AR Times: “To get at an answer to whether restrictive voting laws, like those passed in Arkansas, are driving turnout down or increasing it, we can look at all the states that had gubernatorial races in 2022 (36 in total) and compare the turnout in those same states to gubernatorial turnout in 2018. In total, 22 of these 36 states passed laws that make it harder to vote (20 restricted mail-in voting, while 12 made voter ID laws more stringent). If these restrictive voting laws drive down turnout, we would expect to see fewer voters in 2022 than in 2018 in the states that passed the laws. If they increase turnout, we expect to see more voters in 2022 than in 2018 in states that passed restrictive laws.
Using some advanced statistical modeling, it’s even possible to remove the effect of confounders, like whether a state had a competitive Senate race, whether a gubernatorial candidate was an incumbent, and how close the state was in the 2020 presidential election.
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There is no real, statistical difference between those states that made it more difficult to vote via mail, and those states that didn’t change their mail-in ballot laws, suggesting that these laws didn’t really have much of an effect on voter turnout between 2018 and 2022.
But did these laws have a disproportionate effect on marginalized communities?”