October 25, 2014
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Last week, the Supreme Court
upheld a law that could disenfranchise 600,000 Texans. But the
effects of
the law won’t fall equally: African-Americans and Latinos are 305
percent and 195 percent less likely (respectively) to have the necessary
forms of identification than whites. The Republican party is
increasingly unpopular, and relies almost exclusively on white voters.
The charts below show the 2008 if only white men voted and if only
people of color voted (
source).
Since
2008, people of color become a growing share of the voting population
while the GOP has, if anything, moved further to the right. It has
further alienated voters of color with racist attacks and laws. But as
they say: if you can’t beat ‘em, make sure they don’t vote. Over the
last four years the Republicans have gone through elaborate attempts to
make sure populations that don’t support them don’t get a chance to
vote.
Since 2006, Republicans have
pushed through voter ID laws in 34 states. Such laws did not exist before 2006, when Indiana
passed the first voter ID law. The laws were ostensibly aimed at preventing voter fraud, but a News21 investigation
finds only
2,068 instance of alleged fraud since 2000 (that is out of over 146
million voters). They estimate that there is one accusation of voter
fraud for every 15 million voters. As Mother Jones
notes,
instances of voter fraud are more rare than UFO sightings. There have
been only 13 instances of in-person voter fraud (the sorts that a voter
ID law would reduce), while 47,000 people claim to have seen a UFO.
On the other hand, research by the Brennan Center for Justice
finds that,
“as many as 11 percent of eligible voters do not have government-issued
photo ID.” Those who do not have ID are most likely to be “ seniors,
people of color, people with disabilities, low-income voters, and
students” — i.e.. people who vote Democratic (
chart source).
There is now a large literature studying the effects of voter ID laws. James Avery and Mark Peffley
find, “states with restrictive voter registration laws are much more likely to be biased toward upper-class turnout.” The GAO
finds that voter ID laws reduce turnout among those between
ages 18-23 and
African-Americans (two key Democratic constituencies). A 2013 study
finds that
the proposal and passage of voter ID laws are “highly partisan,
strategic, and racialized affairs.”
They write, “Our findings confirm
that
Democrats are justified in their concern that restrictive voter
legislation takes aim along racial lines with strategic partisan intent.”
[Italics in original] The authors also find that increases in
low-income voter turnout triggered voter ID laws. A more recent study
finds,
“where elections are competitive, the furtherance of restrictive voter
ID laws is a means of maintaining Republican support while curtailing
Democratic electoral gains.”
That is, not all Republican legislatures
propose voter ID laws — only those that face strong competition from
Democrats. If Republicans are concerned about election integrity, why do
they only pass voter ID laws when they’re about to lose an election?
Because they’re cheaters.
Voter ID laws are also racially motivated. A recent study
finds that
voters are significantly more likely to support a voter ID law when
they are shown pictures of black people voting than when shown white
people voting. One voter ID group
had a picture on their website showing a black inmate voting and a man wearing a mariachi outfit — clearly playing off racial stereotypes.
But
this isn’t the only time Republicans have tried to leverage state-level
advantages into federal gains. After the 2010 walloping, Republicans
decided they would need to tilt the odds in their favor.
Using their
control of state legislatures, they gerrymandered districts to ensure
their victory. In 2012, Democrats actually had a larger share of the
popular vote for the House of Representatives, while Republicans
gained their largest House majority in 60 years. Cook Political Report
noted, “House GOP Won 49 Percent of Votes, 54 Percent of Seats.”
How? They
cheated.
Karl Rove came out and said it in an Op-Ed,
writing,
“He who controls redistricting can control Congress.” They won in
districts that were drawn specifically to allow them to win. There were
certainly other factors at play, but it’s hard to image Republicans
winning as many seats without their nifty swindle.
In
a project with the explicit blessing of Republican National Committee
Chairman Reince Priebus, a half-dozen Republican-dominated legislatures
in states that swing blue in presidential elections have advanced
proposals to abandon the winner-take-all standard in the Electoral
College…Thanks to the GOP’s gerrymandering, such a change would all but
guarantee that a Democratic presidential candidate in a big, diverse
state like Michigan would lose the split of electoral votes even if he
or she won in a popular landslide.
If Republicans
have their way, we’ll eventually be back to the days of the poll tax and
the literacy test, where the votes of blacks, youth and the poor simply
don’t count. We’re already halfway there.
The Senate, with its
antiquated system of two senators per state means that the largely
rural, old, white and conservative Midwest and South have far more sway
than liberal metropolitan areas. This gives Republicans a
strong advantage in the Senate, something to remember if they win it this election.
Republicans have also made use of felony disenfranchisement to boost their electoral success. Some 5.85 million Americans
are denied the vote due to felony disenfranchisement. Because of the
racial bias in our criminal justice system and the war on drugs, a disproportionate share of these voters are black. One study
finds that
because felons are more likely to be poor and people of color,
disenfranchisement benefits Republicans. The authors estimate
that,
“at least one Republican presidential victory would have been reversed
if former felons had been allowed to vote.”
Further, they find that such
laws may have impacted control of the Senate, and even more state and
local elections. It’s no surprise that in Florida, a state where 10
percent of voters can’t vote because of a felony conviction, one of Rick
Scott’s
first moves as governor was to tighten rules for felons trying to gain voting rights.
To
a large extent, the radicalism of the Tea Party and the Republican
Party at-large is due to the fact that they don’t represent the
population at large; they represent a primarily white and middle- to
high-income voting bloc. And that’s how Republicans want to keep it;
they know they can’t win in a fair race, so like
Dick Dasterdly and Muttley,
they set all sorts of obstacles in their opponents’ way.
Hopefully,
much like Dick Dasterdly and Muttley, their plan will blow up in their
faces: Voters will be so angry about Republican attempts to suppress the
vote that they’ll turn out in even higher numbers. Sadly, convicted
felons, undocumented immigrants and many citizens without ID will still
be denied the vote.
In the movies, cheaters never win, for Republicans
it’s been a successful electoral strategy for
three decades running.
