New Study Says Voter ID Laws Suppress Votes

New research using a more robust methodology finds the link that many have long suspected.

Photo-ID-voters

Did you know that, before 2006, not a single state required a person to present photo identification in order to vote?

Even if you didn’t realize that, you surely know that voter ID laws are rampant now. Over the last several years, a solid majority of states have enacted laws that place some sort of identification requirement on prospective voters.

The reasoning behind these laws is clear enough: if you need an ID to board a plane then surely you should need one to cast a vote? Not to mention that, without an ID requirement on the books, a shrewd political operative could go from polling place to polling place, casting votes in the name of those unlikely to show up on election day — say, the recently deceased. Surely requiring an ID is a minor barrier in the name of avoiding a massive fraud?

Except that, let’s remember, boarding a plane is in essence a commercial transaction while voting is the exercise of perhaps the most fundamental bedrock right we have. And those shrewd political operatives?  Not really a thing.

And as for the notion that an ID requirement is a minor barrier? New research shows that that’s not true either.

Now, thanks to research out of the UCSD political science department, we know for the first time that strict voter ID requirements do have the real effect of suppressing the votes of people of color. (That said, a major caveat: apparently this paper is currently “under review,” not yet peer reviewed and published. That said, there’s still plenty of information in the paper, so read on!)

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This new study by UCSD political science professor Zoltan Hajnal, current UCSD graduate student Nazita Lajevardi, and former UCSD graduate student Lindsay Nielson (now a professor at Bucknell University) points out some of the reasons one might expect a voter-suppression effect from voter ID laws: Some studies indicate that over 10% of Americans have no proper identification (though that number is disputed). Others show that those without proper ID are disproportionately people of color. And still others show that voter ID requirements tend to be enforced more stringently against people of color as well.

The researchers acknowledge that, despite those studies, past research suggests little or no suppression effect from voter ID laws. And past research shows that voter ID laws do not suppress the votes of people of color at a higher rate than whites. But they point out flaws in the research finding little or no effect: In particular, this research generally pre-dates the especially strict voter ID laws that are on the books in many states today, and it relies on self-reported, un-validated, and unreliable turnout data.

So the researchers saw fit to apply more rigorous methodology. And their findings were unequivocal: “We find that strict voter identification laws do, in fact, substantially alter the makeup of who votes and ultimately do skew democracy in favor of whites and those on the political right.” They even draw a broader point from this finding: “These laws significantly impact the representativeness of the vote and the fairness of democracy.”

If you want to look at numbers and assess the methodology for yourself, all that is right there in the paper. But perhaps more important for a column on public interest law is this: might this paper have any impact on challenges to voter ID laws?

The answer here would seem to be yes. At his blog Jost on Justice, Kenneth Jost writes that “As voting rights advocates press legal challenges to voter ID laws in several states, the study provides legal ammunition that the laws may violate the federal Voting Rights Act because of their disparate impact on racial and ethnic minorities.”

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The Voting Rights Act is a federal law designed to ensure that states do not restrict voting rights in a way that disproportionately affects people of color. And, though Jost notes that “the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act” by striking down a key part of the law in Shelby County v. Holder, he nevertheless points to a way forward for advocates. “Lower courts,” he writes, “could find the evidence of minority vote suppression strong enough to strike [voter ID] laws down under the act’s still-valid section 2, which prohibits any voting or election practice that denies a racial or ethnic minority equal opportunity to participate in the political process.”

You can bet that the lawyers at the NAACP and NYU’s Brennan Center for Justice are already figuring out precisely how they’ll use this new research to vindicate the rights of voters around the country.

Voter Identification Laws and the Suppression of Minority Votes [UCSD]


Sam Wright is a dyed-in-the-wool, bleeding-heart public interest lawyer who has spent his career exclusively in nonprofits and government. If you have ideas, questions, kudos, or complaints about his column or public interest law in general, send him an email at PublicInterestATL@gmail.com.