INSTITUTE INDEX: A gutted Voting Rights Act to blame for some election problems

Year in which the conservative-dominated U.S. Supreme Court, in a case from Alabama, effectively struck down the section of the Voting Rights Act that required places with a history of voter discrimination to get Department of Justice preclearance for voting changes: 2013

Number of years since a presidential election last took place without the full protections of the VRA: 50

Number of states that put new voting restrictions in place for the 2016 elections: 14*

Of those states, number in the South: 6

In Texas, with new requirements mandating voters to show photo ID if they have it and others with a "reasonable impediment" to show alternative ID and sign an affidavit, number of reports of problems related to confusion over the rules: "numerous"

Number of times more likely Hispanics are than whites to lack the required ID: 2

Number of times more likely black people are: 3

Date on which a judge granted a temporary restraining order in a lawsuit filed by a voting rights watchdog group in Bexar County, Texas, over elections officials giving incorrect information about the photo ID requirement: 10/28/2016

Days after election officials in Texas were reminded to tell voters they could still cast ballots if they lack photo IDs that Harris County poll workers were still giving incorrect instructions to voters: 1

Among the most common election concerns in the Dallas area, rank of poll workers demanding photo IDs despite the court-mandated reasonable impediment option: 1

In Wisconsin, another state that conducted the 2016 election under a new photo ID law, decline in Milwaukee voters compared to 2012, disproportionately in districts the city election commission predicted would have the most ID problems: 41,000

Votes by which Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump defeated Democrat Hillary Clinton in Wisconsin, taking all 10 of its Electoral College votes: 27,257

In North Carolina, where a restrictive new voting law that included early voting cuts was put on hold by the courts for this election but where local elections boards freed from preclearance still cut early voting, number of counties that provided fewer total early voting hours this year than in 2012: 17

In the first week of North Carolina's early voting period, number fewer polling places in 40 heavily black counties: 158

In North Carolina's Mecklenburg County, percent decline in number of early voting locations from 2012 to 2016: over 54

Hours some Mecklenburg County residents waited in line to cast ballots during early voting: more than 3

Overall decline in early voting turnout among African Americans in North Carolina from 2012 to 2016: 9

Total number of polling places that were closed this year in states formerly subjected to VRA preclearance: at least 868

Percent reduction that represents: 16

Though it's still difficult to say definitively how restrictive new election laws affected the election's outcome, percentage-point decline in voter participation that a 2014 analysis attributed to stricter ID requirements alone: 2 to 3

Total number of complaints logged this year to a national election protection hotline: 35,000

Of those calls, percent that came from African-American and Hispanic communities: 40

* Alabama, Arizona, Indiana, Kansas, Mississippi, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Ohio, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, and Wisconsin.

(Click on figure to go to source. Rebekah Barber provided research assistance.)