when they enter the job market (surely each and every one as a libertarian entrepreneur) they will all have a miraculous epiphany and vote for the party that has insulted them and kicked them in the head and wallet and gut since birth. Because they will naturally then be suckered into policies that favor giant corporations, which are people too, you know.
Edit: targeting youth is a like a farmer taking a dump on the seed corn, and pouring gasoline on it and setting on fire. Might do something useful in the short run, but really? The GOP is stuck in a dilemma that it cannot solve in its current form. It will either disappear, head back towards sanity, or take us all down with it in its death throes. I hope not the last option.
JPL
@Elizabelle: Hope so.
Schlemazel
but after 40 years of stacking ever damn court in the country they are not losing in court as they should be, The tactics are working and the destruction of government is nearing completion. The question is can we hold them off long enough for the mess to be reversed. Always the optimist me, I assume not but I don’t know how to do anything but fight it.
Word is Dayton has a 10 point lead for Gov & Franken nearly that in the Senate race. That he has to fight like mad while the empty suit Klobuchar breezes irritates the hell out of me.
Schlemazel
Saw Bill Maher last night in Northfield. This article mentions two of the worst excretions from the Ann Coulter wannabe. She got more laughs than Maher but his were intentional.
http://blogs.citypages.com/blotter/2014/10/bill_maher_northfield_congressman_john_kline.php
jnfr
I’d also appreciate a link to the original if someone has it.
Baud
@Elizabelle:
I’m phone banking this weekend, so hopefully that’s what I’ll hear.
Omnes Omnibus
@Schlemazel: Actually the court stacking isn’t as bad as it was. Eight years or Clinton and now six years of Obama are having an impact. The Reagan/Bush I era judges are retiring. Obama is replacing them with functioning humans. 2016 is going to extremely important; if we win then, we will have a good shot at a 6-3 reasonable majority on the Supreme Court and and similar results in the lower courts.
Mnemosyne
Speaking of voting, I don’t know if any Californians know the answer to this question, but I can’t find it on my state or on the Los Angeles county website and I can’t get hold of a human being to ask. We are moving right before election day (literally 4 days before) and can’t figure out if we’re supposed to try and change our registration at the last minute or go to our old polling place and vote there. We’re only moving about 6 miles away, so it’s no big deal to go to our current polling place, but I honestly don’t know if that’s what we’re supposed to do. Any clue?
Omnes Omnibus
@Mnemosyne: Contact your local board of elections.
Baud
@West of the Cascades:
I think most courts would accept an affidavit from John Cole as sufficient.
West of the Cascades
Thanks for the leads – GAO study appears to be this: http://www.gao.gov/assets/670/665965.pdf
West of the Cascades
@Baud: FTW
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: Why an affidavit? A note on a napkin should really be enough.
Howard Beale IV
@Schlemazel: Surprised to see Taibbi there-since he left Rolling Stone and after his supposed big announcement that he was hooking with with First Look it’s been nothing but radio silence.
Schlemazel
@Omnes Omnibus:
You know me – a little black ray of dark shine.
I hope things will get better, I do what I can to try to make sure they do but I have no confidence that they will. The legislative branch is badly broken & I don’t see it getting better. That guarantees 2 solid years of goopers trying to ruin as much as they can as badly as they can so that they can make the case for the next reincarnation of Boy Blunder. There is not a pasta strainer in the world big enough to save us if they take the WH back in 16. Plus I hate that I have to count on them picking an obvious nutter/incompetent again. 1 of the last 3 was elected twice.
Mnemosyne
@Omnes Omnibus:
I did. I only get voicemail. And there’s no direction on the website (lavote.net).
Schlemazel
@Howard Beale IV:
They mentioned that he was starting his own news site. I forget the name.
Baud
@Omnes Omnibus:
Cole uses napkins?
raven
@Omnes Omnibus: The fellow from Madison who is working hard for Burke said he thinks African American folks in Wisconsin are pissed and ready to vote.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mnemosyne: Try these guys.
@Baud: Good point.
Roger Moore
@Omnes Omnibus:
A napkin will work only after he’s faxed them his credenza.
Omnes Omnibus
@raven: That is my impression as well. It is what happened in 2012 in Milwaukee.
@Roger Moore: That goes without saying.
Cacti
Speaking of suppressing the minority vote, I’m still wondering what Jimmah Carter was thinking in backstabbing the POTUS.
No Dem gets elected in the deep south without strong African American support.
I guess he just takes for granted that they’ll turn out for his grand-sprog.
raven
Jody Hice’s Election to Congress Is Not Inevitable
The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik
@Schlemazel:
Not to mention the sheer amount of people for whom, the disenfranchisement simply means you weren’t worthy of that vote in the first place. I see far too many goddamn people read this and respond that it just meant those who couldn’t vote didn’t want it hard enough, or were lazy and therefore didn’t deserve the vote in the first place.
Feels like there’s enough of those people to enable this shit to stick for good. And that’s wholly depressing.
raven
In contrast, President George W. Bush told Fox News: “I understand how tough the job is, and to have a former president bloviating and second guessing is, I don’t think, good for the presidency or the country.”
cmorenc
The smarter sociopaths within the GOP understand that they have a relatively narrow time window within which to lock in a permanent structural electoral advantage (i.e. one which could last 40+ years like the New Deal coalition) before demographic and social changes drown their ability to be competitive in too many places where they now hold power (Texas and Georgia, looking at you in particular, but there’s others too). This change will begin to pick up traction as early as 2016, but become much more pronounced through the era 2020-2024 – UNLESS they can stop it in its tracks long enough to build durable dikes against it in election laws, the next Supreme Court appointments, 2020 congressional redistricting, etc.
They realize this is almost certainly their final window when there’s any realistic possibility of effectively rolling back and then dismantling the infrastructure that progressive government has built over the years since 1932. THAT is really why ideological conservatives so fiercely opposed Obamacare (even though the basic idea was from their own Heritage foundation, and first implemented by Mitt Romney in Mass rather than by any progressive think tank or democratic governor) – because of the sharp change within the GOP from willingness to support of some progressive ends so long as they were implemented in a manner more kosher to conservative ideology (i.e. market-based and involving private enterprise i.e. private health insurers), to an aggressive embrace of laissez-faire pre-New Deal anti-regulation minimalism (which happens to benefit the 1% hugely). Yes, they’ve cynically been willing to take advantage of racist dog whistling against the program because the ACA was the accomplishment of a Ni-CLANG! President, but the fierceness of the opposition of the GOP leadership (and sociopathic willingness to maintain so many baldface lies against fact) is only explainable by their epiphany that its success would represent an irreversible sea change toward a society with a more progressive economic and social structure (e.g. employees no longer tied to employers by health insurance, thereby less beholden to shitty employers).
Schlemazel
@raven:
You had to have taken that out of context or something. In 8 years in the job I never heard the goober once articulate a sentence that well, nor one worth agreeing with.
Well, maybe that one about hard it is to put food on your family but other than that.
Mnemosyne
@Omnes Omnibus:
Same damn voicemail. Damn it. I’m tempted to do early voting, but out here we only have it on weekdays in one (1) location from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. and it’s an hour’s drive away in good traffic, which doesn’t exist on weekdays.
raven
@Schlemazel: Jimmy Carter: A yellow flag and 15 yards for piling on?
Schlemazel
@raven: mostly I was making a joke about the lack of cogence of our unloved former preznit.
Everyone else see that NBC wanted Jon Stewart to host Eat the Press? That would be simultaneously awesome and awful.
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/10/jon-stewart-might-have-been-meet-the-press-host.html
jl
i guess with youth, the GOP figures that they all will vote when they get great good paying jobs that are not living hell, own property and assets and live the American Dream. And the GOP will play the old con of yelling that ‘those people’ will take all those hard earned benefits away.
Two small issues arise. First, a much smaller proportion of today’s youth than previous generation will ever have all those nice hard earned benefits to take away, largely due to GOP policies.
Second, for years the GOP has called youth in general ‘those people’, and for more specific groups of ‘those people’ more of white youth know ‘those people’ much better than their elders and therefore less likely to fall for GOP lies.
So, when the nice dry drunk GOP daddy comes calling to tell today’s youth in the future that ‘those people’ will take away their nice things, today’s youth will be more likely to say “WTF nice things. YOU took away the nice things from me all through my own youth, and I seem to pretty much remember that my friends and I were ‘those people’. So eff off.” If the GOP thinks that won’t happen much more in the future than the past, the GOP needs to quit the binge drinking.
raven
@Schlemazel: People are always bitchin at me about links so I put it in.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
I’m filling out my ballot this evening. Sadly, the current idiot governor will be reelected with a bigger plurality than his first election, and perhaps even a majority. The Dem candidate stepped on his dick more times than I’d have thought possible in calendar year, and it’s disheartening. If only Strickland had run again. But once my ballot’s in the mail I can say “I voted.”
Baud
@raven:
That’ll stop the bitchin.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@raven: And you can hear and drive legally today! Great news about the wallet with the tickets.
jl
@Baud: The bitchin’ will never die at BJ blog.
Roger Moore
@jl:
Youth isn’t a minority, but the youngs are more likely to be minorities than the olds. They’re certainly a lot more likely to vote (D), which makes them a target for the Republicans no matter what their ethnicity.
Schlemazel
@Baud:
You new here?!?
raven
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): The hearing aid s strange. I got it because I have trouble hearing my bride. My hearing loss is in high ranges and I’m not sure being able to hear them solves the issue. I went out at 5am to take pics of the eclipse and heard every damn cricket within 100 miles!
tokyo expat
@Mnemosyne: Can’t answer your question, but wondering if you can help me with mine. I’m voting absentee. The Dem mailer I got pretty much said vote straight Dem, including the propositions. I’m uncertain about prop 1. Do you know of any good blogs that discuss California politics and might give me a decent run down on the props and candidates? Thanks! (I’m registered in San Diego county of that helps.)
WereBear
@Mnemosyne: That sounds like awful incompetence. Are you still paying rent on the old place on Election Day?
burnspbesq
@Baud:
Not a Federal court. Daubert requires that someone put forward as an expert actually know what he or she is talking about.
Matt
Holder should go ahead and start litigation against the states with this “voter ID” bullshit based on Section 2 of the 14th Amendment. Shave a couple House seats and electoral votes off and that might get some attention, even from the GOP guvs…
Julia Grey
I recently researched the ID requirements here in SC, which are now in effect for the next election. In order to get a drivers license or non-driver ID you need a birth certificate, all marriage certificates if you are a woman who has thereby changed her name since birth, or a person who has made a legal name change. You also need a social security card and some proof of residency such as a bank account statement or utility bill. All this must be brought with you when you go to get your picture taken at the local DMV office.
Okay, got that? In order to vote AT THE POLLS, you need to have a photo ID that requires all this paperwork.
HOWEVER, if you want to vote absentee, you just have to request an absentee ballot after signing an affidavit claiming one of the legitimate reasons for absentee voting.
Wait, you’re saying, I’m not registered yet, so I can’t request an absentee ballot. No problem. Registration is regulated by the FEDS, not the state of SC, so they are not allowed to ask you for all that bullshit. They try to pretend that they can on the form, but if you read it carefully, all you have to produce is proof of residency (bank statement or utility bill sorts of things) and draw a little map of your neighborhood with your house marked. You have to give your SSN and birthdate and all that, which I’m sure they’ll check against the records, but you don’t have to provide DOCUMENTS.
So. Absentee balloting, which favors Republicans, is privileged in that it does not require picture ID, and in-person voting, which favors Democrats (especially on election day proper), does require picture ID! We might also note that absentee ballot fraud is MUCH easier to pull off than in-person voting fraud.
You know, folks, this elaborate picture ID/citizenship proofs scam is going to go down once the courts really get hold of it, because I never saw a more ridiculous violation of equal protection in my life.
After this study, all we need is one that shows that absentee balloting is used disproportionately by the economically privileged and white suburbanites, and we’ve got it knocked.
Roger Moore
@raven:
Have you considered marriage counseling as an alternative?/snark
WereBear
@efgoldman: You probably need a reason in that state. “I’m getting screwed over by the GOP” is not an acceptable excuse.
Florida Frog
We have been pushing vote by mail here in Florida for the past two cycles. When canvassing the past few weeks I encountered very few African Americans who weren’t registered to vote by mail. The local AA churches have been promoting it as well.
nellcote
Breaking: SCOTUS overrules 4th circuit, bans same day registration & out of precinct voting for midterms
dexwood
Today’s GOP – turning your local voting booths into country clubs.
Tenar Darell
@Mnemosyne: I’d suggest an absentee ballot if it isn’t too late to get one, then change your registration after the move, when you change your ID’s etc.
gene108
@jl:
I view it more like the efforts to reduce smoking tobacco and underage alcohol consumption: Make it hard enough to do, so kids do not get in the habit of doing it, even if they want to try it.
I registered to vote in the spring of 1992 in my North Carolina high school library and got to vote in the Presidential primary at 17, because I was turning 18 before the first Tuesday in November.
Take that easy step of voter registration away and actually make kids hunt down and find a voter registration form, and then force them to produce 10 forms of ID to vote and you have someone, who thinks voting is not something he/she should do.
You turn a person, who has been voting regularly most of the time*, since turning 18 to someone, who just does not see a reason to care.
* There was a time, in the late 1990’s, after I moved from NC to NJ, when I was pretty apolitical and did not vote. The rise of Bush & Co. disavowed me of ever wanting to sit out a major election again.
RaflW
Also, older white people who are least likely to be impacted are most likely to pitch fits at their elected officials and be heard for it.
Three grey-hairs in hoverrounds are terrifying to politicians. Three church van loads of black folk at a protest? Meh.
Mnemosyne
@tokyo expat:
Sorry for the late reply: I’m up in LA, so I usually do a compare and contrast of the LA Times and LA Weekly endorsements. Here are the LA Times ones — I don’t think the Weekly has done theirs yet.
Origuy
@tokyo expat: Calitics.com does a pretty good job of covering statewide politics. I haven’t seen their endorsements on the propositions yet, but they’ve had some articles about them.
tokyo expat
@Mnemosyne: @Origuy: I don’t know if either of you will see this, but thank you so much!
NorthLeft12
Mission effing Accomplished, I guess.
This should be something that is a major concern in democracies around the world. The falling participation in voting and the governing process, not voter fraud.
Up here in Canada, every election seems to have a lower turnout, and the people elected get worse and worse. However, I still hear people worrying about fraud and that there are too many choices to sort through.
I am hoping we can muddle through this.
Zach
“The report found that in those two states, reduced voter turnout was sharper among people aged 18 to 23 than among those from 44 to 53.”
This will be the biggest impact of the voter ID laws and this is probably why voter ID laws are mostly being pushed in states with huge state university systems. Before this law was passed, many college students (in state and out-of-state) chose to vote where they intended to live for four years but don’t bother to change their drivers license or other official state ID. This was totally within the law. Now, it’s basically illegal to do this in many places, school is in session during election season, and many students fail to vote absentee or return to their parents’ home to vote.
I understand why the legal focus is on the disparate racial impact — this is what’s protected by law — but the impact on college-age youth voting is much more severe.