Are voter ID policies (and their supporters) racist?

Great Debates
1

This is a continuation of a discussion about voter ID laws, and whether the supporters of them are racist (determined to be a hijack over in A plea to Trump supporters).

I think it’s an interesting discussion, so I wanted to continue it.

You should probably read the thread, but I’ll start with these quotes, which I think gets us mostly up to speed on the discussion in progress

It is totally possible to support these laws for non-racist reasons. I think most of those reasons boil down to ignorance, though.

I will state that I think that most Republican and Democrats who support such policies are simply ignorant of the impact of the policies. It requires some fairly in-depth understanding to know both that voter ID policies tend to have racially biased outcomes and that the problem they seek to address is essentially non-existent.

I’ve had several conversations with friends and acquaintances about this, who initially were in favor of voter ID laws (at first glance, they seem like an obviously reasonable step to keep people who shouldn’t be allowed to vote from doing so) and after hearing about the problems with them were… let’s say, much more circumspect.

I think an analogy to literacy tests is apt. Sure, we should all hope that you have a basic level of literacy in order to cast a vote. But the actual implementation of such a barrier to voting was so problematic that advocating such a thing nowadays should rightly be seen as racist. We should all know better at this point.

I also think that the representatives implementing these laws should rightly be seen as racist in almost all cases. They know exactly what they’re doing. And, no, disenfranchising largely poor black voters because they primarily vote for the opposition party should not provide any cover for the charge of racism.

So, if you’re on a political message board arguing about this, you should know better. You can’t claim to be unaware of the racially biased results, or of the fact that the stated goals of the law are specious.

I will assume Bricker’s claim that Indiana’s law is done the right way for the sake of argument, but I think he is at best incredibly naive to think that these policies won’t generally be perverted by racist outcome and intent. North Carolina’s example shows us all we need to know on that front. Unfortunately, future legislators purposefully implementing racist policies will probably cover their tracks better.

2

Voter ID policies are not intrinsically racist. There are many valid reasons for implementing a reasonable voter ID policy as long as the implementation is not done in a way that materially disadvantages some or all voters. Voter ID laws which are designed with inclusiveness in mind can facilitate the administration of the voting process and, yes, hinder the rare case of in-person fraud.

The problem, as you note, is that the various Republican efforts have been carefully designed to discourage and disenfranchise targeted segments of the population which, by some strange coincidence, tend to be 1) minorities and 2) more likely to vote Democratic. This isn’t just implementing voter ID requirements that in practice place a heavier burden on poor blacks; it’s also the mass disenfranchisement of minority voters on spurious grounds and cutting back the number of polling stations and voting booths in minority districts to create long waits to vote. It is, in short, dirty pool.

Arguing that trying to suppress Democratic-leaning demographics isn’t technically racist per se is mere casuistry. The racist effects may be tangential but the intent remains nefarious.

3

In North Carolina they clearly had racist motives. However, I’ll defer to the courts on voter ID issues. Some voter ID laws are perfectly valid, after all, most states have some form of voter ID. and some are designed to make it hard to vote, and thus get struck down.

4

This is an attempt to win the day by lumping the legitimate Voter ID laws in with the polling stations changes and the mass challenges to voter names and declaring that they are all dirty pool.

In other discussions, I have tried to carefully separate my general support for Voter ID from other policy questions.

If this thread is about Voter ID, then it seems to me that this distinction is still valid.

5

I don’t know why members of the general public support them. However, at least some of the politicians who actually implement them (or at least try to) are doing so for racist reasons, and even those for whom the reasons aren’t racist still have “dirty pool” reasons for them.

Is this an admission that racists are, by and large, not Democrats?

6

And this is an attempt to win the day by lumping illegitimate voter ID lawsin with “legitimate” ones to imply that they are all legitimate, a distinction you have carefully tried to blur.

7

The issue with voter ID laws is that they’re are generally written by Republicans to reduce Democratic voter turnout. Now, it turns out that it isn’t illegal to write voter ID laws that have an outsize impact on Democratic voters because Democratic voters aren’t a protected class (most people would probably consider it dirty pool, but it’s already a pretty dirty pool).

However, the issue arises when it comes time to target Democratic voters: they’re generally indistinguishable from Republican voters with two major exceptions, one of which is minority voters, who are a large, discriminable, Democratic-voting block (the other major block is students). In practice, therefore, voter ID laws are written for the specific purpose and intent of reducing minority voter turnout, because minorities vote Democratic.

None of this is an exaggeration, by the way. The North Carolina voter ID laws, which a judge determined “targeted minority voters with an almost surgical precision,” were defended with the argument that they were really targeting Democrats, not minorities. But when the only really identifiable Democratic voter block is minority voters, that’s who the laws, by intent, target.

So the argument that voter ID laws aren’t racist usually comes down to “we’re not really targeting minorities, we’re targeting Democrats.” But if you do that by targeting minorities, then guess what; your policies are by definition racist.

8

No, it’s pointing out that if support for voter ID is racism, then a large majority of Democrats are racist. And, of course, if support for voter ID isn’t racist, then support for voter ID among Republicans doesn’t prove racism on their part either.

The notion that Democrats support voter ID for non-racist reasons and Republicans for racist ones is a No True Scotsman argument.

Regards,
Shodan

9

Well, let me unblur it: I don’t agree that every possible law that requires Voter ID is legitimate. I have offered up Indiana’s law as a valid model, a fact that was mentioned by the OP.

So to be crystal clear: I believe Voter ID laws are not racist, as a general class of laws. I certainly make room for the admission that a particular law is invalid for its infringement on civil - racial - rights.

10

I just want to know that a voter has the right to vote, and is only voting once. I don’t care how well he or she reads, writes, or does math. I don’t care how fluent the voter is in English. I don’t want a literacy test. I am not sure how to go about this though, and I don’t think mine is a racist point of view.

11

Our current system works pretty well.

12

I think of it like I do Chris Christie’s “bridgegate” (alleged) actions. It is not illegal to restrict traffic flow on a bridge or to do a traffic study, and one can list a variety of very good reasons for doing such things that all have valid, neutral purpose.

But one can also infer that this bridge closure was not done for valid, neutral reasons, and was in fact an act of political retaliation. And it is totally valid for a court to infer this.

13

I think this is correct.

This could be true, but I’d want to see some evidence. On its face it seems to be more reasonable to assume they’re doing it for political rather than racist reasons (i.e. seeking to disenfranchise voters who would vote against them regardless of race, rather than seeking to disenfranchise non-white voters regardless of whom they’d vote for).

14

Could you give an or some examples of laws which you believe are racist, as a general class of laws?

15

Anti-miscegenation laws?

16

In which case we appear to be in agreement with regard to the laws.

It remains the case that a law can be fair in drafting but applied in an entirely unfair way as, for example, requiring an ID that you then make more difficult to obtain for certain segments of the population. The law remains fair; the implementation less so. The two are not so easily separated.

17

For me it seems to be timing. If a legislative body is concerned about people voting who shouldn’t, put up the money to issue a free photo ID at the time the person registers to vote. Implement an aggressive plan to issue no cost IDs to anyone currently registered to vote - include mobile teams in shopping malls and a free house call for people who can’t travel easily. Mail the ID where a government entity already has a photo on file (driver’s license, etc) Start this several years before the ID will actually be required in an election. If a legislator is willing to support those effort to not disenfranchise, I’ll believe it is only about the security of the election.

When you go in the booth and vote, it is just you and your ballot. I’m much more concerned about fraud via absentee or online voting where you have know way of knowing if the voter is making an un-coerced choice.

18

I think they are doing it for political reasons. I just don’t think that’s relevant, given the disparate racial impact.

If you have a policy with an actual goal that’s not racist, but you also can reasonably predict that the effect of the policy will be massively and disproportionately applied in a racist manner… that’s a racist policy. If for no other reason than it’s easy to come up with a rationalization that doesn’t mention race. See the many historical examples of racist voter restrictions that didn’t mention a word about skin color.

19

So, but you admit that some voter ID laws are racist, yes? And you have to agree that many if not most are attempts by the GOP for voter suppression?

So now we have two major strikes against them.

What are the benefits?

No significant voter fraud has ever been found.

20

I’n not Bricker, but

Some could be, certainly. He has already mentioned Indiana voter ID as an example of laws that weren’t.

I don’t see why anyone has to agree with that. As mentioned, almost two thirds of Democrats believe (presumably) in voter ID, and (also presumably) do not agree that they are necessarily GOP attempts at voter suppression.

I believe he has mentioned greater public confidence in election outcomes.

And I suspect your statement that no significant voter fraud has ever been found is a little too sweeping.

Regards,
Shodan