GOP's new round of vote suppression bills could blow up in their faces: Harvard law professor

Republican state lawmakers have signaled that they are itching to unleash a new round of voter suppression legislation aimed at making it more difficult to vote in elections.

Harvard Law School professor Nick Stephanopoulos, who specializes in election law, tells Bloomberg that the Republicans' latest efforts to rig the vote in their favor might actually blow up in their faces.

Specifically, Stephanopoulos says that these laws may not work because educated suburban voters, who have been moving toward Democrats ever since Donald Trump was elected in 2016, are far less likely to be affected and also have the resources to overcome obstacles that GOP legislatures may put in their place.

This would mean that Republicans would have to do as good a job as Democrats at targeting low-income voters in order to ensure that they aren't actually suppressing their own electorate.

"You could really easily imagine these efforts backfiring," he said.

Kathleen Unger, president of the nonpartisan voter ID assistance group VoteRiders, similarly told Bloomberg that proposed Georgia requirements mandating that voters send in a photocopy of their picture ID in order to be allowed to vote by mail, could harm Republican turnout.

"She said the photocopied ID requirement would be particularly onerous for people who don't have a valid photo ID or easy access to a copy machine or a printer," Bloomberg reports. "That would include many rural, lower-income and older voters -- three groups that are now a big part of the Republican base -- as well as those with disabilities and college students who lean Democratic."