Thread by @JoshuaADouglas

Voter ID laws prevent only one kind of election fraud: in-person impersonation. They could stop someone else showing up and pretending to be Josh Douglas while voting. 1/

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1161439036256526336

How often does this happen? Virtually never. @_justinlevitt_ found only 31 credible instances of voter fraud out of 2 million ballot cast over 12 years. 2/ washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2…

@_justinlevitt_ Why does this never happen? Mostly cause it's just plain dumb. If I wanted to throw an election (I don't!) I surely wouldn't do it through in-person impersonation.

It's impossible to know how many votes I'd need to "steal" through impersonation to ensure my side won 3/

So I'd need a lot of people involved in the scheme to impersonate people without that required ID.

And the more people I recruit for the voter fraud, the more likely I'll be caught. 4/

Even if every person I recruit is worth several votes--let's say they all change their appearances several times--I'd still need tons of them to create a margin that would make it likely I can ensure the outcome I want. The more people involved, the more exposure I'd have. 5/

Now, if I *really* wanted to throw an election, there are much more effective ways to do it, such as through absentee balloting fraud (a la #NC09)--but that was *election* fraud, not *voter* fraud, and a photo ID law would not have prevented that fraud on the electorate. 6/

We also know that strict voter ID laws disproportionately impact minority voters. fivethirtyeight.com/features/what-… 7/

The effect of voter ID laws on overall turnout are not as clear. If anything, they might create a small decrease in who votes. Some don't have the ID; others are just deterred in general. See, for example, Wisconsin in 2016: nytimes.com/2017/09/25/us/… 8/

There is also evidence that having strict voter ID laws don't even make the public think their elections are more secure: stanfordlawreview.org/print/article/… 9/

So...what we have are laws with zero (zero!) benefit to election security, harmful effects on at least some voters, and not even any benefit to public confidence in elections. They won't deter any fraud that actually occurs. 10/

Now, there are great groups like @VoteRiders and @SpreadTheVoteUS working to put IDs into voters' hands. Their work is invaluable.

But wouldn't it better to spend these resources on actually improving democracy, not combating an election rule that has only disadvantages? 11/

To recap:

-Voter ID laws prevent only in-person impersonation
-In-person impersonation doesn't happen, mostly cause it's stupid and ineffective
-Voter ID laws do have harmful effects, with zero benefits

Thanks for coming to my TED Talk. /end