A new analysis by the left-leaning Priorities USA and shared exclusively with The Nation magazine finds that Wisconsin’s strict voter ID laws suppressed as many as 200,000 votes in the 2016 presidential election, most of them people of color and Democratic-leaning votes.
The study compared turnout in states that adopted strict voter-ID laws between 2012 and 2016, like Wisconsin, to states that did not.
“While states with no change to voter identification laws witnessed an average increased turnout of +1.3 percent from 2012 to 2016, Wisconsin’s turnout (where voter ID laws changed to strict) dropped by -3.3 percent,” the study reads, according to The Nation. “If turnout had instead increased by the national- no-change average, we estimate that over 200,000 more voters would have voted in Wisconsin in 2016 … The lost voters skewed more African-American and more Democrat. For example, Wisconsin’s 2016 electorate was 6.1% more Republican, and 5.7% less Democrat, than the group of ‘lost voters’. Furthermore, the WI electorate was 3.7% more White and 3.8% less African American than the group of ‘lost voters.’ This analysis suggests that the 200,000 lost voters would have both been more racially diverse and have voted more Democratic.”
The study also compared turnout in Wisconsin to Minnesota, which has very similar demographics but no voter-ID law, and found “turnout in African-American counties dropped off at significantly higher levels than in their Minnesota-counterparts,” according to The Nation.
Donald Trump won Wisconsin and its 10 electoral votes by just over 22,000 votes.
