Texas voter ID law didn't suppress vote
According to the Texas secretary of state's office, 10 amendments were up for vote in 2011, the last constitutional amendment election before the voter ID law passed. Some issues received more votes than others. The one most voted on received 690,052 votes, for and against. Overall, an average of about 672,874 Texans voted on these 10 constitutional amendments.
If voter ID suppressed votes, we should see a drop in turnout, right? Well, according to the Texas secretary of state's office, nine amendments went up for vote in 2013. The amendment that attracted the most votes, Proposition One, attracted 1,144,844. The average number of votes cast in 2013 was 1,099,670.
So, in terms of raw votes, turnout in 2013 increased by about 63% over turnout in 2011 in comparable elections. But that's statewide. How about in areas the anti-voter ID side predicted should see "suppression"?
Turnout for the 2011 election was 5.37% of registered voters; for 2013 it was about 8%.
Democrats allege that voter ID will suppress the vote in predominantly Hispanic regions. Hidalgo County sits on the Texas-Mexico border and is 90% Hispanic. In 2011, an average of just over 4,000 voted in the constitutional amendment election. In 2013, an average of over 16,000 voted.
If voter ID was intended to suppress votes, it is failing as spectacularly as HealthCare.gov.
Look at Cameron County, which is about 85% Hispanic. Turnout increased from an average of 4,700 votes in 2011 to 5,100 in 2013.
So in its first real-world test, Texas' voter ID law -- which 66% of Texans support, according to a 2012 University of Texas poll -- had no impact on suppressing the vote. It even can be argued that voter ID helped increase turnout. Turnout was up, and in fact, the 2013 constitutional amendment election saw the highest constitutional amendment election turnout in Texas in about eight years.
Opponents of voter ID must come up with a new line to attack it. The old dog that it suppresses the vote just won't hunt.