What Jeff Foxworthy (and social science) can teach us about voting rights

As social scientists, we’re obviously huge fans of the comedian - and amateur philosopher – Jeff Foxworthy. Born and bred in Georgia, Foxworthy is hugely popular around these parts in large part because he pokes sympathetic fun at fellow Southerners through his “…you might be a redneck” jokes. You know the ones: “If you think the French Riviera is a foreign car…you might be a redneck”. Or, “If your bowling alley has valet parking….you might be a redneck.”

Foxworthy is on to something. Let’s call it the Foxworthy Method: by giving us a way to say whether something is true - say, whether you might be a redneck - he’s also helping us to know whether something is not true. If you know the French Riviera is a place in Europe, you might not be a redneck.

Like good social scientists, Foxworthy offers a set of questions which can help us decide which side has more evidence to back up its claims.

All of us could learn a lot from the Foxworthy Method on the important debate over voter suppression.

Democrats argue that Republicans have been trying to suppress the votes of minorities and young people through several voting restrictions. Republicans counter that such measures stop voter fraud, and do not suppress voting rates.

Which side is right? Let’s apply the Foxworthy Method to find out. For example, let’s say that we could count up all the polling sites in an area relative to the demographics of the voters there. We could probably agree that, if there are vastly fewer polling sites in minority-majority areas compared to white areas, that’s voter suppression. We could do the same for wait times at polling places, voter roll purges, and the burdens of voter ID requirements.

We put these questions to the test, and the Foxworthy Method gave us a clear answer: voter suppression is alive and well in America, and in Georgia.

Take the question of polling site availability. One recent analysis shows around 1,600 polling place closures between 2012 and 2018, with the largest number of closures in those states with a history of racial discrimination. Georgia is one of the ‘mega closers’, with the third largest number of closures and the highest percentage of closures of any other state.

What about wait times? A 2019 study found that “average wait times are longer in precincts with a higher percentage of minority voters, more rents, and lower incomes.” One study found that residents in all-black neighborhoods waited 29 percent longer to vote than those in other neighborhoods. Georgia’s record is especially alarming: In 2018, we experienced the country’s greatest increase in wait times.

We also looked at voter roll purges. Analyses by NYU’s Brennan Center for Justice suggests that purges disproportionately affect minorities. Purged voters were more likely to live in regions with a history of racially discriminatory laws, where sizeable minority populations could swing votes. That was true here in Georgia too.

Turning to voter ID requirements, we saw a similar pattern. A 2019 analysis found that while the adoption of voter ID laws did not reduce overall voting rates, it was associated with a drop in racial and ethnic minority turnout. This is in part because, as a recent study showed, only around 55% of eligible black voters had a driver’s license compared to 81% of their white counterparts.

Ultimately, many of these measures which end up suppressing minority voting are said to be anti-fraud measures. Yet, despite every effort to investigate the issue, voter fraud remains incredibly rare.

But students of the Foxworthy Method might ask: How can we ever possibly establish intention? To establish intention, we can look to two sets of evidence.

First, we can look at timing. In all of these cases, voting restrictions were expanded not because of any particular increase in the risk of voter fraud. Instead, after the Shelby vs. Holder Supreme Court decision in 2013 removed the need for approval from the Department of Justice for voting rule changes, many southern states “opened the floodgates to laws restricting voting throughout the United States.”

Second, we can look at “smoking gun” statements in the public record. In fact, Republican officials have acknowledged that the party’s survival was dependent in part on suppressing the popular vote.

So, are Republicans engaged in voter suppression? By looking at facts such as length of wait times or actual cases of voter fraud, you can figure it out yourself, as Foxworthy once said, with a “glorious absence of sophistication.”

Doner received his PhD in political science from the Univ. of California, Berkeley and has taught at Emory since 1985. Author or co-author of four books and over 40 articles and book chapters, his research and teaching focus on the politics of economic development. Doner has also consulted with numerous public and private sector organizations.

McCoy received her PhD in political science from the Univ. of Minnesota and has taught at Georgia State since 1984. Formerly director of the Carter Center’s Americas program, McCoy led a dozen election monitoring missions to Latin America. She is the author or editor of 6 books and four dozen articles and book chapters. Her research and teaching focus on political polarization, democratic erosion, and election integrity.

This story was originally published November 10, 2020 at 7:00 AM.