Tag Archives: Voter suppression

Texas lawsuit includes differing estimates of voters without ID

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Day two of Texas v. Holder is underway and this morning the testimony was all about the numbers.

Court resumed with testimony from Thomas Sager, a University of Texas statistician whose studies show the number of Texas voters who lack ID. Sager estimated that around 167,724 registered voters do not have an ID — lower than the Department of Justice estimate that ranged from 1.5 million to 1.9 million.

Sager testified that Justice Department studies included inflated estimates. He said the estimates included statistical biases against women and Hispanics, and that previous studies did not account for age and other parameters. For example, people over 65 can vote by mail without an ID.

On cross-examination, Justice Department lawyers pointed out that Sager received assistance in his studies from the Texas attorney general’s office and that he did not conduct all the studies himself. Sager maintained that he verified all the studies.

The defense also noted that Sager used a different list of Texas driver’s licenses than the one used by their expert.

Sager maintains that all matching in the case — both by himself and by defense expert Stephen Ansolabehere — are ultimately “inconclusive” because their methodology includes statistical bias against Hispanics.

By Lindsey Ruta and Annelise Russell, News21

Coffee Break Ballot, July 9: Current Trends in Voting Rights

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Sometimes in the News21 newsroom, we pledge to not talk about News21 on the weekend.

But when we get hit with a series of big news items on Saturday and Sunday — a Nation blog post on gender and alleged voter suppression, a comprehensive study from the Associated Press on voter ID in Georgia, Indiana and Tennessee, the rapidly approaching Texas voter ID law hearing in Washington, D.C.  — we sometimes have to renege and spend Sundays reading, talking and drafting instead of brunching.

Today, a slew of new stories and data landed on the docket. We also have two reporters in Washington, D.C., for the voter ID federal court hearing.

First – the stories.

What We’ve Been Reading

“Q&A: Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott on the Voter ID Law,” (Priya Anand, 07/08, Houston Chronicle)

“Meet the hanging chad of 2012,” (Nathaniel Persily, 07/08, New York Daily News)

“Gov. Corbett contracts with Romney fundraiser for PA Voter ID ad campaign,” (Daniel Denvir, 07/08, The Naked City)

“Voter ID Laws Could Block Thousands From Voting,” (Mike Baker, 07/08, Associated Press)

“Limbaugh Wants to Extend Vote Suppression to Women,” (Ben Adler, 07/08, The Nation)

“State’s voter ID law could shut out over half-million citizens,” (Editorial Board, 07/09, Philadelphia Daily News)

“NAACP pledges to overcome voter ID law,” (Joe Holley, 07/09, Houston Chronicle)

Twitter Trends

This week is going to be all about Texas.

If last week was Pennsylvania’s time in the Twitter voter ID spotlight, this week just boosts mentions of the term. Social media search engine Topsy.com indicates a real surge in mentions of #VoterID since a report last week that showed at least 700,000 registered Pennsylvania voters lacked valid photo ID.

Texas’ trial, which starts today and continues through Friday, meets several criteria for a Twitter surge: news from a large state, controversial U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, and a legal hearing that could change the national conversation on voting rights.

Reporters @AnneliseRussell and @LindseyRuta will update the trial all week. Be sure to follow them for more live updates, and remember to follow us @WhoCanVote.

Coffee Break Ballot June 21: Current Trends in Voting Rights

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You may not have noticed, but Twitter broke today.

Three times.

That doesn’t mean we weren’t busy reporting, reading the news and building our project, but it does mean that our usual analysis of social media trends in voting rights is a little sparse today.

Still, a Virginia house cat named Scampers did receive voter registration material today, which fits with our post from Tuesday on the dead dog in Virginia. The story didn’t get as much bounce online this morning. That could be related to the Twitter outage and the inclusion of a quote from the Voter Participation Center president who said that stories like the cat and dog items distracted from the center’s real mission.

More on the Twitter outage after these stories.

What We’ve Been Reading

“Walter Mondale, Arne Carlson: Reject voter ID measure,” (Walter Mondale and Arne Carlson, 06/20, Minneapolis Star-Trbune)

“Pelosi: GOP’s contempt move vs. Holder about suppressing voter rights,” (Jake Sherman, 06/21, Politico)

“UPDATE: Governor vetoes four bills, including voter ID,” (Mike Cousineau, 06/20, New Hampshire Union Leader)

“Why sloppy drafting will kill the photo ID amendment,” (David Schultz, 06/21, MinnPost.com)

“The Real Crisis: 35% of Americans Not Registered to Vote,” (Voter Participation Center, 06/21)

“The Supreme Court Speaks, Yet DOJ Won’t Listen,” (David Almasi, 06/21, National Center for Public Policy Research)

Twitter Trends

As mentioned above, Twitter had some technical troubles today. The hour-long outage wreaked havoc on our normal Topsy.com searches, but we were able to notice an interesting spike in mentions of “voter suppression” – which is directly correlated to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s press conference on the Republican opposition to Attorney General Eric Holder.

The California representative accused the Republican Party of using a contempt vote to distract Holder from his attempt to battle voter suppression. Voter suppression is used more infrequently than our more general search terms (“voting rights,” “voter ID” and the charged “voter fraud”), so it was fascinating to see the sharp spike in mentions.

We’ll keep tabs on how long that mention lasts, so follow @WhoCanVote.