Democrats like to claim that Republicans use various laws such as voter ID — widely supported and used in nearly every major democracy on earth — to disenfranchise minority voters and steal elections. Two-time failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and failed gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams are among those who actually reject election outcomes based on their theory.
But the data offer no evidence, and strongly suggest that it is not true.
The ongoing charge from Democrats is that voter ID laws, along with efforts to clean up voter rolls and limitations on early voting, have disenfranchised massive voting blocs that would otherwise help Democratic candidates. In order to make the argument seem relevant, they also claim, without evidence that these laws disproportionately affect black Americans specifically. However, as Jason L. Riley notes in the Wall Street Journal, the facts do not support these allegations.
“It just so happens that two weeks ago the Census Bureau released a report on voter turnout in 2018, which climbed 11 percentage points from the last midterm election, in 2014, and surpassed 50% for the first time since 1982,” he writes.
He adds, “Moreover, the increased turnout was largely driven by the same minority voters Democrats claim are being disenfranchised. Black turnout grew around 27%, and Hispanic turnout increased about 50%. An analysis of the census data published by the Pew Research Center found that ‘all major racial and ethnic groups saw historic jumps in voter turnout’ last year.”
These trends should come as no surprise to those who have been paying attention. In fact, to Abrams’ specific allegation that voter suppression efforts cost her the 2018 Georgia governor’s race, it is important to note that an estimated 3.9 million votes were cast in Georgia during last year’s the midterm cycle, which is a sizable jump from the 2.5 million votes recorded in the Peach State in the 2014 midterm election. Moreover, an estimated 4.1 million votes were cast in the 2016 presidential election, which is a slight increase from the 4 million votes cast four years earlier in 2012. Further, as Riley notes, “black voter registration is outpacing white registration in the Peach State.”
In other words, whoever oversaw the GOP’s voter suppression efforts in Georgia did a really terrible job. More seriously, though, to read in the Wall Street Journal that voter turnout in 2018 surpassed 50% for the first time since the year “E.T.” was released in theaters is no great surprise. This seems to have happened in most of the states which held elections that Democrats claim were stolen.
Here is some more food for thought, courtesy of Riley: “The black voter turnout rate for the most part has grown steadily since the 1990s. This has occurred notwithstanding an increase in state voter-ID requirements over the same period. In 2012 blacks voted at higher rates than whites nationwide, including in Georgia, which was one of the first states in the country to implement a photo-ID requirement for voting.”
Finally, Gallup data from 2016 found that 4 in 5 respondents said they supported voter ID laws, and that includes a solid majority of Democrats. Outside of Democratic and media circles, the voter suppression line may lack traction because it does not match up to reality.
