Is there evidence that Georgia's law banning third party delivery of snacks and water would likely hurt Democrats in the state?

Question

A few weeks ago, Georgia signed a law that, among other things:

1. Does not allow offering food or water to voters. It makes it a CRIME to do that.
2. Cuts the runoff period from 9 to 4 weeks.
3. Bans no excuse absentee voting for people who would likely be able to vote in person.
4. Cuts early voting days.

A report from a youtube channel "Let's Talk Elections" tried to detail this. It said that it targets urban voters, because you probably don't care if you can't get water in say Appling County. But you very well could if you live in Fulton County.

Is there conclusive evidence suggesting such laws would/could hurt the Democratic Party by decreasing their vote share?

Answer 1

There is almost never conclusive evidence in the social sciences (and this is a political science question).

The evidence appears to be divided. But there is pretty good evidence that making voting more "convenient" may not have a very large effect on turnout. (I'm pulling some of these from a great summary by Nate Cohn.)

• Advance voting is certainly nice to have, but a study in a relatively high-ranking journal found that "voter turnout in U.S. elections may be less about convenience and costs than expected."
• Government Accountability Office (Congress's official study agency) said, "Most studies of early in-person voting reported no evidence of an effect on turnout or found decreases in turnout, while the remaining studies reported mixed evidence."
• Stanford political scientists found that mail-in voting does not appear to advantage either party.

I am aware of no study that mentions or has examined the effects of snacks and water on voting turnout patterns.

Cohn makes the very good point that convenience voting measures "tend to reinforce the socioeconomic biases favoring high-turnout voters." And the Georgia law seems to go beyond convenience and affect more partisan intervention in elections results. But as to your original question, which focused on making voting more convenient, the evidence mostly indicates these particular interventions do not affect turnout.

Answer 2

In general, without respect to party:

American voters on average seldom wait over twenty minutes to vote. Entirely banning food and snacks in such voters' typical voting lines would probably not hurt average voters.

But in Georgia some citizens had to wait in line over ten hours to vote; compared to the average American voter, that's a 3000% increase in opportunity cost.

For a Georgian minimum wage earner paid $7.25 an hour, 10 hours is $72.50 -- vs. for the average American minimum wage earner paid $7.25 an hour, 20 minutes is $2.41.

(The lost opportunity cost even trickles upward to the wage earner's employer. Their employer might lose an essential worker for 10 hours, costing them productivity and profit. If the employer unpatriotically fires the worker for taking the time to vote, they then must undertake the expense and stress of finding and hiring a replacement worker.)

Typical American meal times are spaced about five or six hours apart. It is unreasonable and unhealthy to expect citizens not to eat for 10 hours, and we should expect that citizens waiting for 10 hours going to need to eat.

If the queue times were well known in advance, a citizen might prepare themselves for a 10 hour wait by packing rations, like a camper or a soldier. But the queue times are unpredictable, so that a citizen might expect a 20 minute wait, or an hour wait, etc. but not such a long wait as to need to prepare rations. Some, perhaps many, citizens unfortunate enough to be in a 10 hour line could be unprepared.

Some citizens have medical conditions, that require them to eat or drink at certain times. A citizen with a such a medical condition would therefore risk harm if they were caught unprepared in a 10 hour Georgia voting line.

And so forth. In short, compared to the average American's 20 minutes or less wait:

• 10 hour voting lines are harmful to anyone stuck in one, regardless of political party.

• Risking 10 hours without food, and perhaps without drink, (should the Georgians forget to refill the water cooler, or run out of Dixie Cups), would be harmful to anyone, particularly those with medical conditions.

Things that are harmful to any citizen would therefore be harmful to citizens who happen to be Democrats.