5 ms·

With the amount of people in the country that are not legally allowed to vote it is not crazy or restrictive to require some proof that you are a citizen to vot

With the amount of people in the country that are not legally allowed to vote it is not crazy or restrictive to require some proof that you are a citizen to vote in a national election.

anoonmoose 5y ago
Where in the US do you think you can vote without providing any proof that you're a citizen? Tell me, and I'll tell you what proof was actually required.
- tastyfreeze 5y ago
  California is the big one. Many states only require proof of residency to vote. Any state that allows something like a utility bill as ID is allowing all residents regardless of citizenship to vote. Not being a citizen isn't an issue for state level elections if that is what the state chooses to allow. But, national election voting rights are only extended to citizens. https://ballotpedia.org/Voter_identification_laws_by_state https://ballotpedia.org/Voter_identification_laws_by_state
  - anoonmoose 5y ago
    Thank you for being specific. You're ignoring the fact that for the requirements listed here [1] to be valid, you need to have already registered to vote. To register, you need to (among other things) sign an affidavit affirming that you are a US citizen. It sounds like your real complaint is about CA not following through on punishment for those who lie on this form. https://ballotpedia.org/Voter_ID_in_California https://ballotpedia.org/Voter_ID_in_California For a non-citizen to vote in CA, they either need to lie about their identity or lie about their citizenship. They are not "allowed to vote".
    - kortilla 5y ago
      If all it takes is a simple lie, you’re not really doing any meaningful verification. If that level of trust was good enough, why not just drop all checks entirely at voting booths and just have a brief questionnaire that asks “are you allowed to vote?”
- Chris2048 5y ago
  They didn't say there was, but there are efforts to reduce ID requirements. Here's the crux: https://www.npr.org/2020/06/12/873878423/voting-and-elections-divide-republicans-and-democrats-like-little-else-heres-why https://www.npr.org/2020/06/12/873878423/voting-and-election... Higher ID requirements increase security, but also improve republican result b/c democratic voters are less likely to have certain IDs (I think). As a result this can be spun either way as Republicans restricting voters, or Democrats opposing countermeasures to fraud. Personally I don't know, I think I'd focus on Democrat behaviour; Given they just got off the back of Russia-gate, and accusing a foreign superpower of interfering in the election, they should also theoretically have a stake in voter fraud. I'd expect them to be focusing more on driving their demographics to acquire ID, rather than loosening requirements. Mail-in voting is a hard one though. As an aside - I'm unconvinced by reports that voter fraud are low. No evidence of fraud isn't evidence of no fraud, and too many news articles or "explainers" seem to focus on lack of evidence versus a secure and airtight verification process. consider https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/noncitizen-voting-missing-millions https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/nonc... : election officials .. referred only an estimated 30 incidents of suspected noncitizen voting.. In other words, improper noncitizen votes accounted for 0.0001 percent of the 2016 votes in those jurisdictions. Forty of the jurisdictions .. reported no known incidents of noncitizen voting.. In the ten counties with the largest populations of noncitizens in 2016, only one reported any instances of noncitizen voting.. In .. the states where Trump claimed the problem of noncitizen voting was especially acute — no official we spoke with identified an incident of noncitizen voting in 2016 The headline claims "no noncitizen voting" but the actual process implies "no noncitizen voting, that officials know about, (or are willing to say)". What it doesn't account for is incompetence, poor vetting/fraud detection and complicity among officials. For the strong claims coming from self-proclaimed voting experts, I'd expect some kind of random sampling of votes, not "we asked the people who counted the votes" - well, they're not likely to condemn their own reports, are they? The fact that a lot of hot air and political context is upfront, and self-critical analysis of their own process is not is what makes me doubtful of these kind of text, despite the credentials/qualifications of the authors.
  - anoonmoose 5y ago
    You're asking people to spend a lot of time, money, and political capital, on an issue that you admit there is little to no evidence is actually a problem. I'm sorry, but that is not reasonable or realistic. I understand the whole issue of "no evidence of fraud doesn't mean no fraud" but if we treated every problem like this we would never run out of problems. When you combine all of what I just said with the fact that we know certain groups are disproportionately effected by these rules...it just comes across as you saying "yes I know there's no evidence that this is a serious problem but I care more about the process being abstractly and theoretically perfect than the people these rule changes would actually effect."
jfengel 5y ago
As I said, the laws in question have nothing to do with the basically-nonexistent "voter fraud". Nothing about voting on Sunday could possibly have anything to do with voter fraud, but that's one of the things they're trying to ban. They're limiting voting hour and removing polling stations, and then making it illegal to give people water while they stand in line. Even if voter fraud were a problem (it isn't), they're not even pretending that these measures have anything to do with it. And that makes it incredibly clear that they don't believe that voter fraud is the reason for any of it.
kbenson 5y ago
That issue is a perfect microcosm to explain both the problem with polarization and information silos, and why progress on an issue like this is so hard, and why no progress is made forming consensus because neither side wants there to be. The left presents the issue as: - People already verify themselves - Voter fraud doesn't happen - This is used to disenfranchise voters by making it harder because poor people are less likely to have a valid ID. The right presents this as: - No proof is required in many jurisdictions - There are instances of voter fraud, and while few, there may be a lot we don't see - Voting is important, so we should take it seriously and require people prove their identity to vote The problem is that both of these sides are entirely true. Namely, verify != proof, and people talk past each other on this, and selective omission of the other side's valid points lets people believe the other side is irrational or wants it in bad faith (Republican operatives may want to make it harder for certain groups of people to vote, but from what I've seen Republican citizens do not). The respective parties have no interest in bringing people to consensus on this issue because right now it's one that activates the bases of the respective parties. It's a way to take moderates that might be tempted to vote against the party line or for the other side for select positions and people that they respect and radicalize them by papering over the real positions of those people with the twisted narrative put forth by the media that caters to that side. People are for the most part rational and compassionate and don't want to hurt each other. But people are also easily misled into believing things because of curated information presented when they don't have counterexamples that they trust or first hand experience to the contrary, and those beliefs cause what is considered rational and compassionate to differ from person to person. We shouldn't hate or dislike the people on the other side, they are just like us. We should engage them usefully, and the first step of engaging usefully is accepting that we're like them also in that we're presented with curated facts, so we should be open to their points when we engage and accept them in good faith.
- tastyfreeze 5y ago
  I haven't seen the left claim that fraud doesn't happen, that is demonstrably false. There are a few convicted vote fraud cases annually. The claim is that it is insignificant.

With the amount of people in the country that are not legally allowed to vote it is not crazy or restrictive to require some proof that you are a citizen to vote in a national election.

anoonmoose 5y ago

Where in the US do you think you can vote without providing any proof that you're a citizen? Tell me, and I'll tell you what proof was actually required.

tastyfreeze 5y ago
California is the big one. Many states only require proof of residency to vote. Any state that allows something like a utility bill as ID is allowing all residents regardless of citizenship to vote. Not being a citizen isn't an issue for state level elections if that is what the state chooses to allow. But, national election voting rights are only extended to citizens. https://ballotpedia.org/Voter_identification_laws_by_state https://ballotpedia.org/Voter_identification_laws_by_state
- anoonmoose 5y ago
  Thank you for being specific. You're ignoring the fact that for the requirements listed here [1] to be valid, you need to have already registered to vote. To register, you need to (among other things) sign an affidavit affirming that you are a US citizen. It sounds like your real complaint is about CA not following through on punishment for those who lie on this form. https://ballotpedia.org/Voter_ID_in_California https://ballotpedia.org/Voter_ID_in_California For a non-citizen to vote in CA, they either need to lie about their identity or lie about their citizenship. They are not "allowed to vote".
  - kortilla 5y ago
    If all it takes is a simple lie, you’re not really doing any meaningful verification. If that level of trust was good enough, why not just drop all checks entirely at voting booths and just have a brief questionnaire that asks “are you allowed to vote?”
Chris2048 5y ago
They didn't say there was, but there are efforts to reduce ID requirements. Here's the crux: https://www.npr.org/2020/06/12/873878423/voting-and-elections-divide-republicans-and-democrats-like-little-else-heres-why https://www.npr.org/2020/06/12/873878423/voting-and-election... Higher ID requirements increase security, but also improve republican result b/c democratic voters are less likely to have certain IDs (I think). As a result this can be spun either way as Republicans restricting voters, or Democrats opposing countermeasures to fraud. Personally I don't know, I think I'd focus on Democrat behaviour; Given they just got off the back of Russia-gate, and accusing a foreign superpower of interfering in the election, they should also theoretically have a stake in voter fraud. I'd expect them to be focusing more on driving their demographics to acquire ID, rather than loosening requirements. Mail-in voting is a hard one though. As an aside - I'm unconvinced by reports that voter fraud are low. No evidence of fraud isn't evidence of no fraud, and too many news articles or "explainers" seem to focus on lack of evidence versus a secure and airtight verification process. consider https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/noncitizen-voting-missing-millions https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/nonc... : election officials .. referred only an estimated 30 incidents of suspected noncitizen voting.. In other words, improper noncitizen votes accounted for 0.0001 percent of the 2016 votes in those jurisdictions. Forty of the jurisdictions .. reported no known incidents of noncitizen voting.. In the ten counties with the largest populations of noncitizens in 2016, only one reported any instances of noncitizen voting.. In .. the states where Trump claimed the problem of noncitizen voting was especially acute — no official we spoke with identified an incident of noncitizen voting in 2016 The headline claims "no noncitizen voting" but the actual process implies "no noncitizen voting, that officials know about, (or are willing to say)". What it doesn't account for is incompetence, poor vetting/fraud detection and complicity among officials. For the strong claims coming from self-proclaimed voting experts, I'd expect some kind of random sampling of votes, not "we asked the people who counted the votes" - well, they're not likely to condemn their own reports, are they? The fact that a lot of hot air and political context is upfront, and self-critical analysis of their own process is not is what makes me doubtful of these kind of text, despite the credentials/qualifications of the authors.
- anoonmoose 5y ago
  You're asking people to spend a lot of time, money, and political capital, on an issue that you admit there is little to no evidence is actually a problem. I'm sorry, but that is not reasonable or realistic. I understand the whole issue of "no evidence of fraud doesn't mean no fraud" but if we treated every problem like this we would never run out of problems. When you combine all of what I just said with the fact that we know certain groups are disproportionately effected by these rules...it just comes across as you saying "yes I know there's no evidence that this is a serious problem but I care more about the process being abstractly and theoretically perfect than the people these rule changes would actually effect."

jfengel 5y ago

As I said, the laws in question have nothing to do with the basically-nonexistent "voter fraud". Nothing about voting on Sunday could possibly have anything to do with voter fraud, but that's one of the things they're trying to ban. They're limiting voting hour and removing polling stations, and then making it illegal to give people water while they stand in line. Even if voter fraud were a problem (it isn't), they're not even pretending that these measures have anything to do with it. And that makes it incredibly clear that they don't believe that voter fraud is the reason for any of it.

kbenson 5y ago

That issue is a perfect microcosm to explain both the problem with polarization and information silos, and why progress on an issue like this is so hard, and why no progress is made forming consensus because neither side wants there to be. The left presents the issue as: - People already verify themselves - Voter fraud doesn't happen - This is used to disenfranchise voters by making it harder because poor people are less likely to have a valid ID. The right presents this as: - No proof is required in many jurisdictions - There are instances of voter fraud, and while few, there may be a lot we don't see - Voting is important, so we should take it seriously and require people prove their identity to vote The problem is that both of these sides are entirely true. Namely, verify != proof, and people talk past each other on this, and selective omission of the other side's valid points lets people believe the other side is irrational or wants it in bad faith (Republican operatives may want to make it harder for certain groups of people to vote, but from what I've seen Republican citizens do not). The respective parties have no interest in bringing people to consensus on this issue because right now it's one that activates the bases of the respective parties. It's a way to take moderates that might be tempted to vote against the party line or for the other side for select positions and people that they respect and radicalize them by papering over the real positions of those people with the twisted narrative put forth by the media that caters to that side. People are for the most part rational and compassionate and don't want to hurt each other. But people are also easily misled into believing things because of curated information presented when they don't have counterexamples that they trust or first hand experience to the contrary, and those beliefs cause what is considered rational and compassionate to differ from person to person. We shouldn't hate or dislike the people on the other side, they are just like us. We should engage them usefully, and the first step of engaging usefully is accepting that we're like them also in that we're presented with curated facts, so we should be open to their points when we engage and accept them in good faith.

tastyfreeze 5y ago
I haven't seen the left claim that fraud doesn't happen, that is demonstrably false. There are a few convicted vote fraud cases annually. The claim is that it is insignificant.