Friday, November 20, 2020

Disproportionately Affected

One thing I hear all the time from my Democratic friends is that a law is unjust because it disproportionately affects minorities. Crime laws are unjust because there is a disproportionately high number of minorities in prison. Drug laws are unjust because they disproportionately incarcerate minorities. And the old saw, voter ID laws are unjust because they disproportionately disenfranchise minorities. But is that true? Out of six studies performed from 2014 to 2018, three found no effect, one found an increase in minority voter participation, and one found a slight decrease. Guess which study gets all the publicity? Now, newer studies have debunked that, finding flaws in the methodology of the study that found a decrease.

I'd like to look at it from the other side, however. I believe voter fraud disproportionately disenfranchises minorities. I was listening to this podcast by Dan Crenshaw and, interestingly, one of the most common kinds of fraud is perpetrated by people who have houses in multiple states, who receive mail in ballots and vote in each state. Now I don't know about you, but I'm guessing you have to have money to own multiple houses, meaning the rich are disenfranchising the poor, and minorities. Another type of fraud is ballot harvesting, which again is likely ti disproportionately affect the poor and minorities, who live in more densely populated areas. Finally, there is the old gray train, going through minority-filled city neighborhoods and offering to "help" people with their votes, often with a promise of a meal or some money. Again, this is disenfranchising minorities.

Even if voter fraud were color blind, it would still disenfranchise minorities more than whites, because there are fewer of them. It's simple mathematics. Let's say there are 100 people voting, and 90 of them are white, 10 are black. It only takes 10% voter fraud by whites to completely eliminate the black vote, even if they all voted in one monolithic block. In a more realistic split, just 1% or 2% voter fraud will nullify any chance minorities have of influencing an election.

So it seems to me that is you really care about minority rights, the thing to do is enact laws to safeguard legal votes and eliminate voter fraud. Ignoring or encouraging fraud is just another racist policy of the racist Democrat party.

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