A Map of Voting Rates Across the United States Proves Demise of ‘Voter ID Laws are Racist’ Myth

A Map of Voting Rates Across the United States Proves Demise of ‘Voter ID Laws are Racist’ Myth

By Jennifer Van Laar (3 weeks ago) 

Democrats have fought voter ID laws tooth and nail, denying that there is any problem with election fraud and claiming that they are merely a Republican attempt to suppress minority turnout.
As the Washington Examiner reports, it seems that the Democrats are losing this battle.
A map from the U.S. Census Bureau gives us a picture comparing Non-Hispanic White and Black Voting Rates in 2012:

In several states, the black voting rate exceeds that of whites! The states in shades of green had a higher rate of black voter turnout than white.
States like Tennessee, Georgia, and Indiana, with strict photo ID laws in effect, had greater participation rates among blacks in 2012. So whatever purportedly “racist” ID laws are being put into place there are not having much of an impact.
Minority voter turnout has steadily increased since 1996 – and was higher than white turnout in 2012 – and nearly every time these laws have been challenged in the courts they have been upheld.

But what about in the states where voter ID laws were in effect? Even in the states with strict voter ID laws turnout increased, as census data reported by Politifact shows.
Federal courts have upheld voter ID laws in Indiana, Georgia, Tennessee, and South Carolina. Ironically, it was liberal Justice John Paul Stephens who wrote the majority opinion in Crawford vs. Marion County Election Board, in which

The court held that Indiana’s photo ID law was constitutional and did not “qualify as a substantial burden on the right to vote, or even represent a significant increase over the usual burdens of voting.”

Opponents of voter ID laws claim that those without ID will just give up on voting, or not know how to go about getting the needed photo ID. Even if that were true, it’s a problem that’s solved using the same community outreach that liberal organizations already use to organize voter registration or get-out-the-vote drives.
Such outreach has already been successfully implemented in one state.

Rhode Island Secretary of State Ralph Mollis, a Democrat, persuaded his state’s left-leaning legislature to pass a photo ID bill in 2011 to address problems of voter fraud….

It included extensive outreach efforts, with members of Mollis’ office going to senior centers, homeless shelters and community centers to process free IDs. The law has been implemented smoothly…and he views it as a national model.

After all, as Secretary of State Mollis says, “When the day is done, my job is to maintain the integrity of elections.”