US 2018 November elections

[JimC]

Buying smokes and booze without an id is slightly easier than voting without one, and it's hardly a stretch to assume many of the unemployed no longer have a valid id. Yeah, it's more likely that certain people will have a harder time with all those things.

It really could be a problem when you take all of them into consideration. We need a figure.

Do you at least admit that if having an ID is more difficult for blacks, and requiring an ID for voting is racist as a result, then it necessarily follows that requiring an ID to drive, smoke, drink, purchase certain prescription medications, cash checks, get hired for a job, apply for school admission, apply for state benefits, etc., is also racist?

If not, why not?

There are all sorts of bureaucratic processes in society (both yours and mine, I'm sure) which are very easy for relatively educated and wealthy people like you or I. There are many, many people for whom jumping through those hoops is a big challenge, for a whole variety of reasons. Here, the homeless, the very poor, aborigines, and people with various disabilities would be on that list. It's not that they will all fail to gain an ID, or register to vote etc., but that a much higher proportion of them will not. If that statistically tends to include a higher proportion of black people in the US, then that is a form of systemic racism. Sure, it's not the same as a hate-filled racist rant from a neo-Nazi, but it still is part and parcel of an institutionalised disadvantage.

Sean has been talking about ways that this could be reduced, whether by volunteer effort, or via more effective government assistance. In a modern society, it really should be possible to find an effective way to ensure that all eligible voters have an equal chance of having their democratic say.

[Forty Two]

Again - what challenges, hoops, etc. are we talking about here?

All you're point out is that there could be things that disadvantage one group or another unfairly. Sure, there could be.

But what ARE those things in this particular instance?

The main argument I've heard is that requiring an ID is racist. Why? Because black people are less likely to get IDs. Why? Why are they not getting IDs?

I pointed out that in Florida, poor people get free licenses and free state IDs and that a laundry list of other forms of ID are able to be used -- AND -- and this is a big fucking AND - AND -- mailing in a ballot does not require ID (because it's mail-in), and if worse comes to worse, any person can simply show up and cast a provisional ballot, which will be counted if it's legit. They compare the registration with the person who showed up to vote. That's it.

If black people really are less likely to get an ID such that it is racist to make having an ID a requirement, then if I'm a store and require everyone who buys whisky to show an ID to prove they are of age, I am discriminating against black people, right? And, when a pharmacy requires an ID to be presented to pick up certain medications, that's racial discrimination, right? And, when an employer requires an ID for hiring and employment purposes, that's racial discrimination, isn't it? And, when a university requires an ID to admit students to school, that's racial discrimination, isn't it?

If it isn't, can you explain why?

All eligible voters do have an equal "chance." You haven't specified a single thing that indicates they do not have an equal chance. You've said there might be, becuase there are things in bureaucracies that make things harder forone group or another, but you were not specific as to what hurdle is doing it. I raised one example I'm aware of - and surely you can see my point on it, can't you?

If black people aren't getting driver licenses, there must be a reason. Is it that they don't know how? Is it that they are being blocked from getting a license? Is it the cost? Well, if they're poor they get a free ID.

[laklak]

I'd say if you can get the ID free then there's not much of an impediment. Sure, there will still be a few people that fall through the cracks, and it's going to be, I'll bet, older, poor people, probably rural. I don't see how, unless you're close to self sufficiency, that you can exist in this society without some form of ID. I guess your family could have ID and deal with the outside world, but you've never held a job (officially, anyway), paid taxes, bought a car, cashed a check, got government assistance including Social Security pensions, you've effectively been off-grid your whole life. There are definitely people like that, I knew one family in North Carolina who had kin that hadn't been off Walker's Bald in over 30 years. Ain't no point in goin' to town, nothin' I need Eula caint carry up to me.

I can't see how that can be anything but a vanishingly small percentage of the electorate, and there isn't a system I can come up with that doesn't allow a few outliers. I'm certainly open to changing my mind, but as Sean said, we need data.

[JimC]

Data is certainly what you need. If certain groups are less likely to have IDs, and thus have all sorts of problems with the bureaucratic necessities of modern society (including, but not only, voting), then this is a problem. Whether it's racial discrimination or not, it certainly is a systemic disadvantage. Probably someone, somewhere has done research along these lines, not only just the extent of it, but the possible reasons behind it. Apathy, lack of education, distrust of government services could all contribute.

[Seabass]

"An analysis of the records obtained by The Associated Press reveals racial disparity in the process. Georgia's population is approximately 32 percent black, according to the U.S. Census, but the list of voter registrations on hold with Kemp's office is nearly 70 percent black."
https://www.ctpost.com/opinion/article/ ... 299749.php

[Seabass]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/mon ... e-research

[Seabass]

http://mattbarreto.com/papers/PS_VoterID.pdf

[JimC]

And I have a feeling that Republican supporters would tend to say (or at least think) that the reasons are simply that blacks are too feckless, dumb or disorganised, so it's their fault if they don't vote...

[Seabass]

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/ar ... aw/493649/

DURHAM, N.C.—The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals struck down key portions of North Carolina’s strict 2013 voting law on Friday, delivering a stern rebuke to the state’s Republican General Assembly and Governor Pat McCrory. The three-judge panel in Richmond, Virginia, unanimously concluded that the law was racially discriminatory, and it blocked a requirement that voters show photo identification to vote and restored same-day voter registration, a week of early voting, pre-registration for teenagers, and out-of-precinct voting.

“In what comes as close to a smoking gun as we are likely to see in modern times, the State’s very justification for a challenged statute hinges explicitly on race—specifically its concern that African Americans, who had overwhelmingly voted for Democrats, had too much access to the franchise,” wrote Judge Diana Gribbon Motz.

the new provisions target African Americans with almost surgical precision

[Seabass]

https://www.wired.com/story/voter-id-law-algorithm/

Once Hersh and Ansolabehere were confident they had properly matched registered voters to their ID records, they used a commercial tool called Catalist to predict each voter's race. That tool analyzes names to determine how likely a given name is to be associated with one race or another. It also accounts for the demographics of the Census block where a given voter lives. Using this tool, the researchers confirmed what voting rights advocates already know to be true—that black voters are more likely to lack adequate identification under voter ID laws. According to the study, 3.6 percent of registered white voters had no match in any state or federal ID database. By contrast, 7.5 percent of black registered voters were missing from those databases.

The algorithm shows a clear and disturbing racial disparity on voting rights. But Hersh says that it also shows that voter ID laws affect a relatively small percentage of the population. Across all registered voters in Texas, the researchers found 4.5 percent lack proper identification. For registered voters who actually showed up at the polls in 2012, it's 1.5 percent.

"You're down to a small percentage of the population that doesn't have an ID," says Hersh. That's one reason why, despite Alabama's restrictive voter ID law, black turnout in the recent Senate election still exceeded expectations. Still, while the percentages may sound small, that 4.5 percent still represents 608,470 Texas citizens who could potentially be disenfranchised.

[Seabass]

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/stu ... ks-n468251

Last year, North Carolina’s county election boards, which are controlled by Republicans, moved the location of almost one-third of the state’s early voting sites. Those changes, according to new data analysis by a consulting firm that was shared with MSNBC, will significantly increase the distance African-Americans have to travel to vote early, while leaving white voters largely unaffected.

In total, black voters will now have to travel almost 350,000 extra miles to get to their nearest early voting site, compared to 21,000 extra miles for white voters. That’s even though white voters make up 71% of the state’s electorate and blacks are just 22%. The average white voter will now have to travel just 26 feet further to vote early. For blacks, the equivalent figure is a quarter of a mile.

[Seabass]

https://www.prri.org/research/American- ... tion-2018/

[JimC]

Going to ignore all this data, 42?

Not just speculation about the difficulties some demographics have in "jumping through the hoops", but actual data. Some of the disadvantage may be inadvertent, but it looks like the spiritual successors to the Jim Crow laws down south are doing some fairly deliberate stuff as well...

Oh well, I suppose you'll just wave your hands, claim it's fake news, and rabbit on about the liberal bias of academic researchers...

[Seabass]

but it looks like the spiritual successors to the Jim Crow laws down south are doing some fairly deliberate stuff as well...

It's absolutely deliberate, and it's been referred to as "Jim Crow 2.0" for good reason. The SCOTUS gutted the Voting Rights Act a few years ago which predictably unleashed a wave of voter suppression tactics in red states.

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics ... oting-2016

1. Voter ID requirements: Alabama, Mississippi, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Virginia, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Wisconsin passed new laws that require voters prove their identity with a voter ID. Indiana also passed a law letting party-nominated election officers demand voter IDs at the polls. The laws can severely limit which IDs are valid — Texas, for example, allows a gun permit and other government-issued IDs but not a student ID. Some states allow exceptions to their laws, but the process of obtaining an exception can be arduous, especially for poor, time-constrained voters.
2. Early voting cuts: Ohio cut a whole week from early voting, eliminating the “golden week” in which voters could register and vote on the same day. And Nebraska cut its early voting period from 35 days to no more than 30 days.
3. New requirements to register to vote: Kansas passed a law that requires new voters to show proof of citizenship to register to vote. Virginia also required groups submitting 25 or more voter registration forms to register with the state, and reduced the amount of time to deliver the forms from 15 days to 10 days.
4. Limits on mail-in ballots: Arizona made it a felony to collect and turn in someone else’s mail-in ballot, even with that voter’s permission. The US Supreme Court recently let the law stand for 2016.
5. Provisional and absentee voting changes: Ohio passed strict rules that can invalidate absentee and provisional ballots if forms accompanying those ballots aren’t filled out in a very specific way.
6. Polling place closures: Southern states, from Arizona to North Carolina, have closed down at least 868 polling places since the US Supreme Court struck down part of the Voting Rights Act in 2013. (The Voting Rights Act could have allowed the Department of Justice to stop these closures before, but not anymore.) These are only the closures tracked in about half the counties that were once covered by the Voting Rights Act due to their long histories of racial discrimination, so there have likely been hundreds or even thousands more closures nationwide.
7. Voter roll purges: Several states have attempted to conduct sweeping purges of voter rolls, potentially undoing voters’ registration without their knowledge. Some of these purges — such as North Carolina’s and Florida’s — have been overturned by courts, but not all are even known to the public until it’s too late.

It doesn't affect The Whites though, so Coito can safely brush it aside.

[L'Emmerdeur]

The accuracy of the study that I already linked to has been questioned, but there are other studies that support the same conclusion:

'A Disproportionate Burden: Strict Voter Identification Laws and Minority Turnout'

Critics of the recent proliferation of strict photo identification laws around the country claim that these laws impose a disproportionate burden on racial and ethnic minority voters. Yet, empirical studies of the impact of these laws on minority turnout have reached decidedly mixed results. Courts have responded, in part, by offering unclear and mixed opinions about the constitutionality of these laws. By focusing on recent elections with a broad set of strict photo ID laws in place, by relying on official turnout data rather than surveys, and by employing a research design that assesses change over time using a difference-in-difference approach that helps alleviate the inference problems that have plagued most existing studies, this article seeks to offer a more rigorous test that will help advance the empirical literature and contribute to the legal debate. Our primary analysis uses aggregate county turnout data from 2012 to 2016 and finds that the racial gap in turnout between more diverse and less diverse counties grew more in states enacting new strict photo ID laws than it did elsewhere – even after controlling for other factors that could impact turnout. Strict voter ID laws appear to discriminate.

'The Impact of Voter Identification Laws on Voter Participation'

[T]urnout in racially diverse counties fell relative to turnout in white counties in a more pronounced way in states enacting strict ID laws than it did in other states without strict ID laws over the same time period. Looking first at just the four states implementing strict photo ID laws between 2012 and 2016, we see that turnout in majority-minority counties fell 4.2 points more than turnout in majority-white counties. In other words, when strict ID laws were introduced racial and ethnic minority turnout dropped significantly more than white turnout.



But what is even more critical is that the gap between majority-minority and majority white counties grew more in states that adopted strict ID laws than it did in other states. Turnout in majority-minority counties also fell relative to turnout in majority-white counties in states that did not enact strict ID laws but the relative drop was much less pronounced – a 4.2 point increase in the racial gap in newly strict states vs a 1.9 point increase in the gap in non-strict states. The net result is that turnout in racially diverse counties fell further behind that of white districts more in newly strict ID states than in other states. The 2.3 point difference-in-difference is substantively meaningful and statistically significant (p<.001). This is clear evidence of a racially disparate impact.

Focusing on the bottom half of Table 2 we see that the decline in minority turnout (relative to white turnout) in strict ID states is even more pronounced when we limit the analysis to overwhelmingly minority and overwhelmingly white counties. In strict ID states, turnout in overwhelmingly minority counties drops 7.6 points more on average than it does in overwhelmingly white counties. This difference is once again substantively important and significant (p<.001). Even more critically, the gap between minority and white counties grew 5.9 points more in strict ID states than it did in states that did not adopt strict ID laws over the same time period. This difference-in-difference again points clearly to a racially discriminatory law.

...



Starting first with newly enacted strict ID states (the red line), we see that—all else equal—after those states implemented their strict voter ID law, turnout in those states’ most racially diverse counties declined by almost 8 percentage points, while turnout in the least diverse counties actually increased by over 1 percentage point. In contrast, in other states without strict ID laws (the blue line) racial and ethnic diversity played a much more minor role in predicting changes in turnout. In non-strict states, turnout dropped only about 2 percentage points more in the most racially diverse counties than it did in the whitest counties.30 Critically, all of these effects are evident after controlling for other factors—partisan competition, electoral laws, and core demographics—that could have driven turnout either inside or outside of the state. All of this indicates that the implementation of the strict photo identification laws had a disparately negative impact on minority turnout in the state.

The study directly above also addressed the question of political motivation for voter ID laws. It was found that states controlled by Republicans were much more likely to enact such laws. This will come as no surprise to anybody who's been paying attention to public statements from Republicans who've gloated that their new voter ID laws will help their party's chances of success in elections.

FiveThirtyEight puts it succinctly in an article that examines the scientific data:

Voter ID laws disproportionately disenfranchise minority communities.

Denying the data may work for some who are well practiced in looking at the world with ideological blinders, but that will not change the fact that voter ID laws disproportionally suppress minority vote. It is also a fact that such laws are enacted in order to benefit the Republican party.