Surprise! States That Make It Harder to Vote Had Lower Turnout in 2020

[DonViejo]

State-level turnout data shows why Republicans are so interested in making it harder to vote in the next election.

By Cameron Joseph

As Republicans make a sweeping voter suppression push nationwide, they insist it won’t have any real impact on voters’ ability to cast their ballots. But a look at how voter turnout shifted in 2020 shows a strong link between states making it easier to vote and voters actually turning out.

In 2020, the states that showed the biggest jumps in voter turnout were almost uniformly states that also made it dramatically easier to vote, often by allowing everyone to vote by mail. And the states that saw the lowest turnout increases were all ones where it’s hard to vote—and where lawmakers kept onerous rules in place—like bans on mail voting—in spite of the pandemic.

“You see this very stark correlation where states with higher usage of mail ballots had higher turnouts in the 2020 election,” said Michael McDonald, a University of Florida professor and head of the United States Election Project. “If you look at the change in turnout from 2016, you see a very strong correlation that the higher the change, the more permissive a state’s laws were in terms of allowing mail ballots.” Correlation isn’t causation, and the 2020 election was unique because of the coronavirus.

But these data show an undeniable correlation between mail voting laws and turnout in the last election. And that goes a way in explaining why Republicans seem so eager to make it harder to vote in a number of states—even as they insist it has nothing to do with keeping Democrats from casting ballots.

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https://www.vice.com/en/article/g5bzpj/surprise-states-that-make-it-harder-to-vote-had-lower-turnout-in-2020

[Nevilledog]

1. ...

[world wide wally]

2. And Republicans won more of those states.

That is the idea!