A good overview of the research on voter ID laws. They seem to have had little impact on the outcome of most elections, but they primarily affect people of color and the elderly. And the intent behind passing them has been very clear, because those trying to pass them tend to target specific areas, right before certain elections...
In 2012, a Republican legislative leader in Pennsylvania made headlines by saying that the state’s voter ID law — which was later overturned by the courts — was “gonna allow Governor Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania.” But even when the law’s authors are more circumspect about their motivations, the evidence is clear: It’s Republican legislatures and legislators that tend to pass them. There’s also a racial dynamic: Seth McKee found that Republican legislators are more likely to back voter ID laws — and Democratic legislators less so — as their districts have more black voters. It’s also no accident that the states whose voter ID laws make headlines — Wisconsin, North Carolina, Virginia — are often swing states with diverse electorates.
It’s important, too, to underscore that Trump promoted voter ID laws for a reason: They tend to poll reasonably well, especially among Republicans. A 2016 AP-NORC poll found that 79 percent of those surveyed favored requiring all voters to provide photo ID, with Republicans especially supportive.
It’s certainly not a consensus, but the weight of recent research suggests that even if voter ID laws have limited effects on which party wins specific elections, they still affect tens of thousands of voters in larger states, particularly black, Latino, Democratic and elderly voters. And importantly, these laws’ long-term impacts may well differ from their immediate effects upon implementation. So as politicians, lawyers and social scientists continue to debate these laws, the very effects themselves are likely to change beneath our feet.