There may be a correlation between high minority voter turnout and the passage of restrictive voting laws, according to a recent article for the American Political Science Association.
Restrictive voting laws have gained significant popularity (as we have observed) since the 2008 presidential election, when voter turnout among historically underrepresented minorities surged. The long lines that voters experienced in 2012 have been attributed to the recently enacted rash of policies like voter ID, reduced early voting days, and the repealing of popular voter-access laws like same-day registration. Still, the intent of these laws “remains highly contested,” wrote University of Massachusetts at Boston sociologist Keith Bentele and political scientist Erin O’Brien at the Washington Post blog, the Monkey Cage.
To understand the intent behind these laws, Bentele and O’Brien examined the differences in partisan “explanations (and accusations)” for restrictive voting laws, as well as legislative activity between 2006 and 2011:
“What we found was that restrictions on voting derived from both race and class. The more that minorities and lower-income individuals in a state voted, the more likely such restrictions were to be proposed. Where minorities turned out at the polls at higher rates the legislation was more likely enacted.
“More specifically, restrictive proposals were more likely to be introduced in states with larger African-American and non-citizen populations and with higher minority turnout in the previous presidential election.”
Partisan politics also plays a major role in the passage of restrictive voting laws. Eighty-three percent of restrictive laws passed in Republican-controlled states. The voter fraud myth, often used to pass laws that restrict ballot access, is a “valuable political tool for both explaining electoral losses and mobilizing supporters,” they wrote. “In a two-party system, when mobilizing supporters is insufficient, demobilizing opponents may provide the only route to victory.”
Sign up to monitor election legislation in 2014 here.
Photo by Veronica Zaragovia/PBS NewsHour via Creative Commons.