Race and the Vote

JanInSanFran writes:

When you can’t win an election on your own merits, wouldn’t it be great to pick own your electorate who you can trust will vote for you? That’s why politicians like to draw district boundaries to ensure one-party dominance. A new study [pdf] from the University of Washington’s Institute for the Study of Ethnicity, Race and Sexuality shows pretty conclusively that by demanding voters show photo IDs, Republicans ensure that more voters are white, older, and affluent. Others, likely Democrats, get pushed off the rolls.

Indiana’s photo ID law is being challenged as discriminatory in court. Researchers set out to find what it really would do voter eligibility. They polled carefully randomized samples of voters and non-voters about their IDs. The results show clearly that the ID requirement is designed to build a Republican bias into the universe of voters and potential voters.

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