DEMOCRACY WATCHDo State Election Laws Affect Who Wins?
Does requiring an ID to vote help Republicans win? What about allowing people with prior criminal convictions to cast ballots—does that favor Democrats? A new study finds that despite the rhetoric on both sides of the aisle, voting rules have very small effects in election outcomes.
Does requiring an ID to vote help Republicans win? What about allowing people with prior criminal convictions to cast ballots—does that favor Democrats? For years, Democrats and Republicans in the United States have argued over such voting laws, which many believe will aid one party at the polls. But a new study makes the case that such laws have little effect on the outcome of partisan elections.
“A lot of these laws generally don’t do what people are worried they’re going to do,” says Eitan Hersh, professor of political science and co-author of the new paper “How Election Rules Affect Who Wins.” Hersh conducted the study with Justin Grimmer, professor of political science at Stanford and senior fellow at the Hoover Institution.
“A clear implication of our analysis is to lower the temperature on election administration policies,” Hersh and Grimmer write in the paper, which has been quoted in the New York Times by political analyst Thomas Edsall. “Lawmakers should not pass laws thinking they will help their partisan side. It won’t work and it’s a waste of time. And the media should not portray every change in an election law as a red-alert scenario that will determine future elections.”
That said, with state and national elections sometimes close to a tie, “there are incentives to change laws in the moment and help your side,” Hersh says. Legal changes that have been proposed include allowing legislatures to overturn elections and letting election boards refuse to certify election results.
Those are the kind of post-election policies “that should concern us, because you can laser target your changes to where it’s going to have a big outcome,” says Hersh. “No one should want partisan actors to be able to manipulate elections” after votes have been cast.
Who’s Being Affected?
After the 2013 U.S. Supreme Court case Shelby County v. Holder, which overturned a section of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, Republican-dominated legislatures in southern U.S. states passed a number of laws requiring photo IDs to vote. The laws also sought to purge some voters from registration records. Democrats have said these laws disenfranchise many voters who would likely support Democratic candidates.
