It is noteworthy when science validates common sense — in this case that ID requirements do not deter voting. Perhaps now, or soon, we can jettison racial grievance from this topic of political concern.
Proving one’s identity at the polling place is necessary for election integrity. It is not necessary because it confirms you are who you claim to be, but because it validates your record in the registration database.
There are other ways to perform this validation. For example, voters could be required to visit the registration office just prior to an election to have their registration checked, but the procedure at the polls is both sufficient and much easier.
Tidewater News and Opinion Forum 
While it has been proven that ID requirements are not a deterrent to voting, this study, again, ignores the ever changing rules of WHICH ID is valid for voting. And ignores the difficulties that some lower income people have in attaining a proper ID. And those people aren’t jumping on airplanes. Most can’t afford to fly.
LikeLiked by 1 person
It might be useful to know how rule changes and poverty affect voter registration and turnout. It is certainly useful to know that voter ID requirements have no negative effect.
LikeLike
However ignoring the rule changes makes the study half assed.
LikeLiked by 1 person
It is hard to see how.
LikeLike
Becasue it does not take into account the effect the ever changing laws on ID effect voter turnout.
This essay from The Bulwark talks about getting to the possible of voting rights, including endorsing SEN Manchin’s compromise proposal. But it also addresses what I am talking about.
https://thebulwark.com/getting-to-yes-on-voting-rights/
“Some voting rights advocates may be nervous about Manchin’s “soft ID” provision. That’s because photo ID laws, as we’ve seen over the past decade, have often been used with the pernicious intent of disenfranchising voters of color, youth, and those with disabilities. Voter ID laws are frequently—and sometimes suddenly—changed by states, leaving voters to cope with unforeseen issues that only become obvious when it’s time to vote.
Using voter ID as a tool to disenfranchise voters is wrong and should be stopped.”
Disenfranchising voters should never be the goal. But it seems like whenever a GOP controlled legislature gets their hands on ID laws, they change them to make it harder for certain citizens to exercise their Constitutional right to vote.
LikeLiked by 1 person
RE: “Becasue it does not take into account the effect the ever changing laws on ID effect voter turnout.”
That wasn’t the question the study set out to address. Too bad for you, I guess, but it doesn’t affect the study itself.
LikeLike
It is incomplete – IMO.
Not too bad for me; too bad for those who think this makes everything hunky-dory. And too bad for citizens who show up to vote with what WAS a proper ID and told they can’t vote or must cast a provisional vote and then get the new ID. Making it harder to vote is wrong, no matter the demographic affected.
LikeLike
RE: “too bad for those who think this makes everything hunky-dory.”
What’s your point, then? No one presented the story as making “everything hunky-dory.” It especially shows there is no systemic racism in voter ID requirements.
LikeLike
You have a screwy ID of “common sense” if you think having to jump through pointless hoops does not deter voting. It obviously does.
Just because these voter ID laws have no negative effect on YOU does not mean they have no negative effect on others. So far, all we really know is that these efforts to impede voting have failed – enough people have been mad as hell, got organized and jumped through those pointless hoops to vote so that the turnout actually went up in the most effected communities.
Nobody knows what turnout would have been without these pointless obstacles. In fact, it might have been less and Georgia, for example, might have two GOP Senators. Karma is a bitch.
The real relevant and overriding fact is that in person voter fraud has never been found to be a problem. Common sense says . . . “If it ain’t broke don’t fix it.” In-person voter fraud is virtually non-existent.
LikeLike
Taking into account the idiotic nonsense you just spouted off, it would seem that, now, you would be all in favor of voter ID laws since, according to you, they invite more Democrat participation.
LikeLike
Yes, Bob, the racist attempt to suppress minority voters backfired on them. Like I said above Karma is a bitch.
Unlike you people I do not measure everything by its political effect. I would rather simply do the right thing. In the case of voting, it should be easy to register and vote. Virginia has it about right. Bullshit like turning away an old lady who has been on the rolls for decades because her driver’s license has expired should not happen in a decent country.
LikeLike
RE: “Just because these voter ID laws have no negative effect on YOU does not mean they have no negative effect on others.”
From the study:
“Using a difference-in-differences design on a panel data set with 1.6 billion observations, 2008–2018, we find that the laws have no negative effect on registration or turnout, overall or for any group defined by race, gender, age, or party affiliation…”
LikeLike
People having to waste time and money to meet pointless requirements is a “negative effect” that the “study” does not even attempt to measure.
LikeLike
RE: “People having to waste time and money to meet pointless requirements is a ‘negative effect’ that the “study” does not even attempt to measure.”
Checking ID is far from pointless. As I wrote: Proving one’s identity at the polling place is necessary for election integrity. It is not necessary because it confirms you are who you claim to be, but because it validates your record in the registration database.
LikeLike
“Checking ID is far from pointless.”
And nobody ever said it was.
It is the FORM of ID that is the issue. This is not rocket science, try harder.
LikeLike
All states provide free IDs for voting. IDs don’t seem to be a problem to buy alcohol, cigarettes, cash checks and numerous other circumstances so why do liberals claim it is so hard for voting? Easy, they want any Joe blow to be able to walk in and vote unverified as long as it is socialist…er, Democrat.
LikeLike
An ID is not free if you have to give up a day’s pay to go to the DMV to get one. You can cite any case anywhere where In-person voter fraud had an impact on an election. Your vision of Joe Blow is nonsense. Joe had to prove his identity and his address when he registered to vote.
LikeLike
RE: “Joe had to prove his identity and his address when he registered to vote.”
Thereafter, repeating the proof by producing an ID card at the polling place is a necessary check that the registration records on file remain accurate.
LikeLike
You seem not understand the difference between proving your eligibility to be registered on the rolls and proving OR affirming your identity. Once you are on the rolls there are many ways to prove your identity when you show up in-person to vote and those ways worked without problems for many decades. These ID laws have one purpose and one purpose only. It is not a legitimate purpose – to help Republicans win elections.
This matter is mostly moot now. The GOP has – in the end – failed to keep black and brown people from voting. They have had the opposite effect of what they intended. Karma is a bitch.
LikeLike
Dodson http://lentainform.com
LikeLike
Kingsman
LikeLike