Are Voter Identification Laws an Electoral Strategy?

• In Event: Representation and Electoral Systems & Normative Theory Virtual Poster Session
  In Virtual Poster Session: Representation and Electoral Systems Virtual Poster Session

Abstract

Strict voter ID laws are new, with the first of them passed in 2002, but have become more common over the past couple of decades. People typically do not have much information on voter ID laws and support for them is malleable. I argue that, unlike many other laws that come from the will of voters, voter ID laws come from the will of elites. Further, I argue that voter ID laws are a strategic effort by state legislators to retain power in an environment where the electorate is becoming more racially diverse and where partisan constraints make these laws a more viable electoral strategy than persuading nonwhite voters. Proponents of voter ID laws argue that these laws are meant to curb voter fraud, despite evidence that these laws act as a barrier for nonwhite and low socioeconomic status voters to participate in elections. In this paper, I analyze the extent to which legislators attempt to make voter ID bills more equitable. If voter ID bills are aimed at fraud, then amendments to make voting more accessible under voter ID should be popular, but if the intent is for legislators to use them as electoral strategy, then these amendments should be harder to pass. I construct a dataset of voter ID bills–and their amendments–that passed from 2000-2016 and the votes taken on these bills and amendments to test this. I hypothesize that amendments to make voter ID laws more equitable are significantly blocked or hindered by more conservative legislators.

Author

• Tye Rush, UCLA