How Much Difference Did New Voting Restrictions Make in Yesterday’s Close Races? Apparently A LOT.

[Hissyspit]

http://billmoyers.com/2014/11/05/much-difference-new-voting-restrictions-make-yesterdays-close-races

"margin of victory came very close to the likely margin of disenfranchisement."

How Much of a Difference Did New Voting Restrictions Make in Yesterday’s Close Races?

November 5, 2014
by Wendy R. Weiser

This post first appeared at Brennan Center for Justice.

The Republican electoral sweep in yesterday’s elections has put an end to speculation over whether new laws making it harder to vote in 21 states would help determine control of the Senate this year. But while we can breathe a sigh of relief that the electoral outcomes won’t be mired in litigation, a quick look at the numbers shows that in several key races, the margin of victory came very close to the likely margin of disenfranchisement.

North Carolina

In the North Carolina Senate race, state house speaker Thom Tillis beat Senator Kay Hagen by a margin of 1.7 percent, or about 48,000 votes.

At the same time, North Carolina’s voters were, for the first time, voting under one of the harshest new election laws in the country — a law that Tillis helped to craft. Among other changes, the law slashed seven early voting days, eliminated same-day registration and prohibited voting outside a voter’s home precinct — all forms of voting especially popular among African-Americans. While it is too early to assess the impact of the law this year, the Election Protection hotline and other voter protection volunteers reported what appeared to be widespread problems both with voter registrations and with voters being told they were in the wrong precinct yesterday.

Some numbers from recent elections suggest that the magnitude of the problem may not be far from the margin of victory: In the last midterms in 2010, 200,000 voters cast ballots during the early voting days now cut, according to a recent court decision. In 2012, 700,000 voted during those days, including more than a quarter of all African-Americans who voted that year. In 2012, 100,000 North Carolinians, almost one-third of whom were African-American, voted using same-day registration, which was not available this year. And 7,500 voters cast their ballots outside of their home precincts that year.

Kansas

In the Kansas governor’s race, Governor Sam Brownback beat back challenger Paul Davis by a margin of 2.8 percent, or less than 33,000 votes.

But Kansans faced two new voting restrictions this year — a strict photo ID law that was put into effect right before the 2012 election, and a new documentary proof of citizenship requirement for voter registration.

What was the impact this year? We know from the Kansas secretary of state that more than 24,000 Kansans tried to register this year but their registrations were held in “suspense” because they failed to present the documentary proof of citizenship now required by state law. And while we do not yet have the data regarding the impact of the voter ID requirement this year, a recent study by the independent Government Accountability Office found that Kansas’s voter ID law reduced turnout by approximately 2 percent in 2012. (GAO also found that Tennessee’s new law reduced turnout by up to 3 percent.) If the law’s effect was similar this year, it would mean that turnout was about 17,000 voters lower than it otherwise would have been. And keep in mind that the number of Americans that don’t have government-issued photo IDs that would be accepted under new laws is closer to 11 percent. In short, the margin of victory in Kansas looks perilously close to the margin of disenfranchisement.

MORE AT LINK

[True Blue Door]

1. This sounds like there may be several illegitimate Republican gubernatorial victories.

But the numbers do not yet suggest that the Senate flip is illegitimate.

We should begin contacting our Democratic officials on both the state and federal levels asking whether they are prepared to denounce illegitimate Republican Governors as such.

Based on this Moyers report, it appears that Rick Scott in Florida is illegitimate. Appears, thus far.

Thank you for bringing this report to our attention.

If we can reasonably confirm illegitimacy, perhaps our party needs to establish a new status of officeholder - a(n) (insert office)-in-exile for those who would almost certainly have been elected in a free and fair vote.

[stuffmatters]

2. Polls have a "margin of error"; now elections have a "margin of fraud"

[Cha]

3. Very Important Information.. Tomm Tillis helped craft the Voter Restriction laws that helped him

win NC by Cheating. So Freaking Sad.

Kansas.. Florida

thanks Hissy

[B2G]

9. We lost NC because blacks and young voters stayed home

It's really that simple.

[FogerRox]

11. Nationally turnout didnt reach 38%. Right?

[Hissyspit]

13. That happens all the time in midterms.

But Dems don't get trounced every midterm.

[ChisolmTrailDem]

17. What's sad is that people like Tillis are still in power and walking around free. nt

[JI7]

4. not much in terms of outcome

[DFW]

5. The Soviet States of America

"Those who cast the votes decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything."

Stalin had it pegged, not that he ever had to worry about losing an election.

The Republicans took his sentiments to heart, though, and embraced them fully. Making sure your opponents can't vote is the same as letting them vote and ignoring their votes. It's election rigging, no matter what you call it, and thanks to Cheney putting Roberts and Alito on the Supreme Court, it is now blessed by the highest legal authority in the land.

I hope Sandra Day O'Connor and Ralph Nader are proud of themselves. What they set in motion in 2000 is destroying our country.

[AndyTiedye]

6. "Keep Out the Vote" Probably Won them Several Close Elections

It will be far worse by 2016. They can see how well their "Keep Out the Vote" strategy works, and there is nothing we can do to stop it.

[Gothmog]

7. The GOP can only win by cheating

[G_j]

8. Jim Crow returns

http://m.motherjones.com/politics/2014/10/minority-voters-election-long-lines-id


Even Without Voter ID Laws, Minority Voters Face More Hurdles to Casting Ballots
Heavily black and Latino precincts often have long lines and fewer voting machines on Election Day. Why?

—Stephanie Mencimer on Mon. November 3, 2014 6:00 AM PDT

Over the past decade, Republican legislators have pushed a number of measures critics say are blatant attempts to suppress minority voting, including voter ID requirements, shortened early voting periods, and limits on same-day voter registration. But minority voters are often disenfranchised in another, more subtle way: polling places without enough voting machines or poll workers.

These polling places tend to have long lines to vote. Long lines force people to eventually give up and go home, depressing voter turnout. And that happens regularly all across the country in precincts with lots of minority voters, even without voter ID or other voting restrictions in place.

Nationally, African Americans waited about twice as long to vote in the 2012 election as white people (23 minutes on average versus 12 minutes); Hispanics waited 19 minutes. White people who live in neighborhoods whose residents are less than 5 percent minority had the shortest of all wait times, just 7 minutes. These averages obscure some of the unusually long lines in some areas. In South Carolina's Richland County, which is 48 percent black and is home to 14 percent of the state's African American registered voters, some people waited more than five hours to cast their ballots.

A recent study from the Brennan Center for Justice suggests that a big factor behind these delays was inadequately prepared polling places in heavily minority precincts. Looking at Florida, Maryland, and South Carolina, three states that had some of the longest voting lines in 2012 , the center found a strong correlation between areas with large minority populations and a lack of voting machines and poll workers. In South Carolina, the 10 precincts with the longest waits had more than twice the percentage of black voters (64 percent) as the state as a whole (27 percent).

...more...

---------------------

Jim Crow returns, By Greg Palast (This is election theft in action!)

Millions of minority voters threatened by electoral purge

http://projects.aljazeera.com/2014/double-voters/index.html

Election officials in 27 states, most of them Republicans, have launched a program that threatens a massive purge of voters from the rolls. Millions, especially black, Hispanic and Asian-American voters, are at risk. Already, tens of thousands have been removed in at least one battleground state, and the numbers are expected to climb, according to a six-month-long, nationwide investigation by Al Jazeera America.

At the heart of this voter-roll scrub is the Interstate Crosscheck program, which has generated a master list of nearly 7 million names. Officials say that these names represent legions of fraudsters who are not only registered but have actually voted in two or more states in the same election — a felony punishable by 2 to 10 years in prison.

--

The Crosscheck list of suspected double voters has been compiled by matching names from roughly 110 million voter records from participating states. Interstate Crosscheck is the pet project of Kansas’ controversial Republican secretary of state, Kris Kobach, known for his crusade against voter fraud.

The three states’ lists are heavily weighted with names such as Jackson, Garcia, Patel and Kim — ones common among minorities, who vote overwhelmingly Democratic. Indeed, fully 1 in 7 African-Americans in those 27 states, plus the state of Washington (which enrolled in Crosscheck but has decided not to utilize the results), are listed as under suspicion of having voted twice. This also applies to 1 in 8 Asian-Americans and 1 in 8 Hispanic voters. White voters too — 1 in 11 — are at risk of having their names scrubbed from the voter rolls, though not as vulnerable as minorities.

If even a fraction of those names are blocked from voting or purged from voter rolls, it could alter the outcome of next week’s electoral battle for control of the U.S. Senate — and perhaps prove decisive in the 2016 presidential vote count.“It’s Jim Crow all over again,” says the Rev. Joseph Lowery, who cofounded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference with Martin Luther King, Jr. Lowery, now 93, says he recognizes in the list of threatened voters a sophisticated new form of an old and tired tactic. “I think would use anything they can find. Their desperation is rising.”

[Hissyspit]

10. "Triumph of corporate money and voter suppression"

New article:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10025776239

[FogerRox]

12. Turnout was under 38%.

[hedgehog]

15. Was turnout really under 38%, or would it have been higher without voter suppression?

[FogerRox]

16. Brennan Justice Center has done some great work on this issue

http://www.brennancenter.org/analysis/research-and-publications-voter-id

From that list:

http://arp.sagepub.com/content/40/4/461.abstract

as low as .3% as high as 1.2%.

Reagan, Clinton & Bush Jr, all 2 term Presidents saw their 6th year midterm election go to the other political party. In 2014 one might expect the GOP to win big.

Do too strict Voter ID laws suppress Dem voter turnout? Sure. IS that why Beglich in Alaska lost by over 4%? Or was it because Beglich was too liberal on some issues for right leaning Alaska?

[hedgehog]

14. This is something that really needs to be addressed big time.