The Watchdog with David Bozell

A new CBS News poll delivered an inconvenient result.

For years, voter ID has been described as discriminatory, suppressive, and a modern version of Jim Crow. The expectation is simple: require identification, turnout drops.

CBS’s own data tells a different story.

According to the survey, 80% of Black Americans and 77% of Hispanics support requiring a valid photo ID to vote. Not exactly a divided country.

It gets better.

Among both groups, more than twice as many respondents said voter ID requirements would make them more likely to vote than less likely.

So the policy described as suppressive appears, in the polling, to encourage participation.

Now here’s the interesting part.

CBS published a write-up on its own poll. The question about whether voter ID would increase turnout did NOT make the article. Shocker. It is available in the full dataset for anyone motivated enough to go looking.

No headline. No segment. No discussion.

An understandable oversight, apparently.

Support for proof of citizenship follows the same pattern. Majorities of Black and Hispanic respondents favor requiring documentation to register to vote. Both groups are also more likely than Democrats overall to view ineligible voting as a problem.

None of which fits especially well with the standard narrative.

Which may help explain the editing choices.

The data is public. The conclusions are straightforward. The coverage, less so.

​​​​​​​Take it easy, 

David Bozell
President