Talk Elections

Wisconsin’s voter ID law discouraged as many as 23,252 people in the state’s two largest counties from voting in last year’s presidential election, according to a new study by researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

The study, based on a survey of people in Milwaukee and Dane counties who did not vote, says the law discouraged 16,801 to 23,252 people from voting. The researchers estimated that 9,001 to 14,101 people actually were blocked from voting, based on answers from nonvoters who said the main reason they didn’t cast a ballot was because they believed they didn’t have acceptable ID.

The study adds to the debate over voter ID laws and their effects on voter turnout. Backers of the laws say they are needed to combat voter fraud. Critics say the laws are unnecessary because widespread voter fraud is not a problem. Voter ID laws make it more difficult for minorities, low-income people and the elderly to vote, opponents say.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/wisconsin-voter-id_us_59ca6e60e4b01cc57ff5bdd5?ncid=inblnkushpmg00000009

So why does it "discourage" people from voting?

According to this website, you can just show a driver's license to vote.  in fact, there are quite a few options.

http://www.ncsl.org/research/elections-and-campaigns/voter-id.aspx

The easiest solution to this is to provide free photo ID to all citizens at age 18 on request, but with an opt-out for those who don't want it.

Damn. So the photo ID law prevented between 9k and 14k Trump voters from casting ballots? They should offer free IDs to the poors.

...

because every single person has a driver's license. WTF dude?

As I said, there are quite a few options:

-Wisconsin driver's license
-ID card issued by a U.S. uniformed service
-Wisconsin non-driver ID
-U.S. Passport
-Certificate of naturalization issued not more than 2 years before the election
-ID card issued by a federally recognized Indian tribe in WI
-Student ID card with a signature, an issue date, and an expiration date no later than 2 years after the election
-a photo ID card provided by the Veteran's Health Administration

Good write up explaining everything that is wrong with this study.

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/451968/wisconsin-voter-id-study-flawed-unreliable (http://www.nationalreview.com/article/451968/wisconsin-voter-id-study-flawed-unreliable)

This is a pretty great write-up. Happy that this was addressed.

Not everyone has a driver's license.

The only one of those that's really available to everyone is the "non-driver ID" (passports cost money and people who don't travel abroad don't bother). And non-driver IDs are still a hassle to get. Also I went to a major state university and my ID from there would not pass muster according to this test. I don't know if schools in Wisconsin are different, but there are students from Wisconsin who attend out of state schools.

Also you realize that the people supporting these laws have admitted that they're doing it for partisan reasons. Why are you defending people who have actively refuted your defenses of them?

Those people are idiots.

Yes, it's an example of throwing out the baby and the bathwater. I still get annoyed anytime a smug Dem hack claims tax cuts are racist because muh Lee Atwater said they were before I was even born. People can have different motivations for supporting the same policy. Hell, Jimmy Carter recommended voter IDs in mid 00's.

Exactly

No, they're just more honest than you.

Whatever you say.

OK. What exactly is the benefit of having voter ID laws without providing free, easy, mandatory IDs to everyone?

I would prefer free, easy, mandatory IDs. It limits confusion. I just don’t think Wisconsin’s is an attack of any sort.

You didn't answer my question.

Step 1. File junk lawsuits against Wisconsin common sense voter ID, which was signed in 2011.
Step 2. Whine about 'confusion' created by those junk lawsuits.

Of course, as many have pointed out, most of those people mentioned actually have a proper ID already. So they are either lying or stupid.


Voter turnout went up 4% in Indiana after they strengthened the elections system by passing wonderful voter ID.

Link (https://www.in.gov/sos/elections/files/2008_election_turnout.pdf)

Link (https://www.in.gov/sos/elections/files/2004_Municipal_Registration_and_Turnout.pdf)

It’s a step in the right direction to limiting voter fraud. Im not gonna pretend like I understand the schematics behind why there is an extremely small price for things like non-driver license ID, but it certainly isn’t to limit voter access. As I said, though, free mandatory ID would be better.

A small price is still enough to discourage the poor from voting, esp. when getting the ID is such a hassle.

But again, I still fail to see how it "discourages" minorities from voting.

Because getting an ID is difficult. We just went over this.

WI does have free ID that is acceptable for voting. However, it's at the DMV, which has limited hours and as previously mentioned, it's often difficult for poor minorities to get there and also have the appropriate paperwork on hand.

In addition, my husband, who has a perfectly acceptable ID for voting, was initially turned away because his printed driver's license address didn't match his voter's registration. We moved recently, and WI allows you to update your driver's license without printing a new one, which is the option we opted for.

However, the picture ID is not to determine your address, it is to determine your identity. He was turned away in error. Luckily I had already voted and he knew this (and we both came with proof of address as well), so he pushed to get the issue resolved and was able to vote after talking to a supervisor. However, this makes me wonder how many other eligible voters were turned away in similar situations and didn't press the issue? Again, minority and poor urban folks are more likely to have moved without updating or printing a new driver's license. So even though their ID was appropriate for voting, uninformed poll workers could have turned them away.

In addition, one of our congressmen openly admitted that voter ID laws help the GOP (https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/wisconsin-voter-id-2016_us_5704a2eee4b0a506064d90cf).

The difference between Hillary and Trump in Wisconsin was about 27k votes. If this study is correct (and my guess is that it under-estimates, rather than over-estimates) it's very possible that the results could have been much closer, if not reversed, without this law. Of course, not all the prevented votes would be for Clinton, but the majority likely would have been.

I doubt lack of voter ID would have put the state in Clinton's hands. None of the studies about this have been as conclusive as they claim to be. However, this isn't to say that it didn't prevent thousands from voting. The real argument here is why should people have to put up with a political party making it even slightly harder to vote just to help them win elections? Why is that ok? All this griping from Republicans about a dozen fraudulent votes here and there, but crickets when it comes to the hundreds or even thousands of people who can't vote because they lack proper ID (or think they lack the right identification).

If Republicans insist it's not about helping them win elections (numerous officials and operatives remarks say otherwise, but ok), then for every restriction they add that hurts turnout, like voter ID, they should add something else that boosts turnout, like automatic voter registration, county-wide polling places and more early voting sites. Oh, but guess what, WI Republicans tried to cut all of that. They were even eyeing rolling back same-day registration until they found out how much it would cost. That doesn't look like a party that cares about election integrity. That looks like a party who wants to turn election law on its head so they can suppress Democratic voters.

This study was only done in two blue counties.  What were the results in the rest of the state?  Classic cherry-picking to push left-wing talking points.

Exactly.  Trump won there because of working class backlash against free trade and illegal immigration, not photo ID laws.

So if they studied the rest of the state, would they find that Voter ID laws caused more people to vote in conservative counties, which counterbalanced the drop in turnout in Democratic areas?