What Prevents Abortions?

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A man on the bus the other day made an interesting remark about abortion. He said:

All these pro-choice people are lucky their mothers were pro-life. Because if they weren’t pro-life, they wouldn’t have had them.

Usually, I either completely tune out or else promptly forget any bus lectures I hear from complete strangers. But this one seemed at least a little bit relevant because it strikes to the heart of a misconception some abortion opponents seem to have about those who favor keeping abortion legal in the United States — namely, the (mistaken) idea that pro-choicers want people to have abortions.

Pro-choicers are a diverse group. Reasons for supporting the availability of legal and safe abortion range from women’s health concerns to privacy to the belief that prohibition is simply not a viable alternative. I have never heard anyone say they are pro-choice because they want people to have abortions just for the sake of having an abortion.

Actually, I’ve heard quite the opposite — people saying that they are pro-choice and want to minimize the number of abortions that take place. This is the idea of ‘safe, legal, and rare.’

With that in mind, one would think that though pro-life activists disagree with the ‘safe’ and ‘legal’ parts, they might be amenable to working with pro-choice groups toward the ‘rare’ part. Unfortunately, this is the exception rather than the rule.

The thing is, the public health and medical communities have a fairly good sense of what policies tend to reduce abortion: access to contraception, and comprehensive sex education, for example. In other words, policies that reduce unintended or unwanted pregnancies in the first place.

A recent study of more than 9,000 women at risk for unintended pregnancies, for instance, found that providing free birth control lowered both the number of unintended pregnancies and abortions. Abortion rates for this group ended up being less than half that of regional and national rates. Teenage pregnancy within this group was also rarer than the national average (6.3 births per 1,000 teenagers, compared to 34.3 per 1,000 in the nation as a whole).

The Guttmacher Institute also noted contraception’s role in preventing unintended pregnancies in a 2011 testimony to the Committee on Preventive Services for Women. They explain that as unmarried women at risk of unintended pregnancies increased their contraceptive use, their abortion rates fell from 50 abortions per 1,000 women in 1981 to 34 in 2000.

Additionally, they cite studies that show reductions in teenage pregnancy thanks to increased contraception use. Notably:

One study found that from 1991 to 2003, contraceptive use improved among sexually active U.S. high school students… these adolescents’ risk of pregnancy declined 21% over the 12 years. Another study found that increased contraceptive use was responsible for 77% of the sharp decline in pregnancy among 15–17-year-olds between 1995 and 2002 (decreased sexual activity was responsible for the other 23%); and increased contraceptive use was responsible for all of the decline in pregnancy among 18–19-year-olds.

There is also strong evidence that comprehensive sex education (as opposed to abstinence-only) helps prevent unintended pregnancies. Studies show that abstinence-only education can actually be counterproductive, leading to higher rates of teen pregnancy. One review of federally-funded abstinence-only programs found that most of the most commonly used abstinence-only curricula contained “false, misleading, or distorted information about reproductive health.”

Disturbingly, a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report notes that the most common reason women who had unintended pregnancies after not using contraception gave for their failure to use contraception was that they did not think they could get pregnant. It bears repeating: a plurality of this group (about 36 percent) actually responded that they did not think it could happen to them when asked why they had not used contraception. Perhaps better education on the subject could have prevented at least some of this confusion.

Yet many pro-life groups reject the recommendations of the public health and medical communities and instead claim exactly the opposite, maintaining (in the face of all evidence) that contraception and comprehensive sex education cause higher levels of abortion.

Take this so-called “Fact Sheet” put out by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), for instance (and, full disclosure, I’m Catholic). It claims, among other things, that contraceptives fail to prevent pregnancy, and cites this statistic as evidence:

Forty-eight percent of women with unintended pregnancies and 54% of women seeking abortions were using contraception in the month they became pregnant.

At first glance, that seems fairly alarming. Is contraception really that ineffective? Well, no, as it turns out. And I’ll get to that in just a moment. First, though, I need to deal with something the USCCB excised from the reports it cites for these statistics.

This sheet leaves out an important disclaimer that its sources (which you can read here and here) include: even though the women may have been using contraceptives that month, they were likely using them inconsistently.

Another Guttmacher report shows the breakdown of the 48 percent of women who had been using contraceptives the month they got pregnant. As it turns out, most of those women had been using contraceptives inconsistently. The chart below (taken from the Guttmacher report, which you can find here.) shows the breakdown.

"The two-thirds of U.S. women at risk of unintended pregnancy who practice contraception consistently and correctly account for only 5% of unintended pregnancies." (Guttmacher Institute)

So, the two-thirds of women at risk of unintended pregnancies who consistently use contraceptives make up only 5 percent of unintended pregnancies. In contrast, though only 16 percent of such women do not use contraceptives, they account for a full 52 percent of unintended pregnancies.

For women seeking abortions, here’s the key part that was left out of USCCB’s  “Fact Sheet:”

Among those women, 76% of pill users and 49% of condom users report having used their method inconsistently, while 13% of pill users and 14% of condom users report correct use.

Even putting this aside, it really does not make much sense for USCCB to use those statistics the way they did.

The sheet is trying to make the point that contraceptives are not that effective at preventing pregnancy. But to back this up, it uses statistics that only consider the subgroups of women that either have an unintended pregnancy or are seeking an abortion:

Forty-eight percent of women with unintended pregnancies and 54% of women seeking abortions were using contraception in the month they became pregnant. [Emphasis mine.]

It seems odd to use this statistic, which focuses on two specific groups that are already pregnant to back up a broad claim about the efficacy of contraception as a whole. But perhaps even though they are using this in the broader context of contraception efficacy, they are actually trying to make a narrower point that contraception does not effectively prevent abortions (which seems unlikely, because they have a later section dedicated to that, but let’s assume that’s what it is).

Even if this were the actual point, the statistic is still misleading. To keep things simple, I’ll just focus on the unintended pregnancies part. Essentially, the statistic the USCCB sheet used answers this question:

How many women with unintended pregnancies used contraception in the month they got pregnant?

The better question would be:

How many women who used contraception in the month they got pregnant ended up with unintended pregnancies?

It’s a subtle difference, but an important one. The prior one describes a group of women who have unintended pregnancies and asks what portion of them used contraception. The latter one describes a group of women who used contraception and asks what portion of them ended up having unintended pregnancies.

Unfortunately, because I could not find data on the number of women at risk of unintended pregnancy who used contraception and did not unintentionally get pregnant, I cannot answer this latter question. However, given the actual efficacy of contraception, it is likely that the number would be fairly small.

How effective a particular method is varies, but the two most common choices of non-permanent contraception are condoms and the pill. Condoms are 82 percent to 98 percent effective, while the pill is 91 percent to 99 percent effective. The reason these numbers are given in a range is because of the difference between “typical use” (the lower percentage) and “perfect use” (the higher percentage). “Perfect use” refers to the rate when individuals use a method consistently and according to clinical guidelines. “Typical use” is the number you generally get in real-world use, where people do not always use the contraceptive consistently or correctly.

(As a quick aside, this New York Times blog post notes that a large problem is that women often switch contraception methods or temporarily stop using them for any number of reasons, from they just moved to a new city and need to find a new doctor to they switched jobs and now have to navigate a different insurance plan. Educating women on how to handle such potential gaps — no matter how brief — might be prudent.)

So, contraception is not perfect, but it is significantly more effective at preventing unwanted pregnancies than the USCCB presents, especially when educated on how to use it correctly. I bring this up not to single out the USCCB in particular (and I only discussed one specific part of their “Fact Sheet”), but because this example demonstrated what seems to be a common thread among pro-life talking point sheets I’ve seen. Such documents perpetuate false claims that contraception and comprehensive sex education are either ineffective or damaging and offer confusing or incomplete statistics similar to the ones we just examined.

And that is counterproductive when your goal is to prevent abortions.

FURTHER READING

“Intended and Unintended Births in the United States: 1982 – 2010,” Mosher, Jones, & Abma. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 24 July 2012.

“Facts on Unintended Pregnancy in the United States.” Guttmacher Institute, January 2012.

“Facts on Induced Abortion in the United States.” Guttmacher Institute, August 2011.

“Use of Contraception in the United States: 1982 – 2008,” Mosher & Jones. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, August 2010.

“Study: Free Birth Control Leads to Fewer Abortions” FOX News, 5 October 2012.

“How to Make Birth Control Effective,” Danielle Braff. Chicago Tribune, 1 April 2010.

“Contraception: Types of Birth Control.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 10 September 2012.

“Birth Control: In-Depth Report.” New York Times.

“Contraceptive Use in the United States.” Guttmacher Institute.

“Testimony of Guttmacher Institute.” Committee on Preventive Services for Women, 12 January 2011.

“Are You In The Know: Contraception.” Guttmacher Institute.

“Switching Contraceptives Effectively,” Jane Brody. The New York Times, 17 September 2012.

“Debunking the Right’s Contraception Myths,” Irin Carmon. Slate, 21 February 2012.

“Preventing Unintended Pregnancies by Providing No-Cost Contraception,” Peipert, Madden, Allsworth, & Secura. Obstetrics & Gynecology (Vol. 120, Issue 6), December 2012.

“Facts on American Teens’ Sources of Information About Sex.” Guttmacher Institute, February 2012.

“Surprise! The Abortion Rate Just Hit an All-Time Low,” Sarah Kliff. Washington Post Wonkblog, 23 November 2012.

“Some Abstinence Programs Mislead Teens, Report Says,” Ceci Connelly. Washington Post, 2 December 2004.

“Why We Keep Accidentally Getting Pregnant,” Lindsay Abrams. The Atlantic, 26 July 2012.

“Understanding ‘Abstinence:’ Implications for Individuals, Programs and Policies,” Cynthia Dallard. Guttmacher Institute, December 2003.

“Abstinence-Only and Comprehensive Sex Education and the Initiation of Sexual Activity and Teen Pregnancy,” Kohler, Manhart, & Lafferty. Journal of Adolescent Health, 31 January 2008.

“Comprehensive Sex Education for Teens is More Effective than Abstinence,” Carter. American Journal of Nursing (Vol. 112, Issue 3), March 2012.

“Abstinence-Only Education Does Not Lead to Abstinent Behavior, UGA Researchers Find,” Chelsea Toledo. University of Georgia, 29 November 2011.

“The Efficacy of Abstinence Only Education: Culminating Experience,” Jennie Watt McAdams. Wright State University (Thesis Paper), 2012.

“The Content of Federally Funded Abstinence-Only Programs,” Committee on Government Reform — Minority Staff. Rep. Henry Waxman, December 2004.

 

To Keep and Bear Arms: Gun Rights Throughout American History

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In my previous blog post, I discussed why I think America should revise its gun laws by adding more comprehensive background checks and limiting access to assault weapons and large-capacity magazines.

In this post, I will discuss one of the most prominent arguments against gun control: that the Founding Fathers passed the Second Amendment in order to prevent all gun regulations and defend against tyranny.

There are several practical difficulties with this argument. For one, America’s political system may be dysfunctional in various ways, but it is not (and is in no danger of becoming) tyrannical. America has strong civic institutions, watchdog groups, and an independent media. It spreads governmental power across various branches and levels. And for as much as some people complain about the lack of choice in elections, America still has a generally competitive system of free elections in which citizens can select their representatives.

Actually, many common complaints heard today are more indicative of democracy than any nascent tyranny. Tyrannies, by their very nature, rarely have trouble acting. In contrast, today’s American government seems caught in an almost constant stalemate. Even the health care bill, which many Americans dislike, was only passed after Congress had considered the issue for more than 60 years.

But assume for a moment that America is, somehow, teetering on the edge of tyranny. There is no way that assault weapons are going to protect people against the world’s largest and best-equipped military. If the Second Amendment is meant to protect against tyranny, then Americans should have the right not only to purchase assault weapons, but all manner of military weapons, such as rocket launchers and nuclear missiles. Anything less would put the civilian population at a distinct disadvantage against the American military.

This is, of course, fairly ridiculous. Society draws reasonable lines detailing acceptable behavior all the time, such as limiting access to military-grade weapons to the military. I would suggest that we similarly limit access to assault weapons in order to help stop mass shootings.

Far from endorsing violent uprisings against an elected government, some of the Founding Fathers spoke out vigorously against it. In 1794, President George Washington marched to western Pennsylvania to put down a tax revolt. The American Revolution was over and the Constitution had been adopted, guaranteeing a republican form of government. Now that Americans were represented in their government, political struggles had to replace armed conflict. As Washington proclaimed before he led several states’ militias out to confront the rebels:

And I do moreover exhort all individuals, officers, and bodies of men to contemplate with abhorrence the measures leading directly or indirectly to those crimes which produce this resort to military coercion… and to call to mind that, as the people of the United States have been permitted… to elect their own government, so will their gratitude for this inestimable blessing be best distinguished by firm exertions to maintain the Constitution and the laws.

Additionally, gun laws are not unprecedented expansions of governmental power. They have existed throughout most of American history. During the Founding Era, gun laws allowed government to track gun ownership, regulate gun powder storage, prohibit gun use in certain areas, deny gun ownership to certain individuals. A Boston law, for example, prohibited people from bringing loaded guns indoors. Other laws prohibited black people or people who refused to swear allegiance to the revolution from owning guns. In the years following the War of 1812, some states even banned carrying concealed weapons.

That guns were regulated during the Founders’ lifetimes should not be surprising. The Second Amendment frames gun rights in terms of trained militia service, rather than in terms of an absolute right:

A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens meticulously documents the legal and historical context for a military framing of the Second Amendment in his District of Columbia v. Heller dissent. He notes, among other things, that the Second Amendment’s drafting history discusses gun rights in terms of military service, not in terms of an individual right. At the time, the Framers’ main concern was that Congress would disarm the militias. The Second Amendment prevented that.

Stevens also points out that James Madison was working with numerous proposed amendments while crafting the Second Amendment’s final wording. Some of these proposed amendments were much broader and more clearly established an individual right to own a gun. Madison instead chose the wording that placed gun rights in terms of military service.

So the Founding Fathers were aware of existing gun regulations and also couched the Second Amendment in terms of military service and states’ rights.

However, the history of gun laws in the United States does not end there. Americans continued to pass gun laws where and when they deemed necessary. Take the “Wild West,” for instance. Although films often portray the American West as a lawless place plagued by gunslingers and outlaws, the truth is actually quite different. Gunfights were rare, but gun laws were not. Frontier towns often banned concealed carry and required visitors to leave their guns with the town marshal until they departed.

In fact, according to Adam Winkler, a Constitutional law professor at UCLA:

Frontier towns in the west — places like Deadwood, S.D., and Tombstone, Ariz. — had the most restrictive gun laws in the nation… And these laws were enforced. The illegal carrying of a firearm was the second most common basis for arrests in the old west — right behind drunk and disorderly conduct. Gun violence was also rare, and gunfights extraordinary. Frontier towns averaged less than two homicides per year.

The infamous gunfight at the O.K. Corral actually broke out because law enforcement sought to enforce a Tombstone ordinance banning people from carrying firearms in the town.

Americans have passed gun laws throughout history when they felt the situation demanded it. It seems that pragmatic gun regulations are as American as the right to bear arms.

FURTHER READING

“Nation’s founders balanced gun rights with public safety,” Adam Winkler, UCLA Today.

“The Secret History of Guns,” Adam Winkler, The Atlantic.

“District of Columbia v. Heller: Stevens Dissent,” Justice John Paul Stevens.

“Gun laws were tougher in old Tombstone,” Bob Drogin, LA Times.

“Breyer: Founding Fathers Would Have Allowed Restrictions on Guns,” Fox News.

 

Mass Shootings and American Gun Policy

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Most of America’s mass shootings have involved a semiautomatic handgun or an assault weapon. The recent Connecticut tragedy is no outlier. Gunman Adam Lanza apparently had an assault rifle and two semiautomatic pistols on him when he killed 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School. An eyewitness said Lanza “must have shot a hundred rounds,” while the medical examiner has reported that initial autopsies show the victims were each shot multiple times.

It was the second-deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history.

That most gunmen involved in mass shootings (Lanza included) have used semiautomatic weapons of some kind should not be surprising. The entire purpose of these weapons is to get off multiple shots rapidly. That rapidity can make all the difference for the people recovering and fleeing.

As a point of reference, numerous commentators have noted that a Chinese elementary school also endured an attack a few hours before Sandy Hook. There, the attacker assaulted more than 20 children with a knife. While still horrific, all of the students nevertheless survived the attack. Had the their attacker been armed with a semiautomatic weapon, the Chinese story may have had a very different conclusion. Indeed, China has seen a rash of knife attacks at schools, but the numbers of victims never break the single digits.

Obviously, no law can prevent every mass killing. No matter how extensive a law, some people will always be able to find ways around it. Yet, in America’s case, there is rarely a law that needs circumventing. Most of the killers involved in mass shootings obtained their weapons legally.

Perhaps we, as a society, have decided that we would like to make these weapons readily available with few restrictions. If that is the case, there are several uncomfortable truths that we must face. America, which has a murder rate seven times higher than the average for high-income countries, also has more gun-related killings than any other developed country.

An Economist article on the mass shooting at a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado earlier this year put it this way:

If you live in America, you are four times more likely to be murdered than if you live in Britain, almost six times more likely than in Germany, and 13 times more likely than in Japan. These are simple facts on which all can agree; just as it is a simple fact that two-thirds of all murders in America involve guns, whereas in Britain the figure is under 10%.

The relationship between gun availability and homicide rates seems to be fairly robust: more guns often means higher murder rates. And America leads the world in gun ownership, with more than 88 guns per 100 people. Yemen comes in second at about 54. In fact, even though the United States makes up only 5 percent of the world’s population, it has half of the world’s guns.

Lots of things cause gunmen in America to take lives. But it does appear that states with fewer guns and more comprehensive gun laws tend to have fewer gun-related deaths.

Opponents of gun laws often argue that such laws make people less safe. They reason that any law that restricts gun ownership will mainly impact law-abiding citizens, making it harder for them to defend themselves against criminals. However, various studies refute this claim.

Furthermore, it is not entirely clear to me that having other armed individuals present would necessarily have prevented some of the mass shootings America has already witnessed. First of all, the ‘armed defender’ situation has failed to materialize in any of the recent mass shootings, despite relatively lax gun laws. Second, it may actually have made some of these situations more dangerous.

Consider the Aurora shooting, in which a gunman opened fire at a movie theater. It is not entirely clear to me that an ‘armed defender’ in a chaotic, darkened theater would have helped stop James Holmes from killing 12 people. But it does seem very plausible that some of the theater-goers might have, in the dim chaos, been accidentally struck by friendly fire.

Let me be clear: I am not arguing against all gun ownership. I support the right to own guns for legal purposes. However, I also believe that America should re-examine its current gun laws and consider adopting more extensive background checks and tighter restrictions on assault weapons and large-capacity magazines that can hold many rounds of ammunition.

That is, America should consider limiting the supply of military-style assault weapons shooters can use to wreak mass havoc in a matter of moments. Such weapons enable mass shootings by providing gunmen the opportunity to shoot indiscriminately, without the need to stop and reload.

Obviously, some gunmen will always find a way to procure such weapons illegally. This does not mean America should shy away from regulating them. As noted, most of the weapons used in mass shootings were obtained legally. New gun laws limiting access to assault weapons could set clear boundaries for what society thinks is acceptable.

Beyond that, however, restricting access to assault weapons and large-capacity magazines will make it more difficult for gunmen to use them in their assaults. Faced with such obstacles, some of them may simply opt for whatever guns are available, even though if they are less powerful and force the gunman to reload more often.

Although America currently has a large supply of assault weapons, restrictions could, over time, limit this supply. This could, in turn, drive up these weapons’ prices on the black market, making it even more difficult for gunmen to obtain them. It would also help law enforcement counter gang and drug violence (police chiefs around the country have generally favored assault weapons restrictions).

Of course, such laws’ usefulness is limited to the extent that they create loopholes to easily circumvent them. The assault weapons ban Congress passed in 1994, for instance, had mixed success because it contained a number of loopholes and exemptions. A 2004 University of Pennsylvania study described one of the more significant loopholes:

Relatively cosmetic changes, such as removing a flash hider or bayonet mount, are sufficient to transform a banned weapon into a legal substitute, and a number of manufacturers now produce modified, legal versions of some of the banned guns.

If a gun law is to be truly effective, it must limit these loopholes as much as possible.

The types of restrictions I have been discussing — background checks and greater restrictions on assault weapons and large-capacity magazines — have enjoyed bipartisan support in the past. President Ronald Reagan, one of the most influential figures in the contemporary Republican Party, supported background checks and waiting periods, as well as assault weapon and large-capacity magazine restrictions.

Reagan wrote a column in 1991 supporting the Brady bill, which provided for background checks and waiting periods in order to purchase guns. In his column, Reagan recalled how a gunman nearly killed him and three other men on March 30, 1981, and described how he marks that grim anniversary every year:

This level of violence must be stopped… If the passage of the Brady bill were to result in a reduction of only 10 or 15 percent of [gun-related deaths] (and it could be a good deal greater), it would be well worth making it the law of the land.

And there would be a lot fewer families facing anniversaries such as the Bradys, Delahantys, McCarthys and Reagans face every March 30.

Perhaps the same could be said of an assault gun ban today.

(To read my blog post on the Second Amendment and gun regulations throughout American history, click here.)

FURTHER READING

“To Keep and Bear Arms: Gun Rights Throughout American History,” Michael J. Gaudini, Diniverse Major Blog.

“A Guide to Mass Shootings in America,” Mark Follman, Gavin Aronsen, and Deanna Pan, Mother Jones.

“Can Gun Laws Save Lives?” Emily Sohn, Discovery News.

“Time to face facts on gun control,” Fareed Zakaria, CNN.

“The Case for Gun Policy Reforms in America,” Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research.

“Everything you need to know about the assault weapons ban, in one post,” Brad Plumer, WonkBlog.

“Analysis: Why gun controls are off the agenda in America,” Jonathan Mann, CNN.

“The Geography of Gun Deaths,” Richard Florida, The Atlantic.

“Interactive: US, Yemen lead the world in guns,” Mohammed Haddad and Sam Bollier, Al Jazeera.

“The Tucson shootings: The blame game,” Economist.

“Speed Kills,” William Saletan, Slate.

“An Updated Assessment of the Federal Assault Weapons Ban: Impacts on Gun Markets and Gun Violence, 1994-2003,” Christopher Koper, University of Pennsylvania.

“Firearms Research: Homicide,” Harvard School of Public Health.

“Firearms Research: Gun Threats and Self Defense Gun Use,” Harvard School of Public Health.

The Pileggi Electoral College Plan and 1960

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In 1962, after the successive failures of both his presidential and gubernatorial campaigns, a weary Richard Nixon bid the press goodbye:

But as I leave you, I want you to know: just think how much you’re going to be missing. You don’t have Nixon to kick around anymore.

Of course, if Pennsylvania Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi had his way, Nixon might not have spoken those famous words. He would not have had to: if Senator Pileggi had been in charge, Nixon might have beaten John F. Kennedy and become president in 1960.

I am referring, of course, to Senator Pileggi’s ill-conceived Electoral College plan (next session’s version, last session’s plan was defeated). The idea is simple: divide all but two of a state’ Electoral College votes up and award them to the candidates according to the percentage of the popular vote that they won. The candidate that wins the state then gets the extra two votes.

Take the 2012 election, for instance. President Barack Obama won about 52 percent of the popular vote to Governor Mitt Romney’s 47 percent. This gives President Obama 12 electoral votes (10 electoral votes for the popular vote, plus 2 more for winning state-wide).

This would not have changed the outcome of the 2012 election. Indeed, changing Pennsylvania alone might not have altered the outcome of most American elections. But it would have had an effect. For instance, in 2000, President George W. Bush’s margin of victory would have been larger, even though he still would have lost the popular vote.

But to really demonstrate how Pileggi’s system would work, imagine that his plan was in effect in all 50 states. Under this scenario, John F. Kennedy stands a good chance of beating Nixon in the popular vote, but losing to him in the Electoral College.

According to my calculations, the Electoral College votes come in like this:

  • 264 for Kennedy
  • 267 for Nixon
  • 6 Unpledged Electors

Those unpledged electors would have come from the largely Democratic Louisiana and Mississippi. But these states were part of the Southern, conservative wing of the Democratic Party — a wing that was suspicious of Kennedy and that Nixon would successfully court years later. It only would have taken 3 of those 6 to make Nixon president.

Can we say with absolute certainty that Kennedy would have absolutely lost in 1960? No. But it is surely a possibility. And a reason to be wary of any claims that Pileggi’s proposal is somehow fairer than the current system.

FURTHER READING

1960 Presidential Election Results: Pileggi Plan (Excel), Diniverse Major Blog.

Co-Sponsorship Memo, Dominic Pileggi.

“Pileggi to reintroduce plan to change Pennsylvania electoral-vote system,” Philadelphia Inquirer.

“Corbett-Pileggi plan bad for democracy,” Michael J. Gaudini (Main Line Times). *(This article refers to last session’s Electoral College plan)

What Would Have Happened in 2012 Under Gov. Corbett’s Election Plan?

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Last session, Governor Tom Corbett and Pennsylvania Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi unveiled a plan to change how Pennsylvania votes for president. Now that the 2012 election has actually been held, Pennsylvanians can see for themselves how that system would have impacted their votes.

But first, a bit of context. Americans do not vote for president directly. Instead, they vote through the Electoral College. In the Electoral College system, each state gets a number of electoral votes for president equal to their representation in Congress. Pennsylvania has 18 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives and 2 in the U.S. Senate, so therefore it gets 20 electoral votes.

States can choose to decide how they distribute those votes, but most states give all of their electoral votes to the presidential candidate that wins the statewide election. And, for most of American history, that has worked. Four times in the past, however, president have lost the popular vote but won the presidency: John Quincy Adams, Rutherford B. Hayes, Benjamin Harrison, and George W. Bush.

The other key concept to keep in mind here is redistricting. Redistricting is the process by which legislators redraw political boundaries to account for population shifts. After all, people move, are born, and die every day. In order to make sure that elected officials represent about the same number of people, legislators redistrict their state and Congressional seats every 10 years using U.S. Census data. Without this, one official could end up representing several times as many people as another — even though they both only get one vote in Congress.

States redistrict differently. In Pennsylvania, Congressional redistricting is passed like any other bill. The General Assembly writes it and passes it, and the governor signs it. (There is a different system for General Assembly redistricting, but it is not relevant to this discussion.) There are also few prohibitions on how legislators can choose to redraw the political maps. Legislators cannot discriminate against voters based on race, but beyond that they generally have carte blanche.

This means that legislators can — and do — split up blocs of voters to help their party. If one area generally votes for Party X, legislators from Party Y can simply split up that area into numerous districts that each have a Party Y majority. Thus, Party Y maintains control by watering down Party X’s power — a process known as ‘gerrymandering.’

All of this means that whoever controls the General Assembly and the governorship essentially controls the political landscape of Pennsylvania. For the past few redistrictings, that has been the Republican Party. And so, they have drawn Congressional maps that benefit the Republican Party.

Here’s where Governor Corbett and Senator Pileggi’s plan comes in. It would have split Pennsylvania’s electoral votes by giving them to presidential candidates according to which Congressional districts they win. The candidate to win the entire state then gets an additional 2 electoral votes, to make up the difference between electoral votes and Congressional districts. Of course, the Republican Party is drawing those same Congressional districts that they want to use to distribute electoral votes.

So, how would Pennsylvania have fared if this plan was in place for the 2012 election? Well, President Obama won the Pennsylvania popular vote about 52% – 47%. Under the current system, this means Obama got 20 electoral votes. Under Governor Corbett and Senator Pileggi’s plan, however, this means Obama would have gotten 7 votes, while Governor Romney would have gotten 13 votes.

To put it another way: under Governor Corbett’s plan, Obama would have won the popular vote in Pennsylvania, but lost the electoral vote. Fortunately for President Obama, this would not have changed the outcome of the 2012 election. Other presidents would not have been so lucky. Had the Corbett system been in place in 1960, for example, John F. Kennedy would never have become President of the United States.

Elections will always be partisan affairs; what they should not be is undemocratic.

FURTHER READING

Michael J. Gaudini, “Corbett-Pileggi election plan bad for democracy,” Main Line Times.

Michael J. Gaudini, “Gerrymandering undermines democracy in Pennsylvania,” Main Line Times.

Michael J. Gaudini, “Redistricting Texas 2012: A Primer,” Diniverse Major.

Michael J. Gaudini, “What You Should Know About Redistricting in PA,” Diniverse Major.

Pennsylvania 2012 Election Results, CBS News.

 

I Voted For President! Now What?

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Americans just do not like to vote.

For all of the talk of American democracy and the importance of the ballot, a strikingly small number of eligible Americans show up at the polls each November. Presidential elections, of course, see the largest level of turnout as a percentage of the voting age population. But for many Americans, that is it. The only time they see the inside of a voting booth is in a year that is divisible by four.

Take Pennsylvania, for example. In 2008, when Barack Obama was elected president, about 64 percent of eligible Pennsylvanians showed up at the polls. That was a couple points above the nationwide turnout of about 62 percent.

Just two years later, those numbers were down to 42 percent for Pennsylvania and 41 percent for the United States. That election, significantly, decided which party would control not only the House of Representatives, but numerous state legislatures and governor’s seats. Last year, turnout in Pennsylvania dropped even lower, to 32 percent.

The Keystone State is no outlier; most states see similarly dismal figures. Why, then, is voter turnout so much lower in midterm and off-year elections? To simplify: the president. Or, rather, the absence of a presidential candidate on the ballot. The president is the only official elected nationwide in the United States. Campaigns for the office are fought over high-stakes national and global issues. The media cover the proceedings extensively.

And the perception that there will be relatively high voter participation, possibly reinforced by friendly conversation and media coverage, could have the effect of turning out more voters simply due to social pressure. That is, people go to the polls because they do not want to be the person caught not voting.*

All of this can make presidential elections seem more relevant than off-year or midterm elections. But these latter elections — which generally feature many state and local positions — often have a direct impact on voters’ everyday lives. State and local governments are the ‘boots on the ground.’ They are responsible for keeping your neighborhood safe, paving your streets, picking up your trash, educating your children, providing for poor, zoning your community, and countless other services that affect your daily life. As Hurricane Sandy has recently reminded many Americans, state and local governments also prepare for and respond to natural disasters.

Not only that, but these elections also have far-reaching political ramifications. I wrote about just such a situation in a 2011 election op-ed:

[I]n 2009, only 21 percent of registered Pennsylvanians cast their ballots. The majority of those select few chose Republican candidate Joan Orie Melvin as the next justice of the PA Supreme Court, solidifying a 4-3 Republican majority on the bench.

 

This year, as in the past, the Supreme Court was called upon to choose the tie-breaking member of the commission that redraws the legislative districts in the state every decade. The resulting map was a patchwork of gerrymandering and political protection submitted on a party-line vote in the Republicans’ favor. By carefully designating which group of voters elects which representative, this map will likely dictate the outcome of Pennsylvania’s elections for years.

And it had the potential to dictate the 2012 presidential election, as well. That year, Pennsylvania Republicans (swept into office in a midterm election) introduced a bill that would have changed the way the Commonwealth distributes its electoral votes for president. Instead of following the “majority wins” system that nearly all other states use, this plan would have split its votes according to Congressional districts that the Republicans themselves drew. To put that into perspective, had this system been in place in 1960, Richard Nixon would have bested John F. Kennedy for the presidency.

Midterm and off-year elections can have huge ramifications. Keep that in mind for 2013, and beyond.

FOOTNOTES

*As an aside, Pennsylvania actually has a “Voter Hall of Fame,” where it recognizes those citizens who have cast their ballots every November for 50 consecutive years or more. If you have not gotten started on that yet, now might be a good time.

FURTHER READING

Michael J. Gaudini, “Corbett-Pileggi election plan bad for democracy,” Main Line Times.

Michael J. Gaudini, “‘Like’ the Vote,” Diniverse Major.

Michael J. Gaudini, “Think Off-Year Elections are Unimportant? Think Again,” Narberth-Bala Cynwyd Patch.

“United States Election Project: Voter Turnout,” George Mason University.

“Voter Hall of Fame,” Pennsylvania Department of State.

‘Like’ the Vote

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America had an electoral fraud problem. Voter intimidation was pervasive. Bribery, too, was common. Laws against both were regularly ignored. What Americans needed most was a secret ballot.

Today, many people may take for granted the fact that they are able to cast their ballots in secret, but Americans that lived up until the late 1800s had no such illusions.

“Confidence was shaken in a voting system which made known the contents of every man’s ballot,” declared an 1892 essay on a new Pennsylvania law that established, for the first time in the state’s history, a secret ballot.

The new system, known as the “Australian system” after the country in which it was first implemented in 1856, ensured secrecy and fairness in several key ways. It stipulated that all ballots must be the exact same. It ordered the names of all legally nominated candidates be printed on the ballots. And it required voters to mark their preferences in secret.

The laws combated intimidation and bribery by making it difficult to verify how a person had actually voted. But the laws, which had spread to nearly every state by 1892, had another, unintended side effect, as well.

Voter turnout in the mid to late 1800s had been fairly high, around 70 to 80 percent of the voting age population for presidential elections. In the years after the spread of the secret ballot, that percentage steadily tumbled, finally settling around about 50 to 60 percent.

What happened?

Well, the late 1800s were a period of rapid change in America. Industrialization was quickly changing the country. Immigration increased tremendously and the population exploded, with workers flocking to the nation’s cities. At the same time, reformers focused on “good government” laws, like civil service reform, and attacked political ‘bosses’ and their machines.

All of these societal changes likely had an effect on voter turnout. But so too did the secret ballot.

Voting has long confounded economists, as the act of voting seems to be inherently irrational. The gains — one lousy vote in an election decided by hundreds of thousands — seem small compared to the time and effort spent waiting in line at the polling place.

True, there is also the satisfaction of performing a civic duty, but there is also another important component to why people vote: social pressure. Simply put, people know they are “supposed to vote,” and do not want to be caught otherwise.

A 2008 study of Swiss voter turnout after the adoption of optional postal voting demonstrated this. Postal voting, in which citizens can mail in their ballots, is meant to reduce the costs of voting and increase turnout. Yet in small Swiss communities — the types of places where one might expect voters are more likely to know each other — turnout actually went down. Postal ballots, it seems, may have eliminated the social pressure to be seen at the polls because, well, maybe that person mailed in their ballot.

The opposite also appears to be true. In 2006, researchers sent out several kinds of mailers to Michigan citizens, one of which  promised to publish whether they and their neighbors voted in the next election. They found that those people who thought their voter turnout information would be publicized were more likely to vote.

Which brings us to Facebook. If social pressures impact voter turnout, then it would make sense that social media affect it as well. And, in fact, this is exactly what researchers studying the 2010 election reported. On Election Day, Facebook provided an “I Voted” button at the top of users’ news feeds for them to show they had cast their ballots. Some users were shown the pictures of friends who had voted; others were not. By comparing friend data with voter rolls, researchers determined that the first group were more likely to vote in that election.

So go ahead and tweet your followers or update your status this Election Day to let everyone know you voted. You never know who might be watching.

–FURTHER READING–

Charles Binney, “American Secret Ballot Decisions,” American Law Register and Review.

Charles Binney, “The Merits and Defects of the Pennsylvania Ballot Law of 1891.”

Robert Bond, et al, “A 61-million-person experiment in social influence and political mobilization,” Nature.

Stephen Dubner and Steven Levitt, “Why Vote?” New York Times.

Patricia Funk, “Social Incentives and Voter Turnout: Evidence from the Swiss Mail Ballot System.”

Michael J. Gaudini, “Election-time reflections on the irrational voter,” Main Line Times.

Alan Gerber, et al, “Social Pressure and Voter Turnout: Evidence from a Large-Scale Field Experiment,” American Political Science Review.

John Markoff, “Social Networks Can Affect Voter Turnout, Study Says,” New York Times.

“Voter Turnout in Presidential Elections: 1828-2008,” The American Presidency Project.

 

Redistricting Texas 2012: A Primer

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Click here to download my primer on redistricting in Texas. Below, you will find a brief overview of the process to date.

OVERVIEW

Redistricting is a contentious process — and Texas is no outlier. In addition to the normal political fights and legal challenges, the Lone Star state is also one of several states that  must submit their redistricting plans to the federal government for approval.

The requirement is a broader provision in the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that mandates certain states with a history of voter discrimination submit changes in election law to the federal government.

These states can submit their redistricting plans either to the Department of Justice or federal court. Texas usually does the prior, but opted for the courts this time around, filing for preclearance in Washington, D.C. At the same time the D.C. court was debating whether to approve Texas’ maps, another federal court in San Antonio was hearing legal challenges to the maps.

These suits were brought by various minority groups that claimed Texas’ redistricting maps were discriminatory. The San Antonio court agreed and completely redrew the districts, but the U.S. Supreme Court rejected the lower court’s maps. In it’s opinion, the Supreme Court said that the San Antonio court needed to respect the state legislature’s wishes and use the state’s desired districts as a starting point.

With the 2012 primary election rapidly approaching — and no decision from the D.C. court — the San Antonio court devised interim districts to use during the primary.

Finally, in August, the Washington, D.C. judges issued their opinion and rejected Texas’ maps as discriminatory. The San Antonio court reacted by extending the interim maps for use during the upcoming general election.

And the battle over how to redraw Texas’ political boundaries continues.

 

Changing a Law to Win an Election?

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The Main Line Times’ “Notes from Narberth” columnist wrote a piece on August 7 (“Narberth zoning meeting; more on voter-ID need“) using Al Schmidt’s recent report on voting irregularities in Philadelphia as proof of need for a Voter ID law. You may read that here.

My response (“Changing a law to win an election?“) was published on the Main Line Times’ website on August 11. You may read that on the Main Line Times’ site here, or below.

 

One of the most interesting things about Philadelphia City Commissioner Al Schmidt’s report on “voting irregularities” is not what it says, but how it is being used. Proponents of Pennsylvania’s new Voter ID have praised the report as damning evidence of pervasive voter fraud – which is ironic, considering that a reading of the report gives no such impression.

First of all, Schmidt’s report is not a scientific study, and says nothing about how extensively voter fraud occurs – it only identifies seven types of voting irregularities. And of those seven kinds, the Voter ID law would stop only one. Whether the other six constitute legitimate problems or not is largely irrelevant to the Voter ID debate.

The problem Voter ID actually addresses can be boiled down to one question: is the person at the polling place who he says he is? Under current law, voters must prove who they are the first time they vote at a new polling place, and may use a variety of means to do so. Voters can face harsh punishments for not complying with election law ($10,000 in fines and 5 years in prison for voter impersonation) while they get little in return (one extra vote in an election decided by hundreds of thousands).

Faced with this information, you might conclude that voter impersonation rarely happens. All available evidence suggests you would be right. Numerous studies and investigations – including by the Bush Justice Department – have all reached this conclusion. The attorneys defending the Voter ID law in court recently agreed as well. So it is not surprising that Voter ID supporters have relied upon a single case: “the mysterious case of Joseph Cheeseboro” that the August 5 “Notes from Narberth” column referenced.

In any given election, Mr. Cheeseboro is little more than a rounding error. The same cannot be said of the more than 758,000 Pennsylvanians who may be disenfranchised by this law – a group disproportionately made up of elderly, minority, student and handicapped voters. That figure is larger than President Obama’s 2008 margin of victory, and to date new Voter IDs have been issued to less than 0.5 percent of that number.

Of course, even one illegal vote is one too many, but any voting system will leave room for error. The fundamental question at the Voter ID debate’s core is how to resolve the natural tension that arises from wanting to both keep elections accessible, while preventing any potential fraud.

Opponents of Voter ID do not, as the “Notes from Narberth” column contends, “think black people are too dumb to figure out how to get a photo ID.” Rather, we are concerned because the process of obtaining the underlying documentation and standing in line for several hours at a PennDOT center makes voting less accessible to legitimate voters, especially elderly and handicapped ones. It also opens the door to further chicanery, by providing another venue for vote challenging at the polls.

But perhaps most concerning of all is the nagging suspicion that the law was aimed to, as House Majority Leader Mike Turzai boasted, “allow Governor Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania.” When you have to resort to changing the law in order to win an election, there is something wrong.

 

Voter ID Proponents Taking Back Their Own Arguments

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Since Pennsylvania’s Voter ID law passed last March, proponents have been steadily walking back each of the arguments they used to support it.

Early on, PA Secretary of the Commonwealth Carol Aichele wrote that:

A Pennsylvania Department of State analysis shows 99 percent of eligible voters currently have acceptable photo IDs, and proposals under discussion will likely expand the list of photo IDs that can be used.

Governor Tom Corbett’s administration stopped using the 99 percent figure after it was revealed that Aichele’s office had reached it by simply dividing the number of photo IDs the PA Department of Transportation has issued by the voting age population — a horribly imprecise measure, considering many people are issued photo IDs that are not eligible to vote, thus inflating the percentage.

Then, this past July, the PA Department of State released new numbers, saying that around 758,000 Commonwealth voters may lack the proper ID needed to vote this November. That’s more than 9 percent of all voters in the Keystone State.

Now, there has been some debate over the validity of these numbers as well. Namely, the state’s computers appear to have returned ‘false hits‘ for people whose names contained spaces (such as “Mary Sue”), were hyphenated (“Smith-Jones”), or who used nicknames on one document, but not the other (such as using “Frank” on your voter registration, but “Francis” on your ID).

Yet the 758,000 figure is still significant, especially when one considers that the Department of Transportation has (to date) only issued between 3,000 and 3,500 new Voter IDs. That is less than 0.5 percent of the number of people the Department of State says could potentially be missing the appropriate form of identification now needed to vote — it might as well be a rounding error.

Even if one thinks that the 758,000 figure overstates the problem, the gap between ID-less voters and new IDs issued is large enough to dwarf any concerns of inaccuracy. Imagine for a moment that 95 percent of the 758,000 people identified by Aichele’s office actually do have IDs. Under this scenario, there are still 37,900 people that do not have the proper identification — and PennDOT has so far only issued new IDs to about 9 percent of that new number.

Then there are the 906,000 people that the Department of State says have a driver’s license that will have been expired for more than a year by Election Day. As the Voter ID law requires the identification to be valid with a year, these people may face some difficulty.

Also, University of Washington political scientist Matt Barreto estimated in his testimony to the PA Commonwealth Court that more than 1.3 million voting-age Pennsylvanians could lack the necessary identification. It is important to note the difference between Barreto and the Department of States’ figures. Barreto looks at the whole voting-age population (which includes individuals that can register, but have not yet), while the state’s figures refer only to those currently registered to vote.

Furthermore, the issue of people’s names being different on voter registration when compared to IDs raises another concern: vote challenging. Poll watchers (or other voters) can challenge someone’s vote if, for instance, the name on an ID does not match the name listed an individual’s voter registration. Perhaps it is the difference between your legal name, and the name you go by in everyday life.

Barreto testified that more than 4 percent of eligible voters could have a “name listed on their ID [that] did not match that which would appear on the voter registration records.” This could possibly leave them open to a vote challenge.

The Committee of Seventy describes the process that follows:

The challenged Voter is put under oath by the Judge of Elections, after which they must sign a Challenge affidavit and produce one qualified Voter of the Division willing to sign the Affidavit alleging that the challenged voter is who they claim to be. After this process the challenged Voter may vote on a machine.

This process has a history of being used by political parties looking to gum up the works for opposition voters. The ultimate goal here is the same as that of Voter ID: make it as difficult as possible for people to vote.

With Voter ID, the hope is that the cost of underlying documentation (birth certificate, Social Security card), transportation, and long lines at the DMV will prevent numerous people from being able to comply with the law.

Barreto estimates that around 27 percent of eligible voters that lack a photo ID also lack some of the documentation needed to get a new Voter ID card. And, as the Brennan Center notes, 24 percent of Pennsylvania’s voting-age population live “more than 10 miles from nearest ID-issuing office that is open more than two days a week,” and 10 percent do not have access to a vehicle.

Indeed, as the Philadelphia Inquirer has documented multiple times, logistical problems abound:

Nine counties in Pennsylvania lack full-service PennDot photo and licensing centers, and officials are sometimes misinformed about where their closest full-service photo center is.

Witnesses that testified in the court case against the Voter ID law described “long lines, short hours, and misinformed clerks” at PennDOT offices.

These barriers do not need to prevent all of the opposition from voting, just enough to deliver 51 percent of the vote. In a tight election, such chicanery could make or break a race, and the Voter ID law only exacerbates this.

Barreto also noted that a substantial portion of voters are unaware of the new restrictions (34 percent) and almost all (99 percent) believe they have a valid ID. Of course, many of these voters are likely mistaken, given that we have already established that a large number of people do not have the proper identification. Keep in mind that only specific forms of photo ID are permissible under this law, namely:

  • PA government-issued ID (must have an expiration date and be currently valid, or have expired less than a year ago)
  • U.S. passport (must have an expiration date and be currently valid)
  • Military ID
  • Student ID (must be issued by a Pennsylvania college, have an expiration date and be currently valid)
  • Care facility ID (must have an expiration date and be currently valid)
The latter two, it should be noted, often lack expiration dates, and thus would not be considered valid for voting (though many colleges have begun printing expiration dates on their IDs in an attempt to ensure their students do not lose their voting rights). An out-of-state student whose only ID is a student card issued by an out-of-state college is out of luck.

The second major argument for Voter ID that supporters have since retracted is that the law is necessary to prevent voter fraud and ensure the integrity of elections. I have dealt with this fallacy at length in previous blog posts (here and here) and opinion columns (here and here), but the short of it is that numerous studies and investigations (including by the Bush Administration) have found that voter impersonation fraud appears to be relatively rare.

News21, a Carnegie-Knight journalism initiative, recently undertook possibly the most extensive analysis of voter fraud cases in America to date, filing public records requests for such information in every state. In Pennsylvania, they found that third party organizations and election officials were accused of perpetrating voter fraud more often than actual voters, and that voter registration fraud (which, under previous law, would not actually result in any illegitimate votes unless the fakers show up to the polls with identification) was the most prevalent form of voter fraud. Voter impersonation fraud, they contend, is nearly non-existant in the Keystone State and on a national level.

Even the Republican National Lawyers Association, which supports the law, identified only 400 cases of various kinds of voter fraud in the entire country over a decade’s time, and most of these were not voter impersonation, and thus would not be solved by Voter ID. And even those few cases may overrepresent the problem. A News21 analysis of the RNLA’s list reports that their “consisted mainly of newspaper articles about a range of election issues, with little supporting evidence of actual in-person voter fraud.”

The Corbett Administration and PA General Assembly Republicans vehemently maintained that voter impersonation fraud is a real and pressing problem. When he signed the Voter ID law in March, Governor Corbett stated:

Some have argued that there is no evidence of voter fraud. I don’t necessarily agree with that.

So it was surprising when the attorneys defending the Voter ID law in court agreed that they did not know of any voter impersonation fraud in Pennsylvania and “will not offer any evidence or argument that in-person voter fraud is likely to occur in November in the absence of the Photo ID law.”

That voter impersonation fraud is rare should be fairly intuitive; the rewards of voter fraud are very low, while the costs are potentially very high. Being caught trying to perpetrate voter fraud could mean a $10,000 fine and up to five years in prison, while only yielding one extra vote in an election that will likely be decided by hundreds of thousands. University of Essex government professor Sarah Birch noted in a March 2012 Economist article that “most manipulators make only sparing use of blatant election-day frauds,” opting instead to change election laws as a way to deter opponents.

To many, PA House Majority Leader Mike Turzai said as much at a Republican State Committee meeting in June while touting GOP achievements in Harrisburg:

Voter ID, which is gonna allow Governor Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania, done.

Indeed, the Voter ID law disproportionately impacts voters that have tended, in the past, to vote for Democrats.

PoliticsPA reported on an AFL-CIO analysis of state data that broke General Assembly and Congressional voting districts down and ranked them according to which ones would be most affected by Voter ID. The analysis was fairly unsurprising:

With just one exception, Democrats represent each of the districts with the highest rates of voters who lack PennDOT ID: the top 5 in Congress, the top 10 in the state Senate, and 19 of the top 20 in the state House, including each of the 8 House districts where over 50 percent of voters in 8 districts lack PennDOT ID. Republicans represent the 5 seats in Congress, 5 seat in the state Senate, and 10 seats in the state House with the lowest rates of voters who lack ID.

(Click here if you would like to see how your own districts fare.)

A map found on PoliticsPA further specified which areas of the state would be most impacted by Voter ID: cities. Specifically, the strongly Democratic Philadelphia and Pittsburgh would be the most affected.

From PoliticsPA.

But that’s just a breakdown of parties and places. At its core, the Voter ID debate is about people — namely, the elderly, minority, young, low income, and handicapped people that Voter ID would disproportionately impact. In this context, it makes sense that citizens living in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh would be hit hardest — both cities have markedly larger minority and low income populations than the state as a whole, and are hubs for large universities.

A recent Azavea study of Philadelphia voters found strong correlations between white, black, and Latino populations and the probability of having a valid ID that can be used to vote this November. That is, white voters were quite likely to have the necessary identification, while black and Latino voters were not. If history is a guide, it would perhaps be better to avoid policies that disproportionately disenfranchise minority voters.

Barriers to getting photo IDs could be especially high for seniors. The PA Department of State’s figures suggested as many as 1 in 4 voters over 80 could lack the necessary identification. Getting such voters to (and having them wait in line at) a PennDOT facility presents certain difficulties that Secretary Aichele herself has acknowledged. Additionally, the Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center released a report criticizing PennDOT for poorly implementing new policies related to Voter ID. In particular, the report described lack of signage, workers offering incorrect information, and limited PennDOT hours.

Of course, such issues were discussed even before the bill passed into law. If General Assembly Republicans had been worried about such barriers to complying with their new law, they could have passed a number of proposed amendments that would have:

  • Extended DMV hours,
  • Made available more locations at which to secure a Voter ID, and
  • Provided for mobile units to help people register.
They both prevented such amendments from coming up for a vote, and rejected the ones that did.

Currently, the Voter ID law sits in the PA Commonwealth Court, where it waits for Judge Robin Simpson to announce his ruling. As this case deals with the fundamental right to vote, the state will have to prove that it had a compelling case for passing Voter ID legislation, that the law was narrowly tailored to achieve its goal, and that it was done in the least restrictive way.

To me, at least, it seems that the state has failed to prove its case. And if the admission by the lawyers defending the law that they neither know of nor expect pervasive voter impersonation fraud is any indication, it may seem that way to the state as well.

FURTHER READING

http://votingrights.news21.com/interactive/election-fraud-database/

http://votingrights.news21.com/article/election-fraud/

http://www.aclupa.org/downloads/BarretoReport.pdf

http://www.economist.com/node/21548933

http://brennan.3cdn.net/e20e4210db075b482b_wcm6ib0hl.pdf

http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/29/killing-a-fly-with-a-bazooka/

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/12/washington/12fraud.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all