For First Time on Record, Black Voting Rate Outpaced Rate for Whites

May 9, 2013 9:23 AM

The turnout rate of black voters surpassed the rate for whites for the first time on record in 2012, as more black voters went to the polls than in 2008 and fewer whites did, according to a Census Bureau report released Wednesday. (SLNYT)
posted by MisantropicPainforest (31 comments total)

The fact that this happened despite the GOP trying to gerrymander districts, pass ridiculous ID laws and cut down on early voting that largely targets African American voters is astonishing and awesome.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 9:29 AM on May 9, 2013 [23 favorites]

and ...
posted by mrgrimm at 9:31 AM on May 9, 2013

The fact that this happened despite the GOP trying to gerrymander districts, pass ridiculous ID laws and cut down on early voting that largely targets African American voters is astonishing and awesome.

I'm pretty sure that it happened because of all those efforts.
posted by octothorpe at 9:35 AM on May 9, 2013 [10 favorites]

I am looking at the jurisdictional charts and all I can do is think, with a savage and vindictive glee, that the ghastly, racist phrase "the south will rise again" has taken on a new and fucking glorious meaning.
posted by elizardbits at 9:36 AM on May 9, 2013 [31 favorites]

Apparently the immediacy and magnitude of the blow-back against baldfaced voter suppression efforts is significant in the internet age...
posted by jim in austin at 9:46 AM on May 9, 2013 [2 favorites]

Don't worry, everyone! Scalia's gonna fix this problem soon.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 9:49 AM on May 9, 2013 [1 favorite]

Easy enough when the same person votes 6 times.
posted by brent at 10:00 AM on May 9, 2013

That Time Mitt Romney Lost 83 Percent of Minority Voters
posted by zombieflanders at 10:06 AM on May 9, 2013

Easy enough when the same person votes 6 times.

How come?
posted by Foci for Analysis at 10:12 AM on May 9, 2013

Let's not.
posted by Bookhouse at 10:13 AM on May 9, 2013 [5 favorites]

So many interesting nuggets from mrgrimm's link:

Voter turnout among eligible Hispanic voters is only at 49%, while at 60% for blacks. Plenty of room to grow those numbers.

Obama won by 4.7 million votes.

Romney only 17% of the non-white vote. Obama got 39% of the white vote.

"... blacks and whites both appear to have cast a slightly higher shares of votes (72% and 13%, respectively) than their share of eligible voters (71% and 12%), while Hispanics and Asians cast a lower share of votes (10% and 3%) than their share of eligible voters (11% and 4%)."
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 10:15 AM on May 9, 2013

THANKS, OBAMA.

Actually, wait, yes: Thanks, Obama!
posted by Mayor West at 10:17 AM on May 9, 2013 [5 favorites]

I think brent was being sarcastic.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 10:17 AM on May 9, 2013

The fact that this happened despite the GOP trying to gerrymander districts, pass ridiculous ID laws and cut down on early voting that largely targets African American voters is astonishing and awesome.

Agreed. Now I'm waiting for at least one or more members of the GOP/Tea Party to say something like "blacks" are really foreigners brought from afar many years ago and they didn't even want to come and after "we" freed them, they should have gone back. Or perhaps we'll see some sort of argument like the original founding fathers and their subsequent ancestors, by race, are sort of like managers and CEOs of companies, and you don't let the workers manage the company because they don't have the skills or know how.

I kid you not, some one will say something like this in seriousness.
posted by juiceCake at 10:18 AM on May 9, 2013

I think brent needs to study Poe's Law.
posted by benito.strauss at 10:19 AM on May 9, 2013 [2 favorites]

I don't think that anyone will seriously advance the argument described by juiceCake, but I would bet that somewhere there's going to be a PowerPoint presentation where "The turnout rate of black voters surpassed the rate for whites for the first time on record in 2012" appears in a list entitled "Challenges We Face".
posted by benito.strauss at 10:23 AM on May 9, 2013 [2 favorites]

I kid you not, some one will say something like this in seriousness.

Why wait? One of the co-authors of the (already widely-debunked) Heritage Foundation anti-immigration reform hit piece thinks that "[t]he average IQ of immigrants in the United States is substantially lower than that of the white native population, and the difference is likely to persist over several generations." Sounds like a good enough reason not to let them vote or have other civil rights to a lot of people.
posted by zombieflanders at 10:24 AM on May 9, 2013 [3 favorites]

WHAT WHITE NATIVE POPULATION THERE ISN'T ONE THERE WERE ALREADY PEOPLE HERE ARGH SHUT UP HERITAGE FOUNDATION I HATE YOU
posted by elizardbits at 10:29 AM on May 9, 2013 [11 favorites]

WHAT WHITE NATIVE POPULATION THERE ISN'T ONE THERE WERE ALREADY PEOPLE HERE ARGH SHUT UP HERITAGE FOUNDATION I HATE YOU

Which calls to mind this cartoon from last year. Context.
posted by Celsius1414 at 10:32 AM on May 9, 2013 [3 favorites]

THANKS, OBAMA.

Actually, wait, yes: Thanks, Obama!

I do kind of wonder how this carries over into years without a presidential election.
posted by Artw at 10:32 AM on May 9, 2013

I kid you not, some one will say something like this in seriousness.

It was briefly a meme on the right wing that women were too irrational to vote and letting them have the franchise was why everything was going to hell. I also remember a bunch of harrumphing about things going downhill when we started letting people who didn't own land vote. So yeah, that wouldn't surprise me at all.
posted by Ghostride The Whip at 11:06 AM on May 9, 2013 [1 favorite]

I also remember a bunch of harrumphing about things going downhill when we started letting people who didn't own land vote.

On first reading of this, I thought, "How many centuries old are you?"

On second reading, you'd think a racist, violent, populist southerner like Andrew Jackson would be a hero to these folks.
posted by thecjm at 11:42 AM on May 9, 2013 [1 favorite]

I live in Texas so we're about 1-200 years behind the times in rhetoric depending on who won the last national election. Hell, our legislature is trying the nullification thing again because it worked so well last time.
posted by Ghostride The Whip at 12:03 PM on May 9, 2013

As a caution to the celebrations: this report seems to be talking about eligible voters, which would presumably exclude any of those disenfranchised by laws barring convicted felons, etc from voting. It's possible if not likely that the actual turnout rate is still skewed white.

please let's not get into a derail about the whys of incarceration rates by race.
posted by Lemurrhea at 12:04 PM on May 9, 2013 [2 favorites]

Things may not turn out so well the next presidential election when presumably the anger will have died down, the disenfranchisement will have proceeded a bit further than last time and there is unlikely to be an african american democratic candidate....
posted by caddis at 12:22 PM on May 9, 2013

Yes, but in the interim I can't imagine the GOP will do anything at all to endear themselves to minority voters. Voter memory is short, yes, but not in the face of constant offenses.
posted by elizardbits at 12:26 PM on May 9, 2013

Colorado strikes a blow for voting reform

It hasn’t gotten the national attention it deserves, but a sweeping measure to overhaul elections in Colorado is swiftly moving towards passage — one that could function as a model for other voting reformers in other states, and perhaps even nationally. The Colorado measure will represent a big step forward, because it sticks to the most fundamental principle that most reformers think should guide our efforts to fix voting: That voting should be made easier for as many people as possible.

This, at a time when conservative groups are working to restrict voting in the name of “voter fraud.” As Reid Wilson recently put it, the Colorado measure is “the Democratic comeback to voter ID.”

Reform advocates who have been briefed on Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper’s plans tell me they expect him to sign the legislation tomorrow. The measure, which has cleared both houses in Colorado, contains a number of key provisions. It requires a ballot to be mailed to every registered voter; voters choose how to vote, whether by mail or dropping off the ballot, or even in person, early or on election day. It lengthens the early voting period and shortens the time required for state residency in order to qualify to vote. It expands voter registration through Election Day. And it allows people to vote at any precinct within their county.

posted by zombieflanders at 12:35 PM on May 9, 2013 [4 favorites]

Obama is only black because it's popular now.
posted by Smedleyman at 12:36 PM on May 9, 2013 [4 favorites]

"It was briefly a meme on the right wing that women were too irrational to vote and letting them have the franchise was why everything was going to hell."

Oh, Christ, one of the most frustrating arguments I ever got into as a canvasser was with a woman who said that the decline of the West started when women got the vote, because they tricked women into thinking that they could have a career and children and that's led to a downfall in values or some such bullshit. I just kept coming back to, "Wait, you don't think that you should be able to vote?" She was Australian, and thought it was much worse in Australia and I was all o_0
posted by klangklangston at 12:49 PM on May 9, 2013

I am looking at the jurisdictional charts and all I can do is think, with a savage and vindictive glee, that the ghastly, racist phrase "the south will rise again" has taken on a new and fucking glorious meaning.

Surely if white racists were all that riled up they would have come to en masse to vote against Obama? Perhaps it was simply that whites were disappointed with both candidates on offer.
posted by IndigoJones at 4:18 PM on May 9, 2013

one of the most frustrating arguments I ever got into as a canvasser

One of the first things I learned as a canvasser is that there are people you will meet whose primary objective is wasting as much of your time as they can manage.

Obama is only black because it's popular now.

Of course, beginning back in his State Senate races in Chicago, there were "Irish for O'Bama" tongue-in-cheek bumper stickers. But then it turned out he really is Irish(-American).

Getting back to the topic, I couldn't find any exit poll results based on Irish ancestry, but an Irish website did a pre-election poll that showed Obama had a slight edge among his countrymen here (while near-unanimous support in Ireland itself). Of course, voting patterns like this are no mystery -- white ethnic Americans have been leaning heavily Republican for decades now, even working-class, urban whites.

All that said, of course, it's Hispanics who are growing the most in population terms, but their voting participation remains low (even accounting for a citizenship gap). That's going to be a problem going forward if the Democrats want to solidify gains from simple demographics (as in the recent Nate Silver projection).
posted by dhartung at 6:58 PM on May 9, 2013 [1 favorite]