November 7, 2016

Voter ID Laws Don’t Have Much Effect, But They’re Indefensible Anyway

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Tyler Cowen points us this morning to a new paper by Enrich Cantoni that uses county-level administrative data from 1992 to 2014 to estimate the effect of voter ID laws. Here’s the nut of it:

In other words, voter ID laws of all kinds have almost no effect on voter turnout and almost no effect on Democratic vote share:

The estimated average effects on turnout are fairly precise zeros. The implementation of an ID law of any type is associated, on average, with an insignificant .4 percentage point increase in voter turnout. Likewise, strict-photo ID laws induce an insignificant .5 percentage point decrease in county-level voter participation .

This tracks pretty well with previous research, which suggests that photo ID laws have a very modest effect. But why? Is it because they’re just ineffective, or because they piss off Democrats, who then mount an extra strong GOTV push? I don’t think anyone knows.

It’s worth pointing out that although reduced participation—even 0.5 percentage points—is a good reason to oppose strict photo ID laws, it’s never been the main reason. The main reason is that these laws are aimed very precisely at African-American and Hispanic voters. Is this because of crude racism? Or are blacks and Hispanics just collateral damage in an effort to hurt Democrats? It doesn’t matter. For reasons that should be too obvious to need pointing out, any voting law that has an outsized impact on black voters—accidental or not—deserves the very strictest scrutiny. If there were a truly pressing justification for photo ID laws, maybe you’d allow it. But voter fraud is virtually nonexistent, and reducing the Democratic vote is obviously not a very pressing justification. No court should allow this kind of thing.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

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