Whites made up 75% of voters in 2014, 72% in 2012.
Young voters fell from 19% of the electorate in 2012 to 13% in 2014
The elections are exactly the same in terms of how you vote and what is required. Lack of motivation, not voter suppression.
I oppose all efforts at “reforming” the system that are actually aimed at producing specific results in pursuit of partisan ends.
Am I supposed to be clicking something on your links? They don’t automatically lead to demographic breakdowns of the 2012 and 2014 election turnout. Also, maybe you should specifically defend the claim of large Black voter dropoff in midterms, which is what I was arguing with. My cite showed mid term turn out, and the drop in turnout for a mid term was very similar amongst various demographics.
AFrican-American dropoff was less than Latino and youth dropoff, but it still went down relative to white voters, from them being 13% of voters to 12%.
Plus if you look at your raw data rather than the chart, it shows a HUGE dropoff in black turnout in midterms. Black turnout was actually better than white turnout in 2008 and 2012, but dropped well below white turnout in 2010 and 2014:
So U.S. Representatives’ terms should be increased to 4 years? That’s a pretty major shakeup in the system, and also locks in House control for longer. Hmm…who would that favor at this point in time?
Wonder if a black presidential candidate had anything to do with that? Naah.
Between 88 and 90, white turnout dropped 15% comlared to only 13% drop for blacks. Between 92 and 94 they both dropped 17%. Between 96 and 98 they both dropped 14%. Between 00 and 02 they both dropped 15%. Are you really going to stand by your “established fact” after your link proves you wrong?
There’s a reason I said Democrats didn’t care much about how easy it was to vote back when turnout dropoffs were fairly equal.
Now minorities and young voters don’t vote in midterms, which are pretty much a lost cause to Democrats these days, and general elections are still close affairs where turnout can matter a lot. So Democrats have seen the virtue of easy voting out of self-interest. If the 2018 and 2022 midterms feature equal dropoffs in participation among demographic groups, Democrats will suddenly lose interest again.
Within the last 20 years, Black turnout is usually pretty close to White. Usually within 5%. Youth vote leans Dem but still only about 50% with the other half being Republican or independant so a dropoff in their already low turnout won’t be a big factor. If you want to keep making dreamy predictions that just happen to line up with your hopes, go ahead.
I just cannot see how pre-registering to vote and then showing up with an official ID is considered “vote suppression”?
One should have to put some “work” into voting. Yes, it takes time. But you shouldnt just show up and flip a coin. You should put some real thought into your vote. Personally I’ve always found waiting in line to be interesting.
I do wish they would allow voting be more than one day and have later hours.
Yes, in North Carolina the legislators specifically looked at the numbers and found black people liked those things too. Then they cut them. Does that sound like voter suppression to you?
Early voting is not a right. States have the right to have early voting and they have the right to repeal early voting for any reason they choose.
We’re really diluting the meaning of voter suppression here. Voter suppression is institution of obstacles that actually do pose a hardship, often a very unequal hardship. People may like the convenience of early voting, but convenient voting is not a right. The standard we’ve had for decades(register, go to your polling place, wait in line on Election Day) is not a hardship. On that same day, most voters will go to other places and do other things they have signed up to do, and that took a lot more effort.
I don’t have an issue with Democrats wanting more convenient voting. Heck, I like convenience too. What I don’t have patience for is it being some kind of moral and civil rights issue all of a sudden, or subversion of the democratic process to combat these laws rather than standing up and opposing them and facing voters who will take your stance into account.
If you look at the stats, notice Black people use a particular voting method, then cut it that’s fucking with Black voters. If you want to call it something other than voter suppression feel free. It’s still racist and therefore unconstitutional.
We agree on the racist part. Republicans in NC got shady real quick once they were freed from preclearance, didn’t they? And that’s probably the only reason they got struck down. Normally, early voting is not a protected right and if they didn’t have actual evidence of racist intent there would have been no legal way to justify the ruling.
And purely by coincidence other states made similar pullbacks on voter access without being blatantly racist, so they’re completely legit? Luckily deciding a law is racist in effect doesn’t require the idiocy of the NC legislators blatantly showing their intent. As I linked earlier and I would have assumed you already know, they weren’t the only state who’s stricter voting rules were struck down.
It’s legal if you don’t get caught; is that it? :rolleyes:
Yes, I know, “the Democrats would do it too if they could”, right?
It’s interesting that you would posit that States have more right to impose restrictions on voting than individuals would have to vote. However, that does to be consistent with the conservative zeitgeist, which is one of the reasons why I think that the 10th Amendment to the United States Constitution needs to be abolished once and for all. It should have been abolished by the Union circa Reconstruction.
Didn’t we have this thread 4 years ago? And 8 years ago? And 12 years ago?
And some states’ laws were upheld. Plus the Supreme Court has already twice upheld the validity of the concept of voter ID, and a majority of states have some sort of ID requirement.