Tennessee secretary of state disputes study that found photo-ID law hurt black and young voters

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photo Tre Hargett

NASHVILLE -- Secretary of State Tre Hargett disputes a nonpartisan congressional study that found once Tennessee and Kansas enacted strict voter identification laws, the states saw deeper drops in election turnout, especially among black and young voters, than four other states that didn't toughen their requirements.

Hargett charged Tuesday that the General Accountability Office report was "fundamentally flawed" and that "the whole thing feels sloppy."

The Republican's comments came at a news conference in which he unveiled a new smartphone app aimed at helping voters easily find polling places and other information. Early voting starts today in the Nov. 4 election.

The GAO last week released the study. It looked at Tennessee and Kansas election turnout in 2008 and 2012, where Republican legislatures in-between the elections enacted tough new photo-identification requirements. Then they compared that with Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware and Maine, which did not.

For Tennessee, the study found found reductions of 2 to 3 percent more than four other states examined. It was about about 2 percent greater in Kansas.

"GAO's analysis suggests that the turnout decreases in Kansas and Tennessee beyond decreases in the comparison states were attributable to changes in those two states' voter ID requirements," the report said.

When asked about the GAO report, Hargett said the four other states all had "hot button" issues or races in 2012 that attracted voters while Tennessee did not.

That included constitutional amendments in Alabama that eliminated segregation and poll tax provisions declared unconstitutional decades before, Hargett said. He noted Democrats disavowed their 2012 U.S. Senate nominee, anti-gay rights activist Mark Clayton, after he unexpectedly won the primary spending virtually nothing.

He also questioned the validity of the 2012 voter history and registration data from the firm Catalist, which he notes works on behalf of "progressive" organizations.

In its seven-page letter to the GAO, contained in the agency's report after officials shared preliminary findings with the state, Hargett's office charged Catalist is "biased against the photo-ID law."

The GAO says in the report that it checked out Catalist, including reviewing "independent, third-party research, published in two peer-reviewed journals of academic research that focus on methods of political analysis."

They found "found no evidence of systematic bias in the data Catalist provides," the GAO said.

Moreover, the GAO says it "independently assessed reliability of data and took measures to ensure the use of data from this particular source would not bias our results."

That involved using information from the U.S. Census Bureau's Current Population Survey and the United States Election Project, associated with George Mason University.

Hargett also says Catalist did not obtain the 2012 voter file from his office but from the Tennessee Democratic Party.

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Democratic Party Chairman Roy Herron said the GAO is considered the "gold standard, the most highly respected government watchdog in the country, bipartisan and beyond approach."

"They confirm what any close observer knows," Herron said. "The tea party/Republican Party attempts to disenfranchise young people, African-American people and working people from voting."

As for Catalist obtaining the records from the Democratic Party, Herron said the party uses the firm. As part of that, he said, "we provide the most reliable data we can get which is from the Secretary of State's office. ... It'd be worthless to us if it weren't reliable."

The 2011 Tennessee law was sponsored by the House and Senate Republican Caucus chairmen. Minority Democrats charged it was partisan "cookie-cutter" legislation pushed by the American Legislative Exchange Council and specifically aimed at dampening turnout among minority, elderly and low-income voters, who tend to vote for Democrats.

Republicans said it was necessary to deter voter fraud, although they could only cite one case in Nashville. Hargett, who is elected by the state Legislature, backed the bill.

After the bill became law, Chattanoogan Dorothy Cooper, a 96-year-old black woman who had voted for decades, drew national attention when she faced repeated problems in getting registered. She eventually succeeded.

Contact staff writer Andy Sher at asher@timesfreepress.com or 615-255-0550.

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