[EL] impact of new voting laws

[Rick Hasen]

No, that's not what I said.  I said that from the Brennan Center "more 
caution is in order....I think more can be done to be careful in not 
overclaiming in this area, especially given the predictability of the 
political response."

On 11/12/14, 8:17 AM, Eric Marshall wrote:
> I appreciate that response.  So is your concern less with Wendy's post 
> and more how blogs on the left choose to cover it?
>
> On Wed, Nov 12, 2014 at 9:59 AM, Rick Hasen <rhasen at law.uci.edu 
> <mailto:rhasen at law.uci.edu>> wrote:
>
>     I think very highly of the work of the Brennan Center, in terms of
>     its research projects, its public outreach and much, and the
>     quality of its litigation (although I don't always agree with the
>     legal theories the Center advances).  I have filed briefs with the
>     Center and worked on projects with them.
>
>     My trouble has been with the p.r. side on this particular
>     issue---the effect of restrictive voting laws on
>     disenfranchisement and election outcomes. It must be clear by now
>     to the Brennan folks that asking suggestive questions in headlines
>     and releases about the effect of these laws gets overhyped by the
>     left, which suggests more caution is in order. That report from
>     the Dish shows how the work of the Center on this issue is being
>     interpreted: " Wendy Weiser of the Brennan Center for Justiceeven
>     suggests
>     <http://www.brennancenter.org/blog/how-much-difference-did-new-voting-restrictions-make-yesterdays-close-races>that
>     new restrictions may have suppressed enough votes to turn some
>     close races."
>
>     I think more can be done to be careful in not overclaiming in this
>     area, especially given the predictability of the political response.
>
>     I illustrated this point as I toured for my book The Voting Wars,
>     showing how a 2012 Brennan Center report noting that 5 million
>     voters "may be impacted" by new restrictive voting rules was
>     predictably hyped by the left (over 2 million of those voters, if
>     I recall correctly were voters who could still vote early but had
>     fewer early voting days to do so).  By the time the issue got to
>     rolling stone, the GOP was disenfranching 5 million voters. Here
>     are the slides:
>

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