Are Ballot Security Laws Racist?

with John McWhorter

How can we maintain the integrity of our elections while ensuring that every legal voter in the country has access to the ballot box? It’s not an easy question to answer, and it’s become less so as election integrity has become a site of partisan conflict. In many states, Republican-controlled legislatures are passing new laws with the stated goal of tightening security around voting. Elected officials tout voter ID requirements and limits on early and mail-in voting as measures necessary to prevent voter fraud and to iron out irregularities. At the federal level, Democrats have argued that these new regulations are veiled attempts to prevent black people and other minorities from voting. They’ve tried to push through voting rights legislation that would check Republicans’ ballot security laws, which some Democrats have compared to Jim Crow-era voter disenfranchisement.

In my opinion, it’s absurd bordering on offensive to compare voter ID laws to the poll taxes, literacy tests, and violent coercion of the Jim Crow South. There’s nothing wrong with requiring that voters show ID at the polls, and there are good reasons to place limits on early and mail-in voting. Yes, it’s probable that Republican legislatures are putting these measures in place because they think it will give them an electoral advantage. But that doesn’t mean the laws are illegitimate, nor does it mean they’re racist.

While my friend John McWhorter doesn’t go so far as to invoke Jim Crow, he does find the Republican ballot security push “repulsive.” He suggests that it stinks of an attempt to suppress the black vote. And that means we have a debate on our hands. In this excerpt from our most recent conversation, we duke it out a little over voting rights and ballot security. Who’s winning the argument here? Let me know in the comments!

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JOHN MCWHORTER: Although, you know, Glenn, this is something that I've been thinking about this week, on and off. Studies show that efforts to suppress people's vote, such as Democrats' vote or black people's vote, don't work very well. It used to be that there was one study that suggested this. At this point, it seems pretty conclusive that these efforts, as disgusting as they are, don't work very well.

Now, it is absolutely repulsive to see so many Republicans committed to having as few black people vote as possible. They're doing this because that suppresses the Democratic vote. They're not doing it because they think black people are gorillas. I think the idea that it's a recapitulation of 60 years ago is pure theater. However, it's absolutely repulsive that they don't feel bad doing something like that, given the history of this country, given the history of voting rights. All that is is self-standing. It's clear—but it's disgusting as it is—it doesn't seem to work very well.

Notice that we're not supposed to talk about that. There's no room in the conversation for that. And so what we're supposed to say is, “Look what they're trying to do,” as opposed to, “Look what they do.” No room for, “You know, they're trying to do something really shitty, but it doesn't really have much effect.” So for example, I'm told that my railing about “woke racism” is idle, because the real problem is that there are people trying to stop black people from voting. It's a legitimate point. But then if the response is, “Do you notice that they're not really stopping that many black people from voting, if you actually study the situation?” And no, this is not just people talking out of the side of their mouths or making something up. This is based on studies. If you say, “Well, you know, that's not working too well,” that's not considered a legitimate contribution to the conference.

So no one's interested in the good news. It's just like with the cops. And you show that actually the cops don't murder black people disproportionately, that the good news is not welcome. Same thing here. What is that? I find that an unfortunate wrinkle in this whole voting rights conversation. What those people are trying to do is absolutely disgusting, and it doesn't work. Can we not keep those two things in mind? Apparently not.

GLENN LOURY: Well, that's one way of looking at it. I don't think I agree. Or maybe what I want to say is I don't think I look at it in the same way. No, I was just saying I'm not sure I agree with the way that you're looking at it, which presumes that the reason for voting security initiatives that Republican state legislatures may have enacted is to keep black people from voting.

But I wanted to bracket that disagreement and come back to it and just comment on your primary observation, which is presuming that Republican motives are disgusting. Nevertheless, they're not effective and people won't let you say that, because they're married to this accusatory narrative and they need a victim, they need an injured party, and so it has to be that asking for voter ID keeps black people from voting. Even if it turns out that that's not the case, people don't want to acknowledge that because they want a cudgel with which to beat Republicans in Georgia or whatever for trying to keep minority people from voting.

But I'm going to say this. It'll get me into trouble. I mean, I think it's an act. I think this idea, this metaphor that black voting rights, which were hard fought for in this country— I mean, there used to be literacy tests and there used to be violence keeping black people from the polls, and it really was racially motivated disenfranchisement. Okay? Asking for a voter ID at the polling place is not, I repeat for a second time, it is not racially motivated voter disenfranchisement. It is setting some rules about how you're going to confirm the identity of people before they cast the ballot.

You may not like those rules. You may think that the rules should be more liberal. Now we can argue about what should be the rules. I assume there should be some parameters. So now we're arguing about the rules. But to presume that my motive is racially motivated when I argue about— I mean, let's just flip the script on them. Suppose somebody is liberal on law and order. Suppose they think there are too many people in prison. Suppose they think that the D.A. shouldn't be so punitive and sentences are too long and the cops are too— Suppose they think that. Now, I could assume that it was a racially motivated thought, that they think that because they don't want black people to go to prison and there's a disparity. I could impugn their motive.

But what we're really talking about is, what should be the rules? Now, the position that there should be no rules governing who casts a ballot is not itself a neutral position. It has a political consequence. And moreover, it devalues the validly cast ballots of other people. Are you going to tell me I'm a racist because I have an interest in election security. Is that where we are? Should there be a national holiday for Election Day? I don't know.

Have you noticed the contradiction between these two purportedly progressive positions? On the one hand, you should be able to cast a ballot as early as possible, which is to say there should be no Election Day. Normal voting should be, you got a week or a month and you mail in your ballot, so there should be no Election Day. On the other hand, they want to make Election Day a national holiday. So do they revere the idea of an Election Day?

Let's just think about what that means. That means we all are oriented civically toward the exercise of going to the polls on Election Day. That is a nation-building small commitment. It's not quite drafting you into the military, but it is kind of drafting you into a ritualistic enactment of democracy. That's called Election Day. If you're for Election Day, how can you be for the most liberal early balloting conditions as possible? So that it doesn't cost you anything to cast the ballot, you can do it just like you send in your your utility bill, whenever you get around to it.

So I'm completely cynical about the manipulation of the historical achievement of African American equal political citizenship on behalf of a transparently partisan undertaking, which is to empower the Democrats with a margin in the Congress that is paper thin to regulate the conduct of elections in every state in this country. That's a political move. That's not about civil rights. It's not about the empowerment of black people. So, no, I don't assume that Republican legislators that want election security are ipso facto because of that trying to keep black people from voting. Can't you see that is a narrative that they have built for their own political purposes?

Glenn, this is one of these moments between us, I'm thinking. I really don't know what you're talking about. And maybe I'm going to learn something. Because, of course, the way I've seen this is that this sudden concern with voter fraud has been proven again and again to itself be about nothing in particular. There's not nearly enough tomfoolery and voter fraud to justify this hawkeyed attention to this.

I'm not just talking about voter fraud, but go ahead. I'm not just talking about voter fraud.

Well, most people's conclusion has been that there's some ulterior motive here, and I always thought it was pretty clear what the ulterior motive is. Are you saying that there is not—on some level, for some reason—a quest to suppress the black vote in the name of saying that there are voting irregularities that we need to work against, et cetera?

I'm saying it's vastly overblown.

What leads you to think that?

I've just said what I thought about that. I've said, for example, requiring a photo ID…

Yeah, but why is it suddenly so important to nail down those exact requirements? What was wrong with the way it was before? Isn't the idea here to make it harder for a certain person who has a less organized life or is less educated to be able to do the right thing? This is what many people suppose. Is that incorrect? Why are they so concerned about this?

I don't know how you know that. I could turn the question back around on you. How do you know that people who want laws governing voting procedures made more secure are doing so in order to disenfranchise minorities? You just conceded or acknowledged, proclaimed that they are not particularly effective at disenfranchising minorities.

So there's a difference in worldview here. I agree with that. Stacey Abrams is the poster child of voting rights. She lost an election for governor in Georgia. Did that election legitimately determine who was the governor of Georgia? Were the disputes between Stacey Abrams and Brian Kemp about election procedures a matter of civil rights and equal voting inclusion? I think there's partisan politics that are at play here. There are Democrats and there are Republicans. They're going to define the issues so as to best advance their interests.

As I said—I'll say it again—I think it's a cynical appropriation of the history of African American struggle for voting rights to have this dispute about these laws that are before Congress right now cast in terms of the people who are on our side are for Martin Luther King Jr. and John Lewis. The people who are on the other side are a bunch of racists, like Bull Connor, who are trying to keep black people from voting. To me, transparently, that is a manipulative misuse and mischaracterization of the actual situation. To me.

What about partisan gerrymandering? Is partisan gerrymandering necessarily racist? I don't think so.

That's over-stretching the word “racist.”

I think partisan gerrymandering used to be much to the favor of Democrats. No, I mean, what I'm saying is state legislatures have come more under Republican control in the last two decades. I'm saying that the balance of power between state legislatures and the federal government is a matter of significant political consequence. The left and the right in our politics are contending. The people who like “states’ rights”—whether it's people who want independent policies about immigration control so that they declared themselves sanctuary cities or independent policies about other matters—are in tension with the people who are trying to expand the ability of the federal government to dictate these things.

I mean, this is a part of American politics. Is it racist? What side are the racial justice warriors supposed to be on? Are they necessarily on the side of more federal power and less state power? Why is that racist? I mean, historically it has been. Historically it has been.

We're at an impasse.

Glenn, aren't you ... I have to be gentle here. One can split hairs, but there's still the question. Okay, your answer to the question as to why suddenly people got so inflamed about all of this roughly in the ‘00s is because of the gradual takeover of state legislatures by Republicans, and they wanted to kind of get things cleaned up.

But what was wrong before that justified all of this extra effort? What was the problem in 1989 or 1996 that meant that they had to start paying all of this attention to doing these things differently? It's unclear to me what the problem was. The system wasn't perfect, as we learned. There's a whole new book stirring up the business about John F. Kennedy stealing the election. The system was never perfect. But it's not as if it had become so strikingly imperfect by roughly 1995 that this had to start. And it seemed to me—

I don't accept that characterization of the history. I don't think there's something sudden that goes on. I mean, I can't cite chapter and verse, but I don't believe that to answer “I want to have a voter ID” with “Why are you asking now to have a voter ID and you didn't ask before?” is a particularly compelling argument. It's an ad hominem argument. Your whole argument here is ad hominem. Your rebuttal to the people on the other side of the John Lewis Act advocates in the Congress is, “You people are just trying to keep black people from voting. Otherwise why would you even be making an issue out of this?”

And I'm saying no. I mean, we've had this conversation before. If I want to secure my vehicle or lock my bicycle, I'm not accusing your neighbors of being criminals. I'm exercising my prerogative over asserting security. And I want to know what's the connect between concern about election security on the one hand and a desire to keep minority people from voting on the other?