4

There were instances where voters were arrested for voting illegally in the state of Texas. Many of these arrests involve black and other nonwhite Democratic voters according to reports.

Texas found over 500 alleged cases of voter fraud. Ken Paxton, the Republican Attorney General, is arresting people and announcing more notable cases.

This has happened in other states, though Texas has a lot of examples, and it consistently has lower than average turnouts, and is ranked as one of the hardest states to vote in by independent analyses.

Does arresting multiple people who are disproportionately marginalized groups for voting decrease voter turnout among these groups? (I'm not sure if this question is easy to answer, but I am looking for examples and/or a study.)

4
  • 1
    Disproportionate to what? To the number of democrats who voted illegally? How do you know?
    – puppetsock
    Jul 27, 2021 at 20:44
  • First you need to ask whether the people who allegedly voted illegally were from such marginalized groups. That is, are they arresting everyone they can find, or letting illegal voters from non-marginalized groups go while arresting those from marginalized groups?
    – jamesqf
    Jul 27, 2021 at 22:38
  • 3
    Are minority groups disproportionately arrested because they commit fraud disproportionally? Or because they are racially profiled and thus checked more often? #1 would seem, well, the basic expected outcome. #2 should send some folk to jail or at least levy large fines. In the absence of proof of #2 I'd concentrate on catching the Texas authorities in violation of the Voting Rights Act rather than speculation. In all this, I am still of the opinion that fraud cases are overblown to be a bogeyman they are not. Jul 28, 2021 at 3:01
  • 1
    It also occurs to me that, asides from profiling directly, people wanting to achieve voter suppression may encourage disproportionate news coverage of minority arrests, compared to other arrests. That could achieve much the same goal, via scaring away said minorities, without the risk of being caught profiling on the arrests themselves. Something to keep in mind. Jul 30, 2021 at 16:30

1 Answer 1

1

I don't think it's possible to provide a blanket answer given:

  1. Not all have been arrested for the same offense, and
  2. Nonwhite can include blacks, but can also include minorities such as Texas Mexican-Americans, who may have different backgrounds and reasons.

However, since you are looking for a examples and mentioned black voters in your question, let me provide one:

Hervis Rogers became popular after news agencies covered him waiting 6 hours to vote in the Democratic primary elections in 2020. A year later in 2021 he was arrested on voter fraud charges. It turns out that Rogers was still serving the end of a parole which began in 2004 and scheduled to end in June 2020 (3 months after voting in the primaries). Rogers claims he was unaware he was still on parole and believed he was voting legally. If convicted though, Rogers could serve up to 40 years in prison, a life sentence given that Rogers is 65 years old.

Unfortunately, I can point to a study or poll that links this story to the number of individuals interviewed or polled that know of this story and may have been dissuaded from voting after hearing of this incident. However, I think it is reasonable to assume that any impact would negatively change black voter turnout given that the story was about a black man, and black men represent a higher population of the prison population, and thus are more likely to be unsure of their voting status if they have been on parole.

Links to the story:

https://www.texastribune.org/2021/07/11/texas-voter-arrested-parole/

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jul/09/texas-voter-arrested-hervis-rogers-ken-paxton

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .