8 million more poor white voters than black is insignificant?
Do Black votes matter more?
I thought they all counted as one.
If we were to distribute those 8 million across all 50 states evenly that amounts to 160,000 per state. Though, it's not evenly distributed; not evenly distributed across the 50 states, and not evenly distributed within each of the states. There will be an uneven distribution in districts.
Seeing as there are a disproportionate number of African Americans in poverty than white people--a significantly higher percentage of poor African Americans than poor whites. Coupled with the fact of gerrymandering districts, poorer areas will see more diverse ratios of white and non-white poor in compared to mostly white wealthier areas. The net effect is that systems which negatively effect the poor, disproportionately effect poor people of color.
It's not "voter ID laws negatively effect poor people, and there are numerically more non-white poor than white poor"; it's that laws which are harmful for the poor disproportionately effect persons of color.
Let me offer a piece of ancient history for helpful comparison purposes.
In the 3rd century the Roman Emperor Decius made a decree that all Roman subjects, in order to show their loyalty, were required to make sacrifice to the gods. This sacrifice had to be done in the presence of a Roman magistrate, who would grant them a
libellus, a certificate identifying them as loyal subjects of the Empire. Now the decree did not target anyone, not explicitly. But take a guess what minority group within the Roman Empire was most negatively effected? That's right, the Christians.
Now, when Decius made the decree, it wasn't explicitly a law that went out of its way to target Christians. It wasn't overtly anti-Christian. It was simply a law that said you had to demonstrate your loyalty to the empire by getting a piece of identification. But Christians were the ones disproportionately effected by the decree--they would not worship the state gods, they did not have a libellus that would identify them as loyal Roman subjects. And have a guess what not having a libellus meant as far as the general Roman public and the Roman authorities were concerned? That's right, disloyalty. And guess what the Romans liked to do with disloyal people.
You see, laws don't have to be overtly against a specific group of people, to hurt a specific group of people.
-CryptoLutheran