Impact of Voter ID Laws Uncertain as Election Approaches

Under Siege Minority Votes in Jeopardy as Confusion Reigns Over Uncertain Impact of Voter ID Laws

Democracy, elections and voting at Democracy Chronicles

Recently on Rick Hasen’s amazing website, ‘Election Law Blog’, there were several posts pertaining to the lack of data on the impact of the dozens of new voter ID and registration laws on voters, particularly minorities.  The data is pretty much inconclusive but the danger that people will be prevented from voting is real.

One of the big questions in the elections arena is, how many people who want to vote don’t have an ID?  So far, the answers to this question have been partial, theoretical or politically calculated.  NCSL does not have the “right” answer, either, but we can offer three distinct data points that may have value to election officials or researchers as we approach the presidential election.” While these data are somewhat helpful, the data from Kansas and Tennessee, so far as I can tell, do not include voters who did not bother showing up to vote because they did not have an i.d. and could not get one within the time to have the vote count.

The other post on Election Law Blog showed that the numbers of disenfranchised voters could be dramatically higher than others have claimed large Impact of Voter ID Laws:

The other day I linked to this Washington Post report; ‘That figure fell 5 percent across the country, to about 11 million, according to the Census Bureau. But in some politically important swing states, the decline among Hispanics, who are considered critical in the 2012 presidential contest, is much higher: just over 28 percent in New Mexico, for example, and about 10 percent in Florida.”