A disproportionate burden: strict voter identification laws and minority turnout

"I Don't Want Everybody to Vote": Christian Nationalism and Restricting Voter Access in the United States

“…2 Second, and related to this last point, our findings underline the pernicious threat that religious nationalist movements pose to democracy itself, not just in shoring up support for certain political candidates or their positions on polarizing issues (e.g., Gorski and Perry 2022;Stroope et al 2020;Whitehead, Perry, and Baker 2018), but potentially in supporting efforts to neutralize perceived threats from minority groups by subverting participation in elections. Third, despite the documented influence of political partisanship and ideology as well as perceptions of racial threat in shaping Americans' views on voter suppression and disenfranchisement, our findings demonstrate the uniqueness of Christian nationalism as a factor in maintaining and reproducing 2 Though the efficacy of tactics like strict voter ID laws to advantage Republicans has been scrutinized and debated (e.g., Grimmer et al 2018;Mycoff et al 2009;Rocha and Matsubayashi 2014), the most recent research suggest restrictive voting laws are not only intended to disadvantage minority voters, but in fact do so (Hajnal et al 2018;Kuk et al 2020;Uggen and Manza 2002), and the extent to which these effects are not perceived may in fact be due the efficacy of counter-mobilization on the part of Democrats (Valentino and Neuner 2017). power hierarchies at the ideological, and ultimately, institutional level.…”

“…Our findings make several critical contributions to understanding the current American political landscape. First and foremost, because voting is the bedrock foundation of the democratic process, and efforts at restricting voter enfranchisement and access continue to play a formidable role in biasing outcomes for the Republican Party (Hajnal et al 2017(Hajnal et al , 2018Kuk et al 2020;Uggen and Manza 2002), our findings cut to the very heart of contemporary threats to free and fair elections by highlighting how ostensibly religious views about America's Christian character mask authoritarian and hierarchical ideals of merit, inclusion, and access. 2 Second, and related to this last point, our findings underline the pernicious threat that religious nationalist movements pose to democracy itself, not just in shoring up support for certain political candidates or their positions on polarizing issues (e.g., Gorski and Perry 2022;Stroope et al 2020;Whitehead, Perry, and Baker 2018), but potentially in supporting efforts to neutralize perceived threats from minority groups by subverting participation in elections.…”

Strict Id Laws Don’t Stop Voters: Evidence from a U.S. Nationwide Panel, 2008–2018

“…However, this effect will be reduced if people without ID are willing to spend the not identified by election officials are prevented from voting. For that reason, some studies which otherwise follow the NCSL classification count Alabama as a strict ID law state (e.g., Highton, 2017;Kuk et al, 2020). Relabeling Alabama's law as strict would not affect our results, since we control for state fixed effects and Alabama's request to show identification dates back to 2003 (i.e., before our sample period).…”

Contiguity, constituencies, and the political representation of minorities

“…These movements typically espouse illiberal, majoritarian forms of democracy that seek to return power to “the people” (Pappas, 2014). In the US, at least, renewed efforts to suppress minority electoral power have involved rolling back voting rights protections, including “anti-fraud” measures (Barreto et al., 2019; Kuk et al., 2020). Efforts to expand minority power have focused on the effects of felony disenfranchisement and the allocation of prison populations to the site of incarceration rather than residence (“prison gerrymandering”) (Remster and Kramer, 2018; Varsanyi, 2012).…”