Contemporary Voter Suppression: Impact on the 2020 General Election

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2024

Publication Title

Ralph Bunche Journal of Public Affairs

Volume

7

Issue

1

Pages

4

Abstract

To understand the effects of changes in election administration policies and practices on voter turnout in the 2020 Presidential General Election, this paper compares voters to non-voters from the 2020 Cooperative Election Study Data (CCES). Using the Rational Choice Theory of Voting as a framework, we assessed the impact of eight unique voting cost variables (Voter ID Cost, Waitline Cost, Voter Registration Cost, Transportation Cost, Absentee Ballot Cost, Voter Location Cost, Voter Qualification Cost, and Covid-19 Cost). We modeled the intentions of CCES Survey respondents and their perceptions of voter suppression on voter turnout at the national level. A combination of statistical models was used to assess the relationship of each of the voter suppression cost items to voter turnout in the 2020 General Presidential Election. On every measure of voter suppression assessed in this study, we found lower voter turnout among the targeted groups. In sum, evidence of voter suppression has been found in the 2020 Presidential General Election.

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Digital Scholarship @ Texas Southern University © 2024. All rights reserved.

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Posting of the article on the internet as part of a non-commercial open access institutional repository or other non-commercial open access publication site affiliated with the author(s)'s place of employment (e.g., a Phrenology professor at the University of Southern North Dakota can have her article appear in the University of Southern North Dakota's Department of Phrenology online publication series)

ORCID

0000-0002-8403-6793 (Diawara)

Original Publication Citation

Henley, Tiffany; Brown, Samuel; Diawara, Norou; Hossain, Md Iqbal; and Rivera, Gregory (2024) "Contemporary Voter Suppression: Impact on the 2020 General Election," Ralph Bunche Journal of Public Affairs: Vol. 7: Iss. 1, Article 4.
Available at: https://digitalscholarship.tsu.edu/rbjpa/vol7/iss1/4

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