John
Nicholas had an article in The Nation
on the backlash against voter suppression and its impact on politics. I’m not
particularly interested in rehashing the voter suppression. I wrote about what
happened in Ohio with the early voting restrictions, the mass tossing of absentee ballots, and
turning people away at the polls. We know these efforts are targeting voters of
color specifically black voters.
There has
been push back of course; civil rights groups, the League of Women Voters,
Common Cause, and other organizations are working together. However, the
strongest backlash is coming from voter registration and mobilization drives in
Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin (you know the states that decide the
presidential election).
Ohio State
and resident badass Senator Nina Turner said, “Republicans thought that they
could suppress the vote, but these efforts actually motivated people to get registered
and cast a ballot. It’s no surprise that the communities targeted by these
policies came out to the polls in a big way—they saw this not just as an
affront to their rights, but as a call to action.”
Turner was
spot on. William Frey and the Brookings Institute produced a new study for the
Associated Press, and they found voter turnout was down overall from 2004 and
2008, but African-American turnout didn’t decline at the same rate as white
turnout. If the headlines are right, black turnout might have surpassed white
for the first time. Of course, Frey notes this can’t be confirmed until we have
the census data which isn’t available yet. However, the data that is available
gives us this: overall turnout dropped from 2008 to 2012, but black turnout
held steady at 13%.
So why is
this a big deal? African Americans only make up 12% of eligible voters, which
means the actual number of African Americans voting outperformed their
percentage of eligible voters. Turnout among Hispanic voters traditionally
outperforms their number of eligible voters. Naturally, this had a strong impact
on President Obama’s reelection because there was some concern about enthusiasm
turnout, but President Obama still had strong support among African Americans
and young people.
AP notes:
“Romney would have erased Obama’s nearly 5 million-vote victory margin and narrowly won the popular vote if voters had turned out as they did in 2004, according to Frey’s analysis. Then, white turnout was slightly higher and black turnout lower.“More significantly, the battleground states of Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Florida, and Colorado would have tipped in favor of Romney, handing him the presidency if the outcome of other states remained the same.”
Mom always
said cheaters never prosper. I never believed her given the banking industry
and professional sports (look at you Patriots), but hell maybe there was
something to this.
We know
Republicans are running to embrace people of color (usually in the “good
minority” model), but with African American turnout like this it suggests that candidates
are going to play less of a role than say, voting issues. This is hard to imagine
if Republicans continue to be associated with voter suppression or actually continue
to implement policies to suppress votes (Ohio). I’m ok with Republicans being
associated as the party that wants to stop people from voting because it
obviously helps us in the polls. I am however opposed to voter suppression. If
Republicans want to fix this association then they need to push for voter
inclusion (I have some ideas like stopping these stupid laws and letting felons
who have served their time vote).
As we all
learned from Rep. Paul Ryan (or were reminded in a condescending way),
Republicans are trying to rely on a legacy of voter innovation and civil rights
ignoring more recent developments. So this is like the kid who is a Harvard
legacy that has shitty grades and then wonders why he didn’t get in.
Republicans
need to rethink their voter policies or continue to lose elections.
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