Tag Archives: Photo ID

Vote Suppression 2016

By tmess2 | Published October 27, 2016

Save the WorldToday’s news included an “off-the-record” admission from inside the Trump campaign that they are trying to suppress the vote.   This admission is not news for many Democrats.  It is an open secret in this country that low turnout usually favors Republicans, while higher turnout tends to favor Democrats.  In 2016, voter suppression takes three forms.

First, voter suppression can be built into the election system itself.  For example, unlike many democracies, the U.S. holds elections on a weekday (not just the general election, but also, in most states, primaries and municipal and special elections).  In most, if not all states, election days are not a holiday.  That makes it harder for folks to vote.  Additionally, there are hurdles to registering to vote (fewer today than in the past).  In particular, most states cut off registration weeks in advance of the election and you have to register every time that you move to a new county.

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Photo ID and the Courts

By tmess2 | Published August 7, 2016

Vote!In recent years, the Supreme Court has had its version of an “election rule.”  The essence of this rule is that the Supreme Court does not like last second changes to the election process.  Regardless of whether the change comes from state election authorities changing the state’s procedure or a court decision resolving a challenge to those procedures, the Supreme Court prefers to “freeze” the status quo far enough in advance of the election so that voters know the rules and can take steps to comply with those rules.  Perhaps in response to this implied vague deadline (a little less implied in the case of Texas where the Supreme Court indicated that they would consider intervening in there was not a court decision by the end of July), the last several weeks of have seen court decisions in multiple cases involving multiple states seeking to impose a requirement that voters present photographic ID to vote in-person.

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