538: Black Voters Aren’t Turning Out For The Post-Obama Democratic Party

[Virginiá]

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/black-voters-arent-turning-out-for-the-post-obama-democratic-party/

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[BuckeyeNut]

Even if this simply marks a return to the pre-Obama normal, this is bad given how Democrats have shed the WWC since the Bill Clinton years.

[SUSAN CRUSHBONE]

russ feingold is right, there needs to be a new v.r.a.

[Technocracy Timmy]

I know that this is on the congressional elections board, but this article is deeply troubling when it comes to the 2020 election. From the article,

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As far as I understand, black voters and whites w/o a college degree are the two most overrepresented groups in the electoral college swing states (notwithstanding the newly minted voter ID laws targeting AAs in many of these states). By comparison, Hispanics, Asians, and to a lesser extent college whites are not overrepresented in most of these swing states. As Rust Belt or Die mentioned, WWC voters have been bleeding from the Democratic Party starting sometime in the 90's to 2000. If black turnout stays low and the WWC doesn't reverse trends in 2020 then we have a serious problem.

College educated swing states like Minessota, Colorado, and Virginia will likely stay blue in 2020. The Hispanic heavy states of Texas and California are non competitive. At best the Democrats can hold onto Nevada in 2020, flip Florida (keep in mind that this is a state that has trended R 3/4 times in the last string of electoral cycles and from 2000-2016), and maybe close the gap in Arizona but flipping it is unlikely. The WWC GOP trend combined with low black turnout is gonna keep North Carolina, Georgia, Ohio, and Iowa Republican. Wisconsin and Pennsylvania are gonna be tough to take back in these circumstances.

At that point it comes down to Michigan (261-261).

[MarkD]

Missouri state representative district 76, which has the smallest amount of white population in the state -- less than 2% white -- had an astonishing reduction in the amount of voter turnout from 2012 to 2016. In 2012, about 18,940 votes were cast for President, but in 2016 it was down to about 13,960. District 75 has the second-lowest amount of white population -- about 10% white -- was pretty bad too: from 17,890 in 2012 to 14,880 in 2016.
There are 12 districts in the St. Louis area, all within MO-01, which are predominantly black -- 70% black on average -- and collectively they cast nearly 210,000 votes in 2012, but only 182,000 in 2016, for an average reduction of 13.2% across the region.

[mencken]

russ feingold is right, there needs to be a new v.r.a.

To force blacks to take the time out of their jobs (or lack thereof) and go to the polls, all while remembering to bring the photo identification they presumably have for most other tasks of daily living? Somehow a "new VRA" was not needed to get these people¹ to turn out for Obama, so maybe it is the candidate that matters?
¹I am going to get lynched for saying this phrase.
Perhaps Democrats fail to realize that they are victims of their own success? They have successfully demonized the Republican Party in the eyes of blacks, and have thus rendered non-participation as the only self-respecting option for blacks with a lukewarm view toward their candidate.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

I am going to get lynched for saying this phrase.

No, friend.  You named your account after H.L. Mencken.  These kinds of things are expected from you.

[Virginiá]

To force blacks to take the time out of their jobs (or lack thereof) and go to the polls, all while remembering to bring the photo identification they presumably have for most other tasks of daily living? Somehow a "new VRA" was not needed to get these people¹ to turn out for Obama, so maybe it is the candidate that matters?

Perhaps Democrats fail to realize that they are victims of their own success? They have successfully demonized the Republican Party in the eyes of blacks, and have thus rendered non-participation as the only self-respecting option for blacks with a lukewarm view toward their candidate.

A lot of suppression laws were passed after Obama's reelection, when the USSC ruled on Shelby. They don't account for all of the turnout issues, though.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

Black voters make up about 7% of the electorate.  WI, PA, and MI swung at the last minute to Trump due to the Sanders voters, not Black voters going to Johnson/Stein.  Black turnout was high in MKE, DTW and Philly.  But it was the white vote in Pitts, Madison that left Clinton.

[mencken]

To force blacks to take the time out of their jobs (or lack thereof) and go to the polls, all while remembering to bring the photo identification they presumably have for most other tasks of daily living? Somehow a "new VRA" was not needed to get these people¹ to turn out for Obama, so maybe it is the candidate that matters?

Perhaps Democrats fail to realize that they are victims of their own success? They have successfully demonized the Republican Party in the eyes of blacks, and have thus rendered non-participation as the only self-respecting option for blacks with a lukewarm view toward their candidate.

A lot of suppression laws were passed after Obama's reelection, when the USSC ruled on Shelby. They don't account for all of the turnout issues, though.

Again, what constitutes "supression"? Is requiring someone to have the same scrutiny for voting as for purchasing cigarettes somehow a throwback to Jim Crow?

[Virginiá]

Again, what constitutes "supression"? Is requiring someone to have the same scrutiny for voting as for purchasing cigarettes somehow a throwback to Jim Crow?

I don't think it's necessarily on the level of Jim Crow, but instituting restrictions on voting purely to make it more difficult for your political opponents' voters to go vote is still suppression. It doesn't really matter if the restrictions have a legitimate purpose or not, and in the case of photo ID, it's completely unnecessary. Some Republicans make this very clear, such as the NCGOP, who somehow came to the conclusion that strict photo ID for in-person voting was urgently needed, yet in the same bill decided that absentee voting doesn't need to require a photo ID despite accounting for more fraud than in-person voting. I guess it was just a coincidence that older voters, a GOP-leaning constituency in North Carolina, used absentee more than anyone.

I have to admit, Republicans do have the upper ground here on this, though. We have to argue against voter ID, which at face value sounds appropriate if the problem of in-person fraud actually existed. It's to our detriment that people largely lack creativity and just blindly assume that photo ID is the only way to mitigate fraud, and that we must disadvantage young people, poor people and minorities just to prevent literally a few cases of in-person fraud here and there.

[Chief Justice Keef]

Even if this simply marks a return to the pre-Obama normal, this is bad given how Democrats have shed the WWC since the Bill Clinton years.

I feel like we shouldn't use the term "WWC". It's not just whites, it's a problem that reaches well into the party's base with black voters.

[Suburbia]

The Democratic Party did this to itself when it supported the 1996 crime bill which disenfranchised alot of potential black voters.

True, but there was a crime wave in the 1990s. Something had to be done in a sense.

[mencken]

Again, what constitutes "supression"? Is requiring someone to have the same scrutiny for voting as for purchasing cigarettes somehow a throwback to Jim Crow?

I don't think it's necessarily on the level of Jim Crow, but instituting restrictions on voting purely to make it more difficult for your political opponents' voters to go vote is still suppression.

I'm not sure how a measure that imposes the same requirement on your own supporters as your opponents' supporters (and one required for many other aspects of civil society) is supression, but whatever.

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Or it might be a more futile effort to compare a photo ID to a piece of mail than to a person in front of you?

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If there were only a few cases each year of people caught driving who did not actually have a license, does that mean that the requirement to carry a driver's license when operating a motor vehicle should be waived, since it is unnecessary, and apparently bars young people and minorities from driving cars?

Furthermore, how do you prove a negative? The handful of cases you mention are only those who got caught, which I assume would be very few if nobody was actually checking.

[Virginiá]

I'm not sure how a measure that imposes the same requirement on your own supporters as your opponents' supporters (and one required for many other aspects of civil society) is supression, but whatever.

Because they know it affects their opponents more than their own supporters. This was a big part of the North Carolina case. Republican lawmakers specifically requested data on how voters of certain races used services like same-day registration and early voting, and in NC race in many instances is a good proxy for partisan identity. Further, elsewhere, study after study of available data shows young people and minorities tend to lack the kind of IDs these bills require more disproportionately than core GOP demographics. Republicans make it pretty easy to tell what they are doing when they allow concealed carry permits but not student IDs from at least public universities, where they can bring them up to code.

Or it might be a more futile effort to compare a photo ID to a piece of mail than to a person in front of you?

Requiring an ID when a person comes in to request they be sent absentee ballots is not futile, nor is requiring a scanned copy of the ID for mail-in requests. This is not a unique way of doing things. Some other states already do this.

If there were only a few cases each year of people caught driving who did not actually have a license, does that mean that the requirement to carry a driver's license when operating a motor vehicle should be waived, since it is unnecessary, and apparently bars young people and minorities from driving cars?

Operating a 2+ ton car that could very easily end one or more lives in the blink of an eye is quite different than going to vote. And it doesn't bar young and minorities from voting altogether - you're being deliberately obtuse here. There are issues that poor people, minorities and young people tend to face more than others that results in them having more of a burden to get one than others do, and that naturally helps reduce turnout from them.

Furthermore, how do you prove a negative? The handful of cases you mention are only those who got caught, which I assume would be very few if nobody was actually checking.

Since when is it on everyone else? The lawmakers instituting restrictions that the data says are not needed should have the burden to prove what they are doing is necessary. If they want to enact regulations that reduce voter turnout, conveniently among their political opponents, it should be on them to prove that we actually need to do this. I don't see why its somehow appropriate to start from the assumption that fraud is rampant and we just can't see it. That's a very lazy way out of debating this.

As far as real evidence that actually exists, and not fantasies about fraud, it shows little fraud is actually happening, and that far more people would be disenfranchised by voting restrictions than would be prevented in terms of fraud. It's completely lopsided in the wrong direction.

[mencken]

First of all, let's get the histrionics of the way here and look at the evidence, courtesy of a respected poster. Is there any evidence that 12% of eligible blacks in Michigan and Wisconsin were turned away from the polling place due to having inadequate photo identification? 8% of eligible Ohio blacks? 7% of eligible North Carolina blacks? 4% of eligible Florida blacks (where the same alleged "disenfranchisement" occured with a 5% increase in Latino turnout)? 9% of eligible DC blacks (a jurisdiction if any that I doubt has voter ID laws)? 7% of eligible Missouri blacks (which did not have voter ID prior to a November ballot initiative)? If we are going to count all the examples of documented voter fraud as evidence for it being a non-problem (more on that later), then claims of disenfranchisement ought to be accompanied with documented evidence of hundreds of thousands of eligible voters being turned away from the polls. Of course, that is unlikely to be provided, since even the strictest states allow "disenfranchised" voters to cast a provisional ballot that is counted once said voter provides the requisite ID. Otherwise, let us conclude that voter ID laws are merely a scapegoat for lack of enthusiasm for recent Democratic candidates among blacks.

I'm not sure how a measure that imposes the same requirement on your own supporters as your opponents' supporters (and one required for many other aspects of civil society) is supression, but whatever.

Because they know it affects their opponents more than their own supporters. This was a big part of the North Carolina case. Republican lawmakers specifically requested data on how voters of certain races used services like same-day registration and early voting, and in NC race in many instances is a good proxy for partisan identity.

Some of its advocates see opportunity for political advantage in voter identification (just as some see political advantage in registering everybody who sits in line at the DMV to go vote), therefore any advocacy for voter identification is wrong?

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When I lost my public university ID, all I needed was my name and $10 to replace it. I doubt one could replace a concealed carry permit with the same leniency. Do not then complain that the latter is a more foolproof means of identification than the former.

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Requiring an ID when a person comes in to request they be sent absentee ballots is not futile, nor is requiring a scanned copy of the ID for mail-in requests. This is not a unique way of doing things. Some other states already do this.[/quote]

Fair enough. But if some states already do this, does that not invalidate your prior claim that voter identification is merely a means of disenfranchising Democrat-leaning groups? (or are absentee voters Democrats in those states?)

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Operating a 2+ ton car that could very easily end one or more lives in the blink of an eye is quite different than going to vote.[/quote]

So it is conceded that lack of voter identification implicitly allows ineligible persons to vote (just as allowing driving without a license would implicitly permit unlicensed persons to drive), but voting is less dangerous than driving so that is A-OK?

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So should liquor stores be prosecuted under the Civil Rights Act for requiring photo identification, and thus naturally discriminating against poor people and minorities?

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Since when is it on everyone else? The lawmakers instituting restrictions that the data says are not needed should have the burden to prove what they are doing is necessary. If they want to enact regulations that reduce voter turnout, conveniently among their political opponents, it should be on them to prove that we actually need to do this. I don't see why its somehow appropriate to start from the assumption that fraud is rampant and we just can't see it. That's a very lazy way out of debating this.[/quote]

The methods used to quantify voter fraud would likewise have found Tweed-era New York City and Daley-era Chicago to have rare incidence of voter fraud. Machine politics has a long history in this country, and to only single out lone actors who got caught in the act is naturally going to be a low-yield method of detecting voter fraud. Are there any methods that select urban precincts at random, ask outgoing voters to identify themselves, and cross-reference this with names on the voter roll? I highly doubt it.

And besides, given the close elections were have had in this country, would not only a few hundred documented cases of voter fraud be sufficient to demonstrate need for identification? Nobody knows when the next Florida 2000 or Minnesota 2008 is going to occur.

[Badger]

Did Mencken really just compare the constitutional right to vote with the right to buy a bottle of liquor?

[Virginiá]

I never made a statement on exactly how many voters were turned away. I'm not going to get into that, and I'm not interested in discussing it. In fact, this will likely be my last response to you on this entire topic. I'm not interested in going on indefinitely, as it is clear we hold entrenched positions.

When I lost my public university ID, all I needed was my name and $10 to replace it. I doubt one could replace a concealed carry permit with the same leniency. Do not then complain that the latter is a more foolproof means of identification than the former.

When I said "bring up to code," I was specifically referring to the idea of making student IDs more reliable in this regard. It's not like the schools don't know the names of their students and couldn't ensure IDs are allocated properly. Further, the point isn't to make some military-grade system, it just has to be difficult enough to dissuade any tom-foolery.

I've said this a bunch of times on this forum, and I'll say it again: if in-person fraud is such a big deal to conservatives, they can have pictures taken of people without IDs at polling places. New Hampshire already does this (though not the scan). The pictures can be scanned for matches after or even during the election to catch double voters. I'd find it hard to believe anyone participating in a election fraud conspiracy would risk this.

We have the technology to easily do this, and it's ridiculous to not use it.

Fair enough. But if some states already do this, does that not invalidate your prior claim that voter identification is merely a means of disenfranchising Democrat-leaning groups? (or are absentee voters Democrats in those states?)

Does it? There was a surge of photo ID laws in 2011+, once Republicans swept state legislatures across the country. That voter ID and other restrictions started catching on post-2006 when Democrats hit the country with 2 waves in a row is at the very least an interesting coincidence.

Personally, I'm more tolerant of some sort of ID for absentee ballots as opposed to in-person because absentee fraud is a bigger issue. In-person fraud barely even makes sense. Who is going to find an army of people willing to commit multiple felonies by voting under different names? Not only is it incredibly risky, it's incredibly inefficient as well.

So it is conceded that lack of voter identification implicitly allows ineligible persons to vote (just as allowing driving without a license would implicitly permit unlicensed persons to drive), but voting is less dangerous than driving so that is A-OK?

So long as no other mitigations were implemented, such as what I said above, sure? That is the point. It's not that requiring no IDs doesn't have a risk. My entire point here is that requiring IDs simply to solve a risk and not an actual problem is not appropriate when it disenfranchises so many other people.

The only point at which I am willing to support wide implementation of voter ID is when we've exhausted all other means of mitigating in-person voter fraud, which by default implies that rampant in-person fraud is actually happening (which nothing suggests it is)

So should liquor stores be prosecuted under the Civil Rights Act for requiring photo identification, and thus naturally discriminating against poor people and minorities?

Drinking is an optional, recreational activity. I shouldn't even need to describe why it's different than voting. I really don't care about the issues behind requiring an ID to drink, so to answer your question: i don't care - it's a silly example, and I'm not going to keep responding to it.

The methods used to quantify voter fraud would likewise have found Tweed-era New York City and Daley-era Chicago to have rare incidence of voter fraud. Machine politics has a long history in this country, and to only single out lone actors who got caught in the act is naturally going to be a low-yield method of detecting voter fraud. Are there any methods that select urban precincts at random, ask outgoing voters to identify themselves, and cross-reference this with names on the voter roll? I highly doubt it.

And besides, given the close elections were have had in this country, would not only a few hundred documented cases of voter fraud be sufficient to demonstrate need for identification? Nobody knows when the next Florida 2000 or Minnesota 2008 is going to occur.

Again, I'm sorry, but this boogeyman approach doesn't do anything to convince me we should implement it. I refuse to even consider it until we've exhausted other approaches, which Republicans haven't even begun to, because their main concern is suppressing their political opponents, not fraud. I want to see more thought put into this.

[mencken]

Did Mencken really just compare the constitutional right to vote with the right to buy a bottle of liquor?

Ever heard of the 21st Amendment?

[Hammy]

Did Mencken really just compare the constitutional right to vote with the right to buy a bottle of liquor?

Ever heard of the 21st Amendment?

There is such a wide difference between simply lifting a blanket ban on something, and denying someone the absolute right to something (that also gives them the right without financial restrictions, which the voter ID laws are) that you're effectively admitting you support stopping your opponents from voting.