Wisconsin Voter Turnout Proves Everything Corporate Media Said About Voter ID Was A Lie
For years the propaganda press has spread the insidious lie that election integrity laws, like voter ID, amounted to “Jim Crow 2.0,” “racism,” and disenfranchisement, but new data proves everything the left-wing corporate press said about voter ID was a lie.
The nation was reliably informed by MSNBC’s Ja’han Jones in April of 2024 that election integrity laws, like voter ID laws, are “classic” examples of “voter suppression tactics that have been denounced by activists for their disproportionate impact on nonwhite voters.”
Three years earlier, Dean Obeidallah wrote for MSNBC that “Black Americans have worse voting rights now than in 1965,” citing in part voter ID requirements.
CNN’s Fredreka Schouten wrote in May of 2024 that “voting … will be harder than it was four years ago,” in part due to voter ID laws.
The narrative reached a fever pitch when Georgia passed its election integrity law in 2021, which included a voter ID requirement, among other election integrity provisions. It was decried by the Democrats and their media allies as “racist,” “Jim Crow on steroids,” and led to several major companies divesting from the state. Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred later claimed the law created “restrictions to the ballot box,” as reported by The Federalist’s Shawn Fleetwood.
“America’s long history of Black voter suppression,” is how Brandon Tensley characterized voter ID measures in a piece for CNN. Voter ID laws passed in Georgia and Florida were described as “anti-voting rights” and “restrictive.”
Those same talking points were used by the propaganda press when covering Wisconsin’s voter ID laws — which voters will have the opportunity to enshrine in the state’s constitution in the April 1 election.
The voter ID law in Wisconsin, which seen numerous Democrat-led challenges since its implementation, was described by The Associated Press’ (AP) Christina A. Cassidy and Ivan Moreno as “insurmountable for many voters,” in 2017. The story chronicled a handful of prospective voters who were unable to vote, with the piece emphasizing the alleged disenfranchisement of these voters.
NPR’s Pam Fessler wrote in 2011 that one “big problem” with Wisconsin’s voter ID law was “all the paperwork required to get” a free ID for voters who do not have another form of identification.
But a new report from the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty found that the state’s voter ID law has not had a negative impact on voter turnout since its implementation. Data show that turnout has actually increased by 1.5% since the law went into effect.
“By analyzing decades of election data both before and after Wisconsin implemented Voter ID, we found a general rise in voter turnout, rather than the widespread disenfranchisement that critics often suggest,” Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty Research Director Will Flanders said. “Any claims suggesting Voter ID is ‘voter suppression’ are merely political scare tactics aimed at undermining faith in Wisconsin’s elections. Furthermore, it’s worth exploring whether Voter ID can actually increase turnout by strengthening confidence in Wisconsin’s election system.”
The report noted that while “it is likely too large of a leap to say voter ID has increased turnout due to the correlational nature of our analysis, it seems that there is no negative relationship.” Further the report found there is “no evidence of a negative effect” on minority voters “from the implementation of voter ID.”
Poverty rates and education levels were found to have a “stronger correlation with voter turnout than voter ID laws,” according to the study.
Then-Gov. Scott Walker signed the voter ID law into place in 2011 before it was met with a series of lawsuits from the Wisconsin League of Women Voters, the ACLU, the NAACP, and the League of United Latin American citizens that put its implementation on hold. Three lawsuits argued the law was unconstitutional or tantamount to voter suppression. The law eventually was allowed to take effect ahead of the 2016 election. As previously reported, Wisconsinites “must present a form of photo ID in order to vote. Voters who do not present an ID when attempting to vote may cast a provisional ballot that will later be counted so long as the voter provides an acceptable form of ID to election officials before 4 p.m. on the Friday following the election.”
On April 1, Wisconsinites will have the opportunity to vote on an amendment that would enshrine voter ID in the state’s Constitution. A recent poll conducted by The Marquette Law School found 73 percent of respondents (made up of registered Wisconsin voters) support the proposed ID amendment.
Nationally, voter ID laws are popular with recent poll finding at least 80 percent of Americans support voter ID. And despite the hubbub from the propaganda press about voter ID laws disenfranchising voters, data disproves the narrative. Fleetwood reported that in Texas, while there was an initial spike in mail-in ballot rejections after the 2021 voter ID law, the rejection rate returned to historical levels by the 2022 midterms. In Georgia, voter turnout actually increased after the 2021 election integrity law was signed into place, showing that voter ID laws do not hinder voting.
The deceitful propaganda that voter ID laws suppress the vote and disenfranchise voters was spread only to demonize efforts to make elections more secure.
Brianna Lyman is an elections correspondent at The Federalist. Brianna graduated from Fordham University with a degree in International Political Economy. Her work has been featured on Newsmax, Fox News, Fox Business and RealClearPolitics. Follow Brianna on X: @briannalyman2
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