April 7, 2021
I thought this was an interesting data point for the ongoing debate. Not saying this analysis is “right” just that it is intersting.
Voters often conclude that the effort needed to cast a ballot is simply not worth it. So, researchers at Northern Illinois University set to find the most US states where it’s hardest to vote.
In the US, states and counties run elections, so state laws change the difficulty of casting a ballot even in nation-wide races. Allowing residents to vote by mail, for example, lowers the cost of voting. Laws that make registration difficult increase the cost. Researchers examined state-level laws over the past six presidential elections to develop a cost-of-voting index. They looked at seven factors: voting convenience, identification requirements, poll hours, registration deadlines, registration restrictions, registration-drive restrictions, and preregistration rules.
Here’s how each state fared (see above)
The relative ease of voting has changed dramatically since 1996, the earliest election the researchers considered. Some of what were once the easiest states to vote in are now the hardest. Some of the hardest are now the easiest.
As the researchers note, if a state decreases in rank, “we can assume that it has either failed to play catch up” as other states made their voting easier, “has gone out of the way to make voting more costly” or has done both.
Northern Illinois University requires that every student have an ID. I do find it ironic that many of the corporations and organizations which oppose a requirement to have an ID to vote mandate having one to do business with them. Goose meet gander.
OneCard ID Services provides identification card service for the NIU community and issues the official IDs for students and NIU personnel. We also manage NIU’s designated debit card system, Huskie Bucks. Only students, faculty, staff and retirees are eligible to obtain a OneCard ID.
i guess by their approach it is "hard" to be an NIU student.
did some more googling and found an article they published on the school website. one of the factors that they identify that makes it "hard" to vote is having an ID.
what I didn't see in their information was how they defined "hard" to vote. what criteria were they using? also with their ranking system - what factors and how did they weigh them in the relative scoring for states?