Prior to Tuesday, I was extremely anxious about voter suppression and all the voter ID laws. On one hand, supporters of voter ID could point to the election and say, “See? nothing to worry about.” On the other hand, there was significant coverage of voter ID laws and the notion that Republicans were using them to “steal” the election that I’m wondering if all the brouhaha may have increased voting this year.
In my state (MA) the voting line was unusually long this year. I attribute that to the Senate Race more than anything. We don’t have a voter ID law anyway.
In PA, I recall an official stating that the voter ID law (since suspended) would deliver PA to Romney. If you were a PA moderate, would that get you off your duff and vote for Obama in defiance? I’m tempted to think it would, because while I can see people possibly agreeing with voter ID laws in general, outright stating that the law will change the outcome of the election is a very different thing.
In FL, reports were that people were waiting 4 hours to vote. That’s crazy! I wonder if their willingness to wait was because of the pre-discussion of voter suppression. In other words, instead of voters looking at the line and thinking “Fuck this, I’m not waiting 4 hours” they were instead thinking “Fuck you, you’re not taking away my vote.”
Or maybe voter suppression does happen, but the effect is too small to have an effect on anything but the closest of races (Hi Florida!).
The voter suppression story may have encouraged some people to show up at the polls to vote just to demonstrate their rights. Then some people may have prevented from voting. Possibly there were many who didn’t bother to to vote to avoid trouble. But in reality it didn’t work because it was well publicized and there was too much scrutiny to misuse the system.
I suspect it did backfire, or more precisely had an offsetting effect; people whose right to vote is openly threatened will tend to become more interested in exercising it, and stubborn about doing so. You’re not as apathetic about something when you might lose it.