Legion Troll
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With the presidential election less than three months away, millions of Americans will be navigating new requirements for voting – if they can vote at all – as their state leaders implement dozens of new restrictions that could make it more difficult to cast a ballot.
Since the last presidential election in 2012, politicians in 20 states passed 37 different new voting requirements. More than a third of those changes require voters to show specified government-issued photo IDs at the polls or reduced the number of acceptable IDs required by pre-existing laws.
“We have two world views: the people that think voter fraud is rampant and the people who want to push the narrative that it’s hard to vote. The bottom line is neither is true,” said Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted, who has been sued several times over his state’s removal of some voters from the registration rolls, elimination of same-day registration and curbs to early voting. “I believe that both political parties are trying to push a narrative that suits their agenda.”
Adding to the uncertainty for millions of voters nationally, not all the states' changes may be in place for the November election. Some were limited or overturned by court decisions still subject to appeal.
The new voting requirements, enacted in states mostly in the South and Midwest, were nine times more likely to have been passed by Republican legislatures than those controlled by Democrats, and almost five times more likely to have been signed by a GOP governor.
In addition to requiring voter ID, they reduced the number of days voters can cast ballots in person before election day, placed new restrictions on voter registration drives, eliminated opportunities to register and vote on the same day, or moved up deadlines to register and still vote on election day.
Republican-controlled Texas and Wisconsin passed the strictest voter ID laws, while North Carolina and Ohio are among those that eliminated same-day registration and reduced early voting days.
A flurry of court rulings in late July and early August that struck down, weakened or altered new voting requirements in Wisconsin, Texas, North Carolina and North Dakota. In some cases, judges ruled that the laws’ discriminatory effect was intentional.
Republican state leaders and conservative advocates of voter ID and other new requirements have insisted that they are necessary to prevent voter fraud and protect the integrity of elections. But a 50-state analysis of cases since 2000 found that the rate of voter fraud is infinitesimal compared with the total number of voters nationwide and that in-person voter impersonation on election day – the type of fraud voter that photo ID is designed to prevent – is virtually nonexistent.
A 2014 study by the U.S. Government Accountability Office found that laws requiring specific kinds of voter ID in Kansas and Tennessee depressed voter turnout in those states in 2012, with African-Americans and young voters disproportionately affected. Ten state-specific and nationwide studies within the GAO report found that African-Americans and Latinos were always less likely to have the required voter ID than whites, and Native Americans and Asian-Americans were frequently at a similar disadvantage.
Some states put new voting requirements in place only after the 2013 U.S. Supreme Court decision in the Shelby County v. Holder case negated the provision in the 1965 Voting Rights Act that required them to clear such changes in advance with the U.S. Justice Department.
https://www.texastribune.org/2016/08/20/nationally-new-laws-force-voters-navigate-maze-req/
Since the last presidential election in 2012, politicians in 20 states passed 37 different new voting requirements. More than a third of those changes require voters to show specified government-issued photo IDs at the polls or reduced the number of acceptable IDs required by pre-existing laws.
“We have two world views: the people that think voter fraud is rampant and the people who want to push the narrative that it’s hard to vote. The bottom line is neither is true,” said Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted, who has been sued several times over his state’s removal of some voters from the registration rolls, elimination of same-day registration and curbs to early voting. “I believe that both political parties are trying to push a narrative that suits their agenda.”
Adding to the uncertainty for millions of voters nationally, not all the states' changes may be in place for the November election. Some were limited or overturned by court decisions still subject to appeal.
The new voting requirements, enacted in states mostly in the South and Midwest, were nine times more likely to have been passed by Republican legislatures than those controlled by Democrats, and almost five times more likely to have been signed by a GOP governor.
In addition to requiring voter ID, they reduced the number of days voters can cast ballots in person before election day, placed new restrictions on voter registration drives, eliminated opportunities to register and vote on the same day, or moved up deadlines to register and still vote on election day.
Republican-controlled Texas and Wisconsin passed the strictest voter ID laws, while North Carolina and Ohio are among those that eliminated same-day registration and reduced early voting days.
A flurry of court rulings in late July and early August that struck down, weakened or altered new voting requirements in Wisconsin, Texas, North Carolina and North Dakota. In some cases, judges ruled that the laws’ discriminatory effect was intentional.
Republican state leaders and conservative advocates of voter ID and other new requirements have insisted that they are necessary to prevent voter fraud and protect the integrity of elections. But a 50-state analysis of cases since 2000 found that the rate of voter fraud is infinitesimal compared with the total number of voters nationwide and that in-person voter impersonation on election day – the type of fraud voter that photo ID is designed to prevent – is virtually nonexistent.
A 2014 study by the U.S. Government Accountability Office found that laws requiring specific kinds of voter ID in Kansas and Tennessee depressed voter turnout in those states in 2012, with African-Americans and young voters disproportionately affected. Ten state-specific and nationwide studies within the GAO report found that African-Americans and Latinos were always less likely to have the required voter ID than whites, and Native Americans and Asian-Americans were frequently at a similar disadvantage.
Some states put new voting requirements in place only after the 2013 U.S. Supreme Court decision in the Shelby County v. Holder case negated the provision in the 1965 Voting Rights Act that required them to clear such changes in advance with the U.S. Justice Department.
https://www.texastribune.org/2016/08/20/nationally-new-laws-force-voters-navigate-maze-req/