One cannot deny that Voter ID laws deter voters, especially minority voters, and it probably had some effect; but so did voluntary non-participation.
Baldwin’s claim is based on a study by a left-leaning group, Priorities USA. Election experts have widely criticized the report, but 0ther Democrats, including Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), have made claims based on the report.
The study looks at turnout in Wisconsin and Minnesota, which does not have a voter ID law. It finds that Wisconsin had lower turnout among nonwhite communities, while Minnesota did not. The study concludes that “if turnout had increased by the national no-change average, over 200,000 more voters would have voted in Wisconsin in 2016.”
But correlation isn’t always causation, and the study does not offer evidence of causation.
One of the main criticisms of this study is that it attributes all 200,000 votes to Wisconsin’s voter ID law. Yet it’s not that simple. While the law likely had some impact on deterring potential voters, there are other things that may have affected the lower turnout.
For example, many voters in Wisconsin decided to sit out this election. There was a lack of enthusiasm among voters for Clinton or Trump, and some may have believed Trump didn’t have a chance at winning Wisconsin, PolitiFact Wisconsin wrote. PolitiFact Wisconsin also pointed out that 2016 turnout in the state was higher than in 2008, before the voter ID law.
Rick Hasen, an elections expert at the University of California at Irvine, noted that black voters in Milwaukee, which experienced a dramatic decline in turnout in 2016, were not motivated by Clinton the same way they were for Obama in 2012 or 2008. Moreover, there was a general decline in the black vote in 2016, compared with 2012 or 2008, in both states that had voter ID laws and states that didn’t.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2017/05/30/do-voter-id-laws-help-or-hurt-voter-turnout/?tid=a_inl&utm_term=.0d3872d7e4a5
= new reply since forum marked as read