A simple answer is that convenience isn’t as important as is often thought. Almost anyone who cares enough about voting will face the inconvenience of personal voting, whether because the inconvenience is not really that great or because they worry enough to suffer it.
This, of course, requires a degree of convenience: six-hour lines would change the calculation for many voters. Indeed, long lines affect voter turnout. A certain amount of interest is also assumed. Someone might think: there is no way I am waiting in line for half an hour to vote for the dog catcher. Similarly, as the importance of a race declines, the importance of a convenient set-up option is likely to grow.
The implication, however, is that if enough convenient options are available, almost anyone can vote, even if the most preferred option does not exist. That makes the Georgian electoral law’s efforts to stem long lines potentially quite significant. Not only could this mitigate the already limited effect of restricting email reconciliation, but even outweigh it.
Another reason is that convenience voting may not be as convenient for lower turnout voters who essentially decide the overall turnout. Low turnout voters are unlikely to think about how they will vote a month before the election if they have to request a postal vote. Someone to think about it is likely a high turnout voter. Low turnout voters may not know who they will be supporting until election day. And that makes them less likely to use pre-voting options like a no-excuse early vote, which requires them to think about the choice early and often: submit a motion, fill out a ballot, and send it back.
As a result, convenience voting methods tend to reinforce socio-economic biases in favor of voters with high turnout. The methods ensure that every highly interesting voter has many choices without doing quite so much to attract less engaged voters to the election.
A final reason is that electoral restrictions can backfire by annoying and energizing democratic voters. For example, this law’s restrictions on the distribution of water in a line can do more to mobilize democrats than keep them from voting. A recent study even theorized that the Supreme Court’s decision to withdraw elements of the electoral law did not reduce black voter turnout as subsequent efforts to restrict voting were quickly thwarted by efforts to mobilize black voters.
This does not mean that Georgian law or other so-called voter suppression laws have no consequences. Many make voting difficult enough to intimidate or discourage some voters. Many eligible voters are completely disenfranchised, even if only in small numbers. Perhaps the disenfranchisement of a single voter deserves outrage and opposition, especially when the law is passed for dubious or even contrived reasons and the mass disenfranchisement of Jim Crow serves as a historical backdrop.
