I tried to be nice the first time to True the Vote, but as Fairvote pointed out to me on Twitter, their revised report (linked here: http://www.truethevote.org/news/true-the-vote-report-proves-widespread-claims-of-voter-suppression-false) only makes things worse.

All the evidence on turnout (debunked first by me then more devastatingly by FairVote on the Election Law listerv) have been removed, yet the claims of turnout effects remain on pg. 4 of their report:

Pg 4: “Further, voter turnout rates should have demonstrated drops in participation.In both cases, our research proves otherwise.”

 Necessary correction: The research as been removed and the previous research has been shown to be inaccurate.  

This comment about lines in Florida may have been in the first draft of the report, but is also inaccurate.  This is from pg. 5 of the report:

Pg. 5: “the combination of roll purges, early voting changes and photo ID requirements did not manifest any clear negative impacts in 2012. While some voters complained of long lines, especially during early voting, the average wait time was 50 minutes for Floridians.”

 Necessary correction: The average wait time in Florida was the longest nationwide by far.  It was nearly four times the national average of 14 minutes, and 50% higher than the next state on the list (Maryland, at 28.8 minutes).  

Data are reported here http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/02/05/us/politics/how-long-it-took-groups-to-vote.html.

If this is evidence of no “negative impact,” I’d hate to see what a negative impact looks like!

What makes this frustrating for an academic is that the impact of voter ID requirements on turnout and on wait time remains an open question, at least as far as I read the scholarship thus far.  The discussion isn’t helped along by badly misleading and poorly documented reports.