Tennessee Democrats Latch Onto Report That Voter ID Laws Suppress Turnout

Congressman Jim Cooper said he’s not a “camera hog,” but he felt the GAO report on Tennessee’s voter ID law should get more attention. Credit: Blake Farmer / WPLN

Republicans may be discrediting the non-partisan Government Accountability Office findings, but Democrats are holding press conferences to say, essentially, “We told you so.”

Before this 200-page GAO report was released, Democrats could only point to anecdotes showing that requiring photo IDs at the polls was turning potential voters away.

“Many of us had suspected this back in 2012, and now we have proof,” Congressman Jim Cooper (D-Nashville) said Wednesday.

The GAO stats show that voter turnout dropped nearly 3 percent more in Tennessee than in neighboring states without voter ID laws — Alabama and Arkansas. The dip was particularly noticeable among minorities and young people, and Cooper called the law a “plot against them.” Those voters tend to lean Democrat.

State Sen. Bill Ketron (R-Murfreesboro), who sponsored the voter ID law, said it was just one election without much action on the ballot. Even the U.S. Senate contest didn’t draw much attention.

“I don’t think you can really judge [the voter ID law] by that because this last cycle people stayed home, nothing to bring them out. There was nothing exciting as far as those races are concerned,” Ketron said.

Secretary of State Tre Hargett, who was appointed by the Republican legislature, has called the report “flawed” and “sloppy.”

But Cooper said the GAO findings are as thorough as possible. “It’s not a randomized, double-blind clinical trial like you get when you’re doing a test of a pharmaceutical,” he said. “But it’s the best we can do in the public arena in social science.”

In the short term, activists are encouraging young people and minorities to prove the findings wrong, get an ID and head to the polls. Down the road, they expect the report may become the basis of a legal challenge to Tennessee’s voter ID law.