General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsMother Jones-How Republicans rigged presidential election in Wisconsin & possibly across the country
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Neil Albrecht, Milwaukees election director, believes that the voter ID law and other changes passed by the Republican Legislature contributed significantly to lower turnout. Albrecht is 55 but seems younger, with bookish tortoise-frame glasses and salt-and-pepper stubble. (I looked 12 until I became an election administrator, he joked.) At his office in City Hall with views of the Milwaukee River, Albrecht showed me a color-coded map of the citys districts, pointing out the ones where turnout had declined the most, including Anthonys. Next to his desk was a poster that listed Acceptable Forms of Photo ID.
I would estimate that 25 to 35 percent of the 41,000 decrease in voters, or somewhere between 10,000 and 15,000 voters, likely did not vote due to the photo ID requirement, he said later. It is very probable that between the photo ID law and the changes to voter registration, enough people were prevented from voting to have changed the outcome of the presidential election in Wisconsin.
These Three Lawyers Are Quietly Purging Voter Rolls Across the Country
A post-election study by Priorities USA, a Democratic super-PAC that supported Clinton, found that in 2016, turnout decreased by 1.7 percent in the three states that adopted stricter voter ID laws but increased by 1.3 percent in states where ID laws did not change. Wisconsins turnout dropped 3.3 percent. If Wisconsin had seen the same turnout increase as states whose laws stayed the same, we estimate that over 200,000 more voters would have voted in Wisconsin in 2016, the study said. These lost votersthose who voted in 2012 and 2014 but not 2016skewed more African American and more Democrat than the overall voting population. Some academics criticized the studys methodology, but its conclusions were consistent with a report from the Government Accountability Office, which found that strict voter ID laws in Kansas and Tennessee had decreased turnout by roughly 2 to 3 percent, with the largest drops among black, young, and new voters.
According to a comprehensive study by MIT political scientist Charles Stewart, an estimated 16 million people12 percent of all votersencountered at least one problem voting in 2016. There were more than 1 million lost votes, Stewart estimates, because people ran into things like ID laws, long lines at the polls, and difficulty registering. Trump won the election by a total of 78,000 votes in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.
In Wisconsin, the intent of those who pushed for the ID law was clear. On the night of Wisconsins 2016 primary, GOP Rep. Glenn Grothman, a backer of the law when he was in the state Senate, predicted that a Republican would carry the state in November, even though Wisconsin had gone for Barack Obama by 7 points in 2012. I think Hillary Clinton is about the weakest candidate the Democrats have ever put up, he told a local TV news reporter, and now we have photo ID, and I think photo ID is going to make a little bit of a difference as well.
The strategy worked. While well never know precisely how many people were prevented from voting, its safe to say that thousands of Wisconsinites like Anthony were denied one of their most fundamental rights. And with Republicans now in control of both the executive and legislative branches in the federal government and a majority of states, that problem will likely get worse.
WAY MORE:
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/10/voter-suppression-wisconsin-election-2016/
Heartstrings
(7,349 posts)Fortunately my county, Dane, stayed blue and had a high voter turnout. The gerrymandering is killing us here! The voter id requirements didn't help, and I agree, turned many away from the polls.
onit2day
(1,201 posts)when voting. All the rest is just suppression.
When you register you give all that information to identify you as a citizen and then sign the card you will use to go vote. Your signature is enough. Now here in Missouri we now have voter ID required now that we have a republican majority and a repub gov.
mountain grammy
(26,607 posts)iluvtennis
(19,843 posts)all of his 'things are rigged' statements. Remember, he is the king at projecting things that he/thoses in his circle are doing onto others.
Hortensis
(58,785 posts)behind claims that Hillary was a weak candidate. That pol even "prepped" the media for questionable returns by pushing that once again on election eve. Repeat a lie often enough and people will eventually believe it.
This despite the fact that a large majority, millions, of American voted for her for president in spite of massive disenfranchising of mostly those who would vote Democrat.
And despite the fact that the partisan voting breakdown between parties in 2016 was basically what it is all the time now that Repubs have gone so effectively crazy that they will even vote for a dishonorable nincompoop AWOL like W and a depraved, mentally disordered traitor over a Democrat.
The Democratic Party and Hillary were chosen by America's electorate. We know that.
Just as we know that Republican leaders realized a long time ago that they would lose every honest election from then on and chose to destroy our proudest democratic traditions of self government over desegregating and diversifying their white, male dominated party.
Sunlei
(22,651 posts)Merlot
(9,696 posts)We do have a national ID, it's called a passport.
Sunlei
(22,651 posts)This is a bunch of bullshit with some states lagging way behind dragging all the other states down.
beachbum bob
(10,437 posts)we quit waiting for some one else to save our ass....we can only save our own butts. Don't vote? Suffer the consequences. Simple
Botany
(70,479 posts)Because they are stopped from voting and or their vote from being counted and or
their vote for Congressional races are rendered moot by gerrymandering.
Ever since HAVA (help america vote act) we have seen a red shift in the vote despite
demographic changes that should favor the Ds.
Honeycombe8
(37,648 posts)in the new photo ID law: YOUR NAME ON YOUR PHOTO ID HAD TO MATCH EXACTLY THE NAME ON YOUR SOCIAL SECURITY CARD AND YOUR VOTER REGISTRATION. This affects MANY married and divorced women, yet this was not advertised.
MY names didn't match. TX had, on its own, chosen to use my maiden name as my middle name on my driver's license. When I registered to vote years ago, I used my normal middle name. (Or vice versa...you get the idea.) I had to RE-REGISTER to vote in the name that exactly matched my driver's license, which was my photo ID I would be using to vote.
The only reason I knew that was because a friend who worked at the polls told me. It was NOT on the County election site or in the notices of the new photo ID law. But when I specifically asked someone at the registrar's office, she said that was true!
Things like this need to be advertised and addressed locally throughout the country.