[EL] backlash on voter ID

Tue Nov 13 12:22:34 PST 2012

In Minnesota, the recapturing of the state legislature by the Democrats in part can be ascribed to voter backlash regarding perceptions that the Republicans overreached in placing constitutional amendments on the ballot that wold impose voter ID and ban same-sex marriage. The two amendments worked together to encourage voting against the amendments and then straight party-line voting for Democrats.    Keep in mind that the two amendments were passed in the legislature by near straight party-line votes.

David Schultz, Professor
Editor, Journal of Public Affairs Education (JPAE)
Hamline University
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>>> David Segal  11/13/12 2:08 PM >>>
<!--.hmmessage P{margin:0px;padding:0px}body.hmmessage{font-size: 10pt;font-family:Tahoma}-->FWIW, the Speaker of the RI House of Reps survived a strong in-district challenge from a lefty independent wherein the Speaker's support for voter ID was one of the two major issues in play, and from what I hear, something that constituents regularly brought up at the doors.  He's promised to revisit it.  I think the Dem establishment in RI has also been getting a lot of flack from national actors -- it's just mind-boggling that they didn't understand how aberrant their actions were ahead of time.

http://www.rifuture.org/speaker-fox-promises-to-reconsider-voter-id-law.html

From: douglasrhess at gmail.com
Date: Tue, 13 Nov 2012 13:38:51 -0500
To: Law-election at department-lists.uci.edu
Subject: [EL] backlash on voter ID

I suspected there would be a backlash to the voter ID laws and it seems there is a bit of one. The post-election publicity on the issue, that I've seen, has not been enormous--perhaps because the defeat was decisive, thus making the issue of IDs less significant in post-election analysis--but it seems the delays caused by voter ID confusion is partially to blame in some places for long lines. More importantly, the ballot initiative in MN failed. 

Of course, it remains to be seen if the supporters of IDs are able to assemble any evidence that IDs improved the system, compared to the obvious costs, in the broad sense. Or perhaps they will demonstrate that the costs was slight (which may be hard as it will be difficult to know how much the parties, campaigns, and nonprofits spent on helping people overcome any ID related problems). Ultimately, if efforts to push ID laws continue, it seems safe to bet that it will be easier to push for less onerous versions or interpretations. Likewise, it will be interesting to see if current laws are also amended or implemented more liberally.

Are there any ongoing studies of ID laws that used last week's election for data collection?

Douglas R. Hess, PhD
Washington, DC
ph. 202-277-6400
douglasrhess at gmail.com  

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