Francis Barry for Bloomberg View:

A day after the election, Wendy Weiser at the Brennan Center for Justice argued that “in several key races, the margin of victory came very close to the likely margin of disenfranchisement.” She cited the Senate race in North Carolina as one example; here’s the gist of her argument: Four years ago, 200,000 ballots were cast during seven days of early voting that the state has since eliminated. The state also ended Election Day registration, which 100,000 North Carolinians took advantage of in 2012, almost one-third of them black. In last week’s election, since Republican Thom Tillis’s margin of victory over Democratic Senator Kay Hagan was about 48,000 votes, Weiser implies that Hagan lost because so many (Democratic) voters were kept away from the polls.

Weiser’s argument has been picked up by other voting-rights advocates and pundits, but it falls apart upon closer scrutiny. Even with seven fewer days, early voting in North Carolina increased this year compared with 2010 — by 35 percent.

Statewide turnout also increased from the previous midterm election, to 44.1 percent from 43.7 percent. Even if turnout was lower than it would have been without the new voting law — something that’s impossible to establish — it was still higher than it had been in four of the five previous midterm elections, going back to 1994.

In addition, based on exit polls and voter turnout data, the overall share of the black vote increased slightly compared with 2010.

Rick Hasen, an expert on election law, says he’s skeptical about Weiser’s analysis, and rightly so. When voting-rights advocates fail to include any balancing points in their discussion of the election, they undercut their credibility and give ammunition to Republicans who suspect that they are mostly interested in electing Democrats.