“Election officials focus on whether voter ID laws contributed to Hillary Clinton’s defeat”

LAT:

Now, voting rights advocates, elections officials and political experts have zeroed in on the city as a case study of whether controversial new rules requiring ID for voting — the kind used in several states in November for the first time in a presidential election — blocked vast numbers of largely young and racial minority Democrats from casting ballots and contributed to Clinton’s defeat.

In a state that saw its lowest turnout in 20 years, nearly 248,000 people voted in Milwaukee, roughly 41,000 fewer than in the last presidential election.

“I believe it was voter suppression laws from the state government that crushed turnout,” said Milwaukee County Clerk Joe Czarnezki, one of two officials who oversees local elections. “They tend to hit hardest on people who are poor, who don’t drive and don’t have a license, who are minorities.”

Other experts said the picture is more complicated, pointing out that many factors affect voting behavior.

That makes it difficult to say whether new voting policies this year — from a voter ID requirement in Virginia to cutbacks in early voting in Ohio and the closure of hundreds of polling sites across Southern states formerly regulated by the Voting Rights Act — decisively swayed election results, said Michael McDonald, a University of Florida professor who studies voter turnout.

“African American turnout was down across the board from 2012, and that likely had something to do with Obama not being on the ballot,” he said.

Voter turnout also decreased in traditionally Democratic areas with large black populations, such as Detroit and Philadelphia, where strict voter ID laws were not in place.

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