A
Heritage Foundation study recently addressed this issue. The Heritage study was in response to a
Government Accountability Office (GAO) report.
GAO reviewed recent elections in Kansas and claimed that "Kansas...
had seen decreased voter turnout since its voter ID law went into effect"
in 2012, therefore, voter ID laws have a negative impact since they suppress
voter turnout.
GAO based this assumption on decreased voter turnout
between the 2008 and 2012 elections.
However, the Heritage study pointed out that a decrease was not due to
the voter ID law. Instead, it was
improper to compare 2008 with 2012 because there were no statewide political
campaigns in 2012, and presidential campaigns are "typically not active in
Kansas due to the perception that Kansas is a 'safe' Republican
state." Thus, there was no
get-out-the-vote effort in 2012. The
Heritage report explained that it was more appropriate to compare the 2012
election with 2000, with 2012 having a slight increase in the percent of voters
participating. Heritage further
explained that the 2010 should instead be compared to a similar election in
2014 when "there was a positive 1.1 percent increase in voter
turnout." Other states with voter
ID laws were cited as having similar increases in voter turnout.
The Kansas Secretary of State concluded that "The
system is really designed to ensure that it's easy to vote and hard to cheat
and I think we accomplished that."
By James Keats
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