Despite a larger population and a contested race for an open gubernatorial seat, turnout in the state of Texas was reportedly down this year, as compared to the last mid-term election in 2010, by more than a quarter of a million votes.
That data point — a decrease of some 271,000 total voters this year — is one of several, at least anecdotal early indicators that suggest the Texas GOP’s strategy of suppressing the vote this year with polling place Photo ID restrictions seems to have worked.
Since 2003, Texas law had already required every voter to present an ID when voting at the polls in the Lone Star State. But the newer draconian restrictions that have been so controversial were finally in place for a federal general election for the first time this year, after state Republicans have been attempting to enact them since at least 2007.
We’ve spent quite a bit of time over the past year(s) reporting on the GOP attempt to implement these new polling place Photo ID voting restrictions, with all evidence suggesting that they are meant only to suppress the votes of minorities, students, the poor and other disproportionately Democratic-leaning constituencies.
In virtually every instance that the new, exceedingly restrictive law has come before federal authorities, it has been found plainly discriminatory. The law was struck down in 2012 as a discriminatory violation of the Voting Rights Act by both the U.S. Department of Justice as well as a three-judge federal panel on the D.C. District Court. It was struck down once again this year by a U.S. District Court in Texas after a full trial and a 147-page ruling [PDF] which found the law to be “purposefully discriminatory”, an “unconstitutional poll tax”, and likely to disenfranchise some 600,000 legally registered Texas voters as well as more than a million eligible voters.
Nonetheless, the U.S. Supreme Court allowed it to stay in place during this year’s election, as the Republicans who run the state of Texas appeal the lower court’s unambiguous ruling.
In the meantime, early data coming in from Texas suggests the law appears to have had its intended effect…
It was reported on the day after the election last week that the number of provisional ballots cast in TX had doubled, as compared to the last mid-term elections in 2010.
Since voters lacking one of the few, very specific types of state-issued Photo IDs required to vote under the new law would only have been able to cast a provisional ballot at the polls on Election Day (which will not be counted unless the voter can return to county election headquarters with approved Photo ID within 6 days after the election), it makes sense that provisional ballots would increase under the new voting restriction.
It could be argued that increased turnout this year over 2010 would also lead to an increase in provisional ballots. However, the turnout in Texas was down this year, not up.
In another indication that the law is “working” for Republicans, despite the vigorously contested gubernatorial race between Republican Attorney General Greg Abbott (who also led the legal battle for the new voting restrictions) and Democratic state Sen. Wendy Davis this year, voter turnout was way down in Texas as compared to the 2010 election. According to the Texas Tribune’s Ross Ramsey in the New York Times over the weekend, turnout fell by 271,000 voters this year, compared to 2010, despite several factors that might otherwise have suggested it should have gone up this year…
The people who did not show up appear to be Democrats. The Republican numbers were up in the governor’s race, while the Democratic numbers were way down.
It will take some time to determine exactly what did and didn’t happen in this year’s elections, and certainly how the new voting restriction effected voters, but early indications are similar to the findings reported by the non-partisan U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) after similar voting restrictions were implemented by Republicans in Kansas and Tennessee. In those states, the GAO found, the voting restrictions had the effect of lowering turnout most markedly for both minority and young voters.
How much turnout was lowered in TX due to the new restrictions remain to be seen. As the Texas Tribune’s Ramsey also notes in the Times, since Abbott appears to have reportedly defeated Davis by nearly 1 million votes, it seems unlikely that Democrats would have won that particular election even without the new, unconstitutional law in place.
Still, as we’ve reported here many, many times over the years, our concern is not about who wins and loses any particular election. It’s about the ability of Americans to exercise their right to vote, should they choose to, and to have that vote counted, counted accurately and in a way that they can know it’s been counted accurately.
There is no question that the new Republican law kept voters from being able to exercise their rights in Texas. We’ve already reported how 93-year old veterans and born and raised Texans were kept from voting, as well as student voters unable to vote now that state-issued student Photo IDs are disallowed for the first time. Others have similarly reported a “surge of disenfranchised voters” this year in Texas.
Whether or not it directly affected election outcomes specifically (and, if the early numbers are correct, it would almost certainly have had an effect on smaller, closer contests throughout the state), the right to vote is — or, at least should be — sacred. Republicans enjoy pretending that’s the case when they argue in favor of strict Photo ID restrictions and others that serve only to suppress the right to vote. Democrats, and those of us who really do give a damn about the right to vote, ought to be fighting like hell for that right, no matter how many specific election outcomes may or may not be at stake.
(Snail mail support to “Brad Friedman, 7095 Hollywood Blvd., #594 Los Angeles, CA 90028” always welcome too!)
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It’s already a done deal. The next US president will complete the job that only Jeb Bush can do. No need for him to be in the spotlight or do much campaigning when he knows he can use the same Deception that worked so well for his father and for his brother. After 9/11 they know they can do anything and get away with it. From the JFK assassination until 9/11 one hidden hand from Texas is ruling not only in this Country and with the next US elections it will make it official all over the World.
A new trick of the tail and again Humankind will be played by the Beast. It’s one struggle to fight ultimate Deception. With the mindset gradually changed by a Culture originating from ancient Egypt the US citizens are making it easier for the Beast who does not have to worry much and can afford some sense of humor.
Perhaps a few will still remember when George W. Bush told the terrorized US citizens to seal their windows with duct tape to protect from an imminent chemical attack. An irony like this could tell the whole story. The next day on the shelves of the stores all over the US there was no more duct tape for sale.
All that is happening in our days is the prelude to enormous changes but even before discussing in regard of the possible remedy one must be clear about how we came to this point recognizing both physiognomy and origin of the threat.
Since George H. Bush was CIA director, the US secret State agencies had played a double role to finally get to where we are today when every person is constantly monitored by NSA and other agencies not to report the information to the US Government but to feed with all data the embryo of a new superpower still kept hidden.
In brief, here is how it came to possess all means and to know everything of everyone.
In 1988 the ex CIA director was elected president although this was a US president like no other. His attention quickly turned to Saudi Arabia and Kuwait from where he personally benefited immensely in exchange for the protection of those tyrants and their oil while in the United States instead the president observed his son, Neil, to be the author of the largest robbery of its time, the “Savings and Loans” scandal. After a few years, the next largest robbery in history was Enron that financed the electoral campaign for his other son, George. Once he also became president, the son plotted the most infamous attack on US soil, 9/11, to begin the widest monitoring program ever conceived and to consolidate for 8 years the interest of one family above all. The day before 9/11 the Bush administration announced 2.3 trillion dollars missing from the US State Department and we have not heard anything about it ever since. Today that is the latest largest robbery of all time.
In our days, a group of Zionists, like a hidden parallel government, with George Bush still today at the head of secret services in the US, UK and Israel, is the destabilizing force behind most terror events and with classified information at disposal and a private army is plotting what now would seem unthinkable to many. The spokesman for this group in the US Congress is John Mc Cain who reports the given orders weighing on the US administration. Incredibly, his picture taken with the chief of ISIS was recently found and reported by Senator Rand Paul.
A World War and chaos everywhere have already been planned so that desperate people will soon invoke a New World Order without even knowing what that is.
When Jeb Bush will be the US president, the next World War will be inevitable and also come by surprise.
There is one Solution
http://www.wavevolution.org
Look at how the demographics of the Republicans in the House compare to the population as a whole. It is no surprise that they are trying to prevent a large swath of the people from voting.
As much as I respect Bernie Sanders, he keeps harping on passing legislation to make changes in the law to prevent voting manipulation. How, since voting results are so clearly untrustworthy and unverifiable, is this to be done?
Any mass action in the streets would only trigger the provisions in the Patriot Act and other draconian laws passed under every president since Jimmy Carter. And what is to prevent the Republicans from making specific voter suppression efforts national? Not a damn thing!
Corporatism is going to drag the US into a war for global domination. Voting is merely a distraction to keep the people from seeing this. The only thing preventing a corporatist victory over the entire globe is that even with the might of the US military and technology, there aren’t enough boots available to enforce corporatist rule.