How much do various Republican efforts to suppress the vote actually end up suppressing the vote? The evidence suggests that the answer is "not much," and a recent study provides more confirmation of this. It comes from Kyle Raze of the University of Oregon, who took a look at the effect of Shelby vs. Holder, the Supreme Court decision that overturned parts of the Voting Rights Act and opened the door for states to pass new voting laws without first getting them precleared.
What you'd expect is that in states that previously required preclearance two things would happen. First, they'd rush to pass laws designed to affect Black voting. That happened just as you'd think. Second, Black turnout would therefore decline compared to white turnout. That didn't happen:
This is a little complicated, but here's what the chart shows. In red you have the states that previously required preclearance and were therefore affected by Shelby. In presidential elections, the gap between white and Black turnout did indeed increase by about five points after Shelby was handed down, but it turns out this is no smoking gun. In other states (green), which weren't affected by Shelby, the gap increased even more.
In midterm elections, the gap decreased in states that were affected by Shelby. The gap also decreased in other states, but not as much.
In other words, Black turnout relative to white turnout improved more in Shelby states than in non-Shelby states. All the effort that the Shelby states put into changing their voting laws didn't help them. In fact, it backfired.
As usual, this is one study that takes one particular approach to the data, and it might not be correct. But the methodology seems reasonable and other studies have come to similar conclusions. This is why I'm not all that concerned about the general voting restrictions that red states have been pounding into place ever since the 2020 election. Republicans are doing this in a panic, and they have no idea what will work and what won't. For the most part, they're accomplishing little except pissing off Black voters and encouraging them to turn out in greater numbers.
Unfortunately, the new hotness in red states is to pass laws that allow Republican legislatures to replace election officials if they feel that ballot counting isn't going the way they'd like. That's genuinely banana republic territory, and it's the thing we need to shine a spotlight on.
Besides Florida, Texas, Arizona laws will backfire. Florida, because it will restrict older Republicans(mainly from the midwest) from voting. Texas and Arizona due to white flight. Georgia may have potential due to a more static voter demographics.
Republicans have a suburban problem, one that has destroyed the party in Oregon with white voters. They are fighting a war from 30 years ago.
"Unfortunately, the new hotness in red states is to pass laws that allow Republican legislatures to replace election officials if they feel that ballot counting isn't going the way they'd like. That's genuinely banana republic territory, and it's the thing that needs to have a spotlight shown on it."
I've read a few comments/columns voicing these concerns; but, no one seems to know for certain if such efforts would actually work. That is, how well would they stand up to actual legal scrutiny?
I'm not enough of a lawyer to know, but I'd be quite interested to read more about that question. Any attempts by state legislatures to basically throw out results (or officials who certify the results) they don't like will surely lead to lawsuits, injunctions, DOJ action, and who knows what else. So, how well will their nefarious efforts actually stand up to that kind of real legal scrutiny?
Well, it worked for 100 years or so, and the Roberts court has shown itself to be pretty consistently hostile to Congressional voting-rights legislation, Shelby being Exhibit A. Moreover, it's air-raid-siren clear that Congressional Republicans are 100% behind the attempts to monkeywrench state election administration, and between Cyndi Lauper Sinema and good ol' Gomer Joe Manchin, it ain't lookin' too likely that Dems are gonna be able to tweak the rules to get anything passed in the Senate.
Personally, I think the only hope Dems have -- and it's a slim one -- is to win on popular votes so thoroughly that enough Republicans decide that discretion is the better part of valor. I ain't gonna bet the farm though ...
The idea that vote suppression efforts worked for 100 years is a bit vague. Which efforts are the ones that you think worked for 100 years, and how do they compare to the new laws referenced by Kevin (laws in which state legislatures control - explicitly or implicitly - the certification of elections)?
How well would these NEW laws hold up to the legal scrutiny they would face TODAY. And how much backlash would there be from a country which (mostly) is less willing to put up with what could conceivably be compared with Jim Crow style tactics?
The idea that vote suppression efforts worked to some extent in the past - and may or will therefore continue working into the present - does not seem entirely convincing to me ...
In the latter half of the 19th century, state legislatures enacted poll taxes, literacy tests and other voter suppression measures. In 1898,the Supreme Court upheld these disenfranchisement measures in Williams V. Mississippi.
The US didn't ratify the 24th Amendment and abolish poll taxes until 1964.
Again, my original point of interest is in regards to how the NEW laws will hold up against CURRENT legal scrutiny. I remain uncertain that these historic parallels offer much guidance on that question. I'm not sure an 1898 Supreme Court case is much of a guide.
"Unfortunately, the new hotness in red states is to pass laws that allow Republican legislatures to replace election officials if they feel that ballot counting isn't going the way they'd like."
Republicans keep hammering cracks into the dyke of democracy and Demorats keep sticking their thumbs into them. This is insanity.
I think this analysis isn't quite correct.
A) Post-Shelby, there were limited laws passed/enforced between 2013 and 2018 that would have had measurable effect. Certainly not anything approaching the wave of new laws in 2021. If you read that research paper carefully, starting in the last paragraph of page 2, he points out what laws/enforcement actions were taken.
B) The paper does not account for the same (or tougher) restrictive measures taken by several "uncovered" conservative states, insofar that it did not set out to measure effects of restrictive voting laws. Yet, you're suggesting that post-Shelby effects can be broadly interpreted to measure the effects of restrictive voting laws.
C) Instead of measuring post-Shelby, what this paper may in fact be showing is post-Obama/anti-Clinton effects followed by post-Trump backlash.
D) Note the large overlaps of 95% CI on Figures 3,4. Small errors can be magnified to produce completely opposite results.
E) How do you take into account the increased costs of Black GOTV efforts to overcome the disadvantage created by post-Shelby laws? If you're suggesting that Blacks are *more* motivated to GOTV on their own just because of the new laws, I think maybe you should speak directly with Stacey Abrams.
C) Yes, exactly. Three Presidential elections, two with an African-American candidate, one with a white supremacist. Might have had some effect on voting patterns. 🙄
E) Even if voter-suppression measures stimulate a backlash, it remains to be seen whether the reactive increase in votes by POC will persist.
Stacey Abrams seems more motivated.
The current flurry of voter suppression bills being rammed through by Republican legislatures aren't just about making it more inconvenient to vote, which may or may not make a huge difference depending on a variety of circumstances, but make it correspondingly *easier* for partisan politicians to overrule professional election officials and interfere in the counting and certification of outcomes they don't like. *That's* where things are going to get ugly in the next couple of years: expect GOP pols to basically file suits against, or resist certifying, voter tallies in every Democratic district in their state if results are ever even remotely close.
Oops -- essentially the same point Kevin made in his last sentence. I need to read more carefully!
Both of the Republicans’ minority-rule initiatives must be strongly opposed. Vote-preemption may seem more of a threat, but also seems less likely to survive legal challenges, and more likely to be opposed by those who identify as ‘Independent’, even if they lean GOP. Also, the effects of voter-suppression laws may be cumulative—over how many elections can you expect people to put up with long car or bus rides to distant polling places, followed by hours of standing in line?
I agree. I live in a affluent, virtually all white area, and I've never had to wait even a single minute in line at a polling place. If I lived in a place where voting required spending hours in line, that would be an obvious disincentive, even if it wouldn't matter in a year when Trump was on the ballot.
Yet another liberal that doesn't eat his or her own cooking. Move to the ghetto or barrio.
Voter suppression has not worked out well for the Republicans. But gerrymandering has done them a world of good.
"Unfortunately, the new hotness in red states is to pass laws that allow Republican legislatures to replace election officials if they feel that ballot counting isn't going the way they'd like. That's genuinely banana republic territory, and it's the thing that needs to have a spotlight shown on it."
See, and that's why I don't understand why you're so sanguine in general on efforts to curtail voting simply because *so far* they haven't had much impact. They're passing new laws every day. If they keep trying, eventually they'll get something that works. AND, as you point out, a lot of these election board control laws genuinely could throw an election into chaos. On top of that, all of this furor has done a pretty good job undermining faith in elections among Republican voters. The majority of them are convinced that black voters and Democrats are voting illegally.
Sure, all of this may peter out, but we are currently at "_0_ years since our last transition of power wasn't peaceful" and things could easily escalate in 2022 and 2024. I'm not one to shrug this one off.
K.D., I love your blog and you're a great blogger. I also note that you are a data geek, which, in many cases, is a good thing.
However, if our Allied military leaders in WWII had based all of their decisions on data from WWI, we would have lost.
I, for one, have a very strong sense that we are now living in one of the more consequential semi-centuries of human civilization's history. There are a number of serious studies out there focused on huge-momentum global trends, and suggesting that the forces behind the common man's willingness to consider autocracy in this age is that the majority of the world's population is not benefiting from globalization, and hence they are rejecting recent decades "progress" generally. We find the world trapped in a situation where it might be true that the "average" standard of living has increased over the past century, but it has come at the cost of a kind of super-charged feudalism. It's not sustainable and I don't have a clue how we find a way out of the trap.
Replace local election officials that make up rules for voting arbitrarily, place 'voting boxes' capriciously, have 'Democracy in the Park' events in heavily Democrat areas, etc.
Election integrity is not voter supression.
Also, if you are going to capitalize Black, capitalize White.
"Sure, all of this may peter out, but we are currently at "_0_ years since our last transition of power wasn't peaceful" and things could easily escalate in 2022 and 2024."
Trump rally goers were violently attacked in San Jose in 2016, would be attendees of the Trump 2017 inauguration were violently attacked and some prevented for attending.