New laws create voting barriers
May 7, 2016 18:34:00 #
North Carolina among 17 states with strict rules, which some say suppress young and minority electorate.
BY JENNY JARVIE
ATLANTA — Morris Reid did not expect any problems when he went to his local polling station outside Raleigh, N.C., to vote in the 2014 midterm. Yet the longtime voter, a 57-year-old Democrat, found he could not cast his ballot.
A poll worker told the African American jail superintendent he was registered in another county.
Reid was certain there had been a mistake — he’d instructed the Department of Motor Vehicles to update his voter registration when he moved three months before — but he drove five miles to another polling center, only to find he was not registered there either. After a third trip, he cast a provisional ballot, which did not count in the end due to a new North Carolina law that eliminates out-of-precinct voting.
“I couldn’t exercise my right to vote,” he said. “And that’s the way it was.”
As the nation approaches its first presidential election in 50 years without a core protection of the Voting Rights Act — the requirement that states with a history of discrimination get federal approval before changing electoral practices — large swaths of the electorate face new voting hurdles.
Over the last four years, 17 states, mostly in the Deep South and Midwest, have passed stringent voting laws. Many demand voters show official photo IDs. Others restrict early voting, eliminate same-day registration, remove out-of-precinct voting, limit mail-in ballots, require proof of citizenship, curb voter registration drives and tighten absentee ballot rules.
“Millions could have a harder time voting,” said Myrna Perez, deputy director of the Brennan Center for Justice’s Democracy Program at New York University. “Our historical trajectory has been to find ways to expand the franchise and to expand access. These laws are a very strict departure from that. The question I always ask is: What are we getting for it? What sort of benefit comes from making voting harder?”
Most of the restrictions have been approved in Republican-controlled states where supporters assert they are merely trying to thwart voter fraud. Yet there is scant evidence of such fraud: One expert found 31 cases out of more than 1 billion ballots in the U.S. from 2000 to 2014.
Critics say the new laws represent a deliberate attempt to disenfranchise minority voters — one that could have significant repercussions in the upcoming presidential election, potentially giving the GOP an advantage in some closely contested states.
Some studies show that stricter voting laws have depressed voter turnout, particularly among minority groups. A 2014 analysis by the U.S. Government Accountability Office found that tighter voter ID requirements led to a 2% drop in turnout in Kansas and Tennessee from the 2008 to the 2012 general elections. It also found that turnout was more likely to decline among younger, newly registered and black voters.
Voter laws also can create confusion that discourages turnout.
A study by the Baker Institute of Public Policy at Rice University examined the effect of Texas’ voter ID law on a 2014 congressional election, surveying more than 400 registered Texas voters who did not cast ballots. It found that although 12% cited the lack of an approved photo ID as a reason for not voting, only 2% lacked a photo ID. Latinos were significantly more likely than whites to cite lack of photo ID as a reason for not voting.
“In a swing state that could be on a knife edge, voter restrictions could make a real difference,” said Mark Jones, a political science professor at Rice University and principal investigator of the report. “It can tilt the balance from one candidate to the other.”
Any drop in turnout could have a crucial effect in North Carolina, a Republican-dominated state where electoral results have been tightly contested in the last decade. In 2008, Barack Obama won the state by just 14,177 votes. Four years later, Mitt Romney won by 92,004.
After Obama’s victory, Republican strategists were quick to spot the Democrats’ success in mobilizing minority voters: “The campaign targeted the most likely straight-ticket voters and made sure they voted early,” Jack Hawke, former chairman of the state GOP, wrote in Carolina Journal. “The number of black and young voters was unprecedented.”
A month after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a key part of the Voting Rights Act in 2013, legislators in the state passed a sweeping new voter law that eliminated same-day registration, cut the early-voting period by seven days, barred voters from casting provisional ballots outside their home precincts, required voters to show government-issued photo identification, and ended preregistration for 16- and 17-year-olds.
“It’s not that they are racists,” said Bob Hall, executive director of Democracy North Carolina, a nonpartisan advocacy group.
BY JENNY JARVIE
ATLANTA — Morris Reid did not expect any problems when he went to his local polling station outside Raleigh, N.C., to vote in the 2014 midterm. Yet the longtime voter, a 57-year-old Democrat, found he could not cast his ballot.
A poll worker told the African American jail superintendent he was registered in another county.
Reid was certain there had been a mistake — he’d instructed the Department of Motor Vehicles to update his voter registration when he moved three months before — but he drove five miles to another polling center, only to find he was not registered there either. After a third trip, he cast a provisional ballot, which did not count in the end due to a new North Carolina law that eliminates out-of-precinct voting.
“I couldn’t exercise my right to vote,” he said. “And that’s the way it was.”
As the nation approaches its first presidential election in 50 years without a core protection of the Voting Rights Act — the requirement that states with a history of discrimination get federal approval before changing electoral practices — large swaths of the electorate face new voting hurdles.
Over the last four years, 17 states, mostly in the Deep South and Midwest, have passed stringent voting laws. Many demand voters show official photo IDs. Others restrict early voting, eliminate same-day registration, remove out-of-precinct voting, limit mail-in ballots, require proof of citizenship, curb voter registration drives and tighten absentee ballot rules.
“Millions could have a harder time voting,” said Myrna Perez, deputy director of the Brennan Center for Justice’s Democracy Program at New York University. “Our historical trajectory has been to find ways to expand the franchise and to expand access. These laws are a very strict departure from that. The question I always ask is: What are we getting for it? What sort of benefit comes from making voting harder?”
Most of the restrictions have been approved in Republican-controlled states where supporters assert they are merely trying to thwart voter fraud. Yet there is scant evidence of such fraud: One expert found 31 cases out of more than 1 billion ballots in the U.S. from 2000 to 2014.
Critics say the new laws represent a deliberate attempt to disenfranchise minority voters — one that could have significant repercussions in the upcoming presidential election, potentially giving the GOP an advantage in some closely contested states.
Some studies show that stricter voting laws have depressed voter turnout, particularly among minority groups. A 2014 analysis by the U.S. Government Accountability Office found that tighter voter ID requirements led to a 2% drop in turnout in Kansas and Tennessee from the 2008 to the 2012 general elections. It also found that turnout was more likely to decline among younger, newly registered and black voters.
Voter laws also can create confusion that discourages turnout.
A study by the Baker Institute of Public Policy at Rice University examined the effect of Texas’ voter ID law on a 2014 congressional election, surveying more than 400 registered Texas voters who did not cast ballots. It found that although 12% cited the lack of an approved photo ID as a reason for not voting, only 2% lacked a photo ID. Latinos were significantly more likely than whites to cite lack of photo ID as a reason for not voting.
“In a swing state that could be on a knife edge, voter restrictions could make a real difference,” said Mark Jones, a political science professor at Rice University and principal investigator of the report. “It can tilt the balance from one candidate to the other.”
Any drop in turnout could have a crucial effect in North Carolina, a Republican-dominated state where electoral results have been tightly contested in the last decade. In 2008, Barack Obama won the state by just 14,177 votes. Four years later, Mitt Romney won by 92,004.
After Obama’s victory, Republican strategists were quick to spot the Democrats’ success in mobilizing minority voters: “The campaign targeted the most likely straight-ticket voters and made sure they voted early,” Jack Hawke, former chairman of the state GOP, wrote in Carolina Journal. “The number of black and young voters was unprecedented.”
A month after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a key part of the Voting Rights Act in 2013, legislators in the state passed a sweeping new voter law that eliminated same-day registration, cut the early-voting period by seven days, barred voters from casting provisional ballots outside their home precincts, required voters to show government-issued photo identification, and ended preregistration for 16- and 17-year-olds.
“It’s not that they are racists,” said Bob Hall, executive director of Democracy North Carolina, a nonpartisan advocacy group.
May 7, 2016 18:34:19 #
“It’s not that they are racists,” said Bob Hall, executive director of Democracy North Carolina, a nonpartisan advocacy group. “It’s just to win elections they must change the rules that let so many African Americans and young people vote.”
A report by Democracy North Carolina has estimated that the new voting restrictions, in conjunction with polling station problems, reduced 2014 turnout by at least 30,000 voters. More than 2,300 voters who cast rejected provisional ballots — 38% of whom were African American — would have had their votes count if same-day registration and out-of-precinct voting had still been in place.
In the March primary, more than 29,000 North Carolina voters were able to use same-day registration and out-of-precinct voting, after an intervention from a U.S. Court of Appeals. Yet 1,320 ballots were rejected because voters did not show poll workers an approved form of photo ID, according to preliminary data from the state’s Board of Elections.
Last month, a federal judge upheld North Carolina’s law. Opponents have moved to appeal the ruling, yet it is likely to be in effect in November when the nation picks a new president.
Jarvie is a special correspondent based in
Atlanta.
SARA D. DAVIS Getty Images
NORTH CAROLINA State University students wait to vote in the primary in March. Seventeen states, mostly in the Deep South and Midwest, require voters to show an official photo ID, among other restrictions.
A report by Democracy North Carolina has estimated that the new voting restrictions, in conjunction with polling station problems, reduced 2014 turnout by at least 30,000 voters. More than 2,300 voters who cast rejected provisional ballots — 38% of whom were African American — would have had their votes count if same-day registration and out-of-precinct voting had still been in place.
In the March primary, more than 29,000 North Carolina voters were able to use same-day registration and out-of-precinct voting, after an intervention from a U.S. Court of Appeals. Yet 1,320 ballots were rejected because voters did not show poll workers an approved form of photo ID, according to preliminary data from the state’s Board of Elections.
Last month, a federal judge upheld North Carolina’s law. Opponents have moved to appeal the ruling, yet it is likely to be in effect in November when the nation picks a new president.
Jarvie is a special correspondent based in
Atlanta.
SARA D. DAVIS Getty Images
NORTH CAROLINA State University students wait to vote in the primary in March. Seventeen states, mostly in the Deep South and Midwest, require voters to show an official photo ID, among other restrictions.
May 7, 2016 23:19:22 #
Now we have to hear about poor Morris Reid yet another African black being picked on by the nasty republicans,HOGWASH.
May 8, 2016 00:17:00 #
Hemiman wrote:
Now we have to hear about poor Morris Reid yet another African black being picked on by the nasty republicans,HOGWASH.
Yep....Republicans see everything of concern as hogwash, hence the shaping of the electorate the way it is transpiring..
May 8, 2016 00:43:10 #
You dirt bag Democrates will do ANYTHING to get votes nothing is so low you won't try it and you have the nerve to say something about Republicans.as a matter of fact that goes for anything on the liberal agenda nothing is low enough for liberals to try to advance their goals.
May 8, 2016 06:36:17 #
A Democrat In 2016 wrote:
What exactly is the 'rule' or 'rules' that stop blacks from voting but allow whites to vote more easily?Yep....Republicans see everything of concern as hogwash, hence the shaping of the electorate the way it is transpiring..
I'm not aware of those rules.
May 8, 2016 16:03:03 #
Hemiman wrote:
You dirt bag Democrates will do ANYTHING to get votes nothing is so low you won't try it and you have the nerve to say something about Republicans.as a matter of fact that goes for anything on the liberal agenda nothing is low enough for liberals to try to advance their goals.
after stealing a presidential election in 2000, gerrymandering and voter ID laws.....funny you would say something now since the right is out of tactics........expected....
May 8, 2016 16:15:24 #
A Democrat In 2016 wrote:
after stealing a presidential election in 2000, gerrymandering and voter ID laws.....funny you would say something now since the right is out of tactics........expected....
We don't employ tactics we count on good honest people,you remember what those are don't you??
May 8, 2016 16:19:19 #
Hemiman wrote:
We don't employ tactics we count on good honest people,you remember what those are don't you??
yeah...like Cheney...the VP of a company that got billions in no-bid contracts...after starting a war on a lie to create justification for those contracts..at the expense of young Americans.
May 8, 2016 17:17:08 #
A Democrat In 2016 wrote:
yeah...like Cheney...the VP of a company that got billions in no-bid contracts...after starting a war on a lie to create justification for those contracts..at the expense of young Americans.
He left that company to be VP. It's a legal thing. You should check before posting.
May 8, 2016 17:23:28 #
Super Dave wrote:
He left that company to be VP. It's a legal thing. You should check before posting.
He left on paper...operationally he was still their henchman.......what a way to drain the federal budget........lie and start a war, get many young Americans killed...........at the same time cut food stamps for poor mothers with children...Happy Mothers Day from the GOP!!!
May 8, 2016 17:26:05 #
A Democrat In 2016 wrote:
He left on paper...operationally he was still thei... (show quote)
Chalk up another baseless comment from the liberal circus.
May 8, 2016 17:32:27 #
Hemiman wrote:
Chalk up another baseless comment from the liberal circus.
yeah....and a candidate's brother who happened to be governor of the deciding state in the election is also baseless...
May 8, 2016 17:41:08 #
A Democrat In 2016 wrote:
yeah....and a candidate's brother who happened to be governor of the deciding state in the election is also baseless...
Horrifying,but you finally got one right.
May 8, 2016 18:03:53 #
Hemiman wrote:
Horrifying,but you finally got one right.
I forgot that true comprehension is not really your thing. Some people cannot read the actual lines, let alone in between them.
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