My own theory on why conservatives are in favor of voter ID laws, despite the ways they skew turnout and electoral outcomes, is that they are in fact fine with this kind of distortion. They view winning elections the way that we might view winning a game - as long as the rules apply to everyone and as long as the rules are followed, whatever result occurs is acceptable. And if the results tend to skew in their favor - well, isn't that convenient?
That's why so much of the rhetoric is - doesn't everyone have a state-issued ID? And if you can't be bothered to get one, why should we worry about you? It doesn't matter if there's clear research demonstrating how these restrictions - however morally justifiable they might be on an individual basis - tend to disfranchise exponentially more voters than the fraudulent voting attempts they prevent. That kind of evidence, on their view, is almost entirely beside the point.
It will take years and years of reporting on election-day frustrations and difficulties before we even start to budge the way that conservatives view these restrictions. Until that happens, they'll continue to assume that voter ID laws impose no significant burden on voters that they shouldn't be able to deal with.
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Date: 2016-04-10 01:42 pm (UTC)That's why so much of the rhetoric is - doesn't everyone have a state-issued ID? And if you can't be bothered to get one, why should we worry about you? It doesn't matter if there's clear research demonstrating how these restrictions - however morally justifiable they might be on an individual basis - tend to disfranchise exponentially more voters than the fraudulent voting attempts they prevent. That kind of evidence, on their view, is almost entirely beside the point.
It will take years and years of reporting on election-day frustrations and difficulties before we even start to budge the way that conservatives view these restrictions. Until that happens, they'll continue to assume that voter ID laws impose no significant burden on voters that they shouldn't be able to deal with.