Morning Joe Incorrectly Points To High Voter Turnout In WI To Downplay Impact Of Voter ID Law

Written by Media Matters Staff

Published

MSNBC's Morning Joe co-hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski mocked reports that Wisconsin's voter ID law could prevent potential voters from voting in the state's April 5 presidential primary, pointing to the fact that “GOP turnout easily broke the record set 36 years ago” and calling such concerns “overplayed,” “breathless stories.” In fact, multiple reports found the WI law inhibited state college students from voting because many were not able to use their school-issued IDs and left due to long lines. Additionally, experts have explained that conclusions about the impact of voter ID laws cannot be drawn based only on high voter turnout. PolitiFact called such a conclusion a “logical fallacy” and former NYU law professor Sundeep Iyer said it mistakes “simple correlation for causation” and is “at best unscientific, at worst just plain wrong.” From the April 6 edition of MSNBC's Morning Joe:

MIKA BRZEZINSKI (HOST): So to that point, GOP turnout easily broke the record set 36 years ago in 1980 with nearly 1.1 million people participating.

JOE SCARBOROUGH (HOST): But I thought there was voter suppression because I sure heard a lot of stories yesterday about voter suppression and these voter I.D. laws. Like I --

MARK HALPERIN: Imagine how big turnout would have been without those.

SCARBOROUGH: Were people not thrown in jail, Willie? I thought they got water hoses out yesterday.

WILLIE GEIST (HOST): Not last night, no.

SCARBOROUGH: Not last night?

BRZEZINSKI: That was in the media.

SCARBOROUGH: Oh because in the media all day yesterday all I heard were stories, breathless stories after breathless stories.

BRZEZINSKI: It's a story. It was a little bit overplayed.