4 ms·

I mean, that's largely what voter registration is - a database of every citizen's address. The problem comes in when those addresses change. There's no require

I mean, that's largely what voter registration is - a database of every citizen's address. The problem comes in when those addresses change. There's no requirement to inform your old state you left, so millions of inactive voters are left in the database. Generally there's a requirement to register in the new state (drivers license) within 30 days which is often missed, or not required for temporary moves like college students. These purges do serve a legitimate purpose, but are often used as a political tool to alter turnouts.

wongarsu 7y ago
> There's no requirement to inform your old state you left, so millions of inactive voters are left in the database In Germany when you arrive somewhere we know that you are coming from somewhere. So when you register at your new address that usually involves your new city hall informing your old one that you moved. I guess that doesn't really work if registration isn't universal (in Germany we track you place of residence basically from birth, it's used not just for voting but also for determining where your taxes go, for government communication, to make sure nobody skips out on bills by moving, etc).
- CompanionCuuube 7y ago
  > (in Germany we track you place of residence basically from birth, it's used not just for voting but also for determining where your taxes go, for government communication, to make sure nobody skips out on bills by moving, etc). If we tried to institute that kind of system, the political party which currently is all against voter id would be up in arms too.
  - pjc50 7y ago
    Hardly. The Republicans are against databases, population registration, ID cards, and gun tracking databases. It's only the voter ID they're in favour of.
  - ebiester 7y ago
    So long as it isn't used to disenfranchise people from a single vote, there's no problem. Now, things get complicated and we would have to do work to get it right in that we have inconsistent rules on residency in terms of students and temporary housing, and we have a significant number of people who don't want to see a national registry of citizens (see issues with using SSN as a national ID) but there's nothing specifically that Democrats would object to philosophically. The problem comes when we start trying to purge the rolls and there are false positives. The bigger problem is when those false positives are disproportionately citizens of color. Similarly, voter ID cards are not problems philosophically as much as these ID laws disproportionately affecting poor people and people of color. If you want an ID law, you make IDs free, you account for many of the edge cases like elderly people who don't have birth certificates yet are clearly citizens, and you bend over backwards to make sure everyone who can vote gets one regardless of it costing a little more.
    - CompanionCuuube 7y ago
      > So long as it isn't used to disenfranchise people from a single vote, there's no problem. And you believe it's the Republicans who are hating on immigration enforcement? The proposal for tracking everyone's residence not going to fly(coincidentally another thing you need id to do) with those people.
      - ebiester 7y ago
        Immigration enforcement is easy. Jail every CEO and executive team that hires undocumented immigrants, and fine the company or individual $100 per hour of work from undocumented labor. If you have a threat of jail time or bankruptcy, you won't hire undocumented workers. If you are a farmer who uses undocumented workers, same thing. Put the onus on wealthy citizens for doing the wrong thing and have real consequences. Have sting operations. Yes, there's a basic underground economy of labor like maids, but that's a small portion of the undocumented economy. Then, create a Real immigration system that does not have 15 year wait systems. (http://www.openlawlab.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/IMmigration-Law-Comic-Terry-Colon-Reason.jpg http://www.openlawlab.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/IMmigra...) Fix the H-2A guest worker program. (See https://www.farmworkerjustice.org/advocacy-and-programs/guestworker-programs https://www.farmworkerjustice.org/advocacy-and-programs/gues... ) Provide pathways to citizenship. Replace the H1-B program with one that is not exploitative. (permission to change jobs? Immediate deportation if you lose a job and don't immediately have another?) Accept that grocery and dining prices will rise. Oh, and don't put kids in cages. Treat asylum claimants as human. Provide pathways to legal status. The problem is that every Republican solution is based on punishing those who are poor and turns a blind eye to those who are wealthy.
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NotSammyHagar 7y ago
I think it's semi-legitimate. It's legitimate to have accurate voter lists of course, but aggressively pushing people off is not really legit. Let me explain: It so happens that active voter suppression is actively practiced by republicans, because we have their emails from people in state legislatures to researchers asking questions in two key areas: what forms of ID are minority voters not likely to have that 'our' voters do, so that we could block them for registering [0]. And the second thing is picking your voters, which used to be in both parties but today is pretty much also used by one party. Also doing things like cutting early voting and other extended voting which predominantly let people with low-wage jobs have time to vote on weekends. Another cool one, preventing kids from pre-registering, cause those kids are of course not so conservative [1]. Also we have conservative conferences including ALEC talking about how to suppress voters [2]. Today there is no question that republicans use these tactics to actively suppress votes and voter registration for people that are likely to vote against them. It's not in question, it's not just a few bad apples. [0] https://www.chicagotribune.com/nation-world/ct-north-carolina-voter-id-law-20160902-story.html https://www.chicagotribune.com/nation-world/ct-north-carolin... [1] https://www.thenation.com/article/north-carolina-wont-stop-suppressing-the-vote/ https://www.thenation.com/article/north-carolina-wont-stop-s... [2] https://www.mediamatters.org/american-legislative-exchange-council/five-times-local-media-exposed-alecs-secretive-agenda https://www.mediamatters.org/american-legislative-exchange-c...

wongarsu 7y ago

> There's no requirement to inform your old state you left, so millions of inactive voters are left in the database In Germany when you arrive somewhere we know that you are coming from somewhere. So when you register at your new address that usually involves your new city hall informing your old one that you moved. I guess that doesn't really work if registration isn't universal (in Germany we track you place of residence basically from birth, it's used not just for voting but also for determining where your taxes go, for government communication, to make sure nobody skips out on bills by moving, etc).

CompanionCuuube 7y ago
> (in Germany we track you place of residence basically from birth, it's used not just for voting but also for determining where your taxes go, for government communication, to make sure nobody skips out on bills by moving, etc). If we tried to institute that kind of system, the political party which currently is all against voter id would be up in arms too.
- pjc50 7y ago
  Hardly. The Republicans are against databases, population registration, ID cards, and gun tracking databases. It's only the voter ID they're in favour of.
- ebiester 7y ago
  So long as it isn't used to disenfranchise people from a single vote, there's no problem. Now, things get complicated and we would have to do work to get it right in that we have inconsistent rules on residency in terms of students and temporary housing, and we have a significant number of people who don't want to see a national registry of citizens (see issues with using SSN as a national ID) but there's nothing specifically that Democrats would object to philosophically. The problem comes when we start trying to purge the rolls and there are false positives. The bigger problem is when those false positives are disproportionately citizens of color. Similarly, voter ID cards are not problems philosophically as much as these ID laws disproportionately affecting poor people and people of color. If you want an ID law, you make IDs free, you account for many of the edge cases like elderly people who don't have birth certificates yet are clearly citizens, and you bend over backwards to make sure everyone who can vote gets one regardless of it costing a little more.
  - CompanionCuuube 7y ago
    > So long as it isn't used to disenfranchise people from a single vote, there's no problem. And you believe it's the Republicans who are hating on immigration enforcement? The proposal for tracking everyone's residence not going to fly(coincidentally another thing you need id to do) with those people.
    - ebiester 7y ago
      Immigration enforcement is easy. Jail every CEO and executive team that hires undocumented immigrants, and fine the company or individual $100 per hour of work from undocumented labor. If you have a threat of jail time or bankruptcy, you won't hire undocumented workers. If you are a farmer who uses undocumented workers, same thing. Put the onus on wealthy citizens for doing the wrong thing and have real consequences. Have sting operations. Yes, there's a basic underground economy of labor like maids, but that's a small portion of the undocumented economy. Then, create a Real immigration system that does not have 15 year wait systems. (http://www.openlawlab.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/IMmigration-Law-Comic-Terry-Colon-Reason.jpg http://www.openlawlab.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/IMmigra...) Fix the H-2A guest worker program. (See https://www.farmworkerjustice.org/advocacy-and-programs/guestworker-programs https://www.farmworkerjustice.org/advocacy-and-programs/gues... ) Provide pathways to citizenship. Replace the H1-B program with one that is not exploitative. (permission to change jobs? Immediate deportation if you lose a job and don't immediately have another?) Accept that grocery and dining prices will rise. Oh, and don't put kids in cages. Treat asylum claimants as human. Provide pathways to legal status. The problem is that every Republican solution is based on punishing those who are poor and turns a blind eye to those who are wealthy.
- deleted 7y ago
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- deleted 7y ago
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NotSammyHagar 7y ago

I think it's semi-legitimate. It's legitimate to have accurate voter lists of course, but aggressively pushing people off is not really legit. Let me explain: It so happens that active voter suppression is actively practiced by republicans, because we have their emails from people in state legislatures to researchers asking questions in two key areas: what forms of ID are minority voters not likely to have that 'our' voters do, so that we could block them for registering [0]. And the second thing is picking your voters, which used to be in both parties but today is pretty much also used by one party. Also doing things like cutting early voting and other extended voting which predominantly let people with low-wage jobs have time to vote on weekends. Another cool one, preventing kids from pre-registering, cause those kids are of course not so conservative [1]. Also we have conservative conferences including ALEC talking about how to suppress voters [2]. Today there is no question that republicans use these tactics to actively suppress votes and voter registration for people that are likely to vote against them. It's not in question, it's not just a few bad apples. [0] https://www.chicagotribune.com/nation-world/ct-north-carolina-voter-id-law-20160902-story.html https://www.chicagotribune.com/nation-world/ct-north-carolin... [1] https://www.thenation.com/article/north-carolina-wont-stop-suppressing-the-vote/ https://www.thenation.com/article/north-carolina-wont-stop-s... [2] https://www.mediamatters.org/american-legislative-exchange-council/five-times-local-media-exposed-alecs-secretive-agenda https://www.mediamatters.org/american-legislative-exchange-c...