General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsLow voter turnout is no accident, according to a ranking of the ease of voting in all 50 states
They mashed each of these qualitative factors together in a statistical blender to create a top-line summary number of the ease of voting and registration in each state. For the 2016 election, states are ranked according to their position in this index in the map above.
What sort of effect do these laws have on voter turnout? Some quick calculations suggest that the effect is potentially quite large: The five most restrictive states had turnouts in 2016 that were, on average, nearly nine percentage points lower than turnout in the five easiest states to vote in. If we plot the Cost of Voting Index rank against 2016 turnout, it looks like this.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2018/10/22/low-voter-turnout-is-no-accident-according-ranking-ease-voting-all-states/
beachbum bob
(10,437 posts)tblue37
(65,407 posts)BumRushDaShow
(129,096 posts)Although it would be somewhat intuitive, some of their "corrections" seem kind of funky to try to explain away the outliers to their theory.
Here in PA, we have no early voting, no same-day registration, very restrictive absentee balloting, and IDs are required, at least if you are voting for the first time or voting at a new location for the first time. We actually had a 6% increase in turnout (about 373,000+) in 2016 when compared to 2012 despite being "ranked" in the bottom 3rd of their model.
Botany
(70,516 posts)Gotta keep those black and brown people from voting.
"Mississippi has the highest percentage of black residents in the country37 percentand that share continues to grow as more African-Americans move south to retire. At the same time, the ratio of Latinos, though still small, has doubled from 2 to 4 percent of the population."
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/01/will-a-black-latino-alliance-in-mississippi-change-politics-in-the-deep-south/431808/
Wounded Bear
(58,670 posts)Our setup/system is much like Oregon.
JayhawkSD
(3,163 posts)BadgerMom
(2,771 posts)Arent they restricting Native American voters?
Not sure how this was conducted. Montana is in the middle and I find that interesting since we have easy to sign up for mail-in ballots and a good distribution of polling places. I suppose if they look at the Native American vote there are problems, both here and ND. R legislatures don't want Indians voting.
jalan48
(13,870 posts)of time to fill them out and send them in.
osmium
(94 posts)..Due to per capita affluence and that stupid "First in the nation" BS, people here still vote.
WaPo does a few things really well, and it's really few things.
That's a fabulous graphic. Thanks!