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> Same could be said about "widespread voter ID fraud". Given that there are no such examples of this, I could make many comments here about the actual electio

> Same could be said about "widespread voter ID fraud". Given that there are no such examples of this, I could make many comments here about the actual election system and how recounts are designed to be worthless, but my biggest argument that I think is completely unassailable is simple: credibility. Do you want to have a credible government or not? Here's a poll from early in 2020 that says that about 59% of Americans distrust the election system. I'm sure you could find many other polls from before and after that show that a non-trivial percentage of Americans have doubts about the election system's honesty. https://www.usnews.com/news/elections/articles/2020-02-13/majority-of-americans-dont-trust-elections-poll https://www.usnews.com/news/elections/articles/2020-02-13/ma... Why wouldn't we want to take the concerns of a non-trivial group seriously and work to address them? The mere fact that there's such establishment resistance to enhancing the security of and ability to audit the election system only adds fuel to the fire that there's something that they want to hide. > why would anyone want to push for more stringent voter ID laws? As long as we're not preventing any valid voters from voting (a legitimate concern of course), what's the argument against making the election process even more credible and secure? Please help me understand that. > Anyhow, here's an example of why and how such laws target minorities and lower classes: https://www.americanbar.org/groups/crsj/publications/human_r https://www.americanbar.org/groups/crsj/publications/human_r... Let me start out by saying that this article did not meet my stated criteria of asking for a specific name of somebody who was unable to get an ID. I was very specific in asking for a name because even just one real verifiable example of a person can illustrate the issue. Anyway, I agree that the article does highlight some theoretical issues with applying unnecessary hoops to people. I sincerely hope that all people in uncommon living situations (such as those with nonexistent addresses on an Indian Reservation or living out in the sticks somewhere) have the legal ability to vote. To play Devil's Advocate and be a bit contrarian however, I have to point out this article was a one-sided polemic. The best anecdote from the article about the grandma showed that she was able to vote the same day once she got a little assistance. And the article made a big deal about the distances that poor folks had to travel in order to vote, but the phrase "absentee ballot" doesn't even appear in the article. The article does mention the difficulties with rural mail being slow, but doesn't give even one example where this prevented somebody from voting. I'm certainly going to keep an open mind about the struggles involved in getting ID and voting and I fully agree that any election system that exists should be easily accessible to all valid voters, but I'm not convinced from this article that there's 1 legal citizen out there who can't figure out how to ultimately acquire identification.

manuelabeledo 5y ago
> Do you want to have a credible government or not? That's not at stake, again, unless you can prove that widespread election fraud is a thing. Which, so far, isn't. > Here's a poll from early in 2020 that says that about 59% of Americans distrust the election system. Out of curiosity, I went to check out the actual Gallup article and poll results [1]. What it actually says is that the drop is likely driven by allegations of foreign interference and cybersecurity issues, neither had anything to do with voter ID. A more recent poll [2] increases confidence in the electoral process to 59%. Drop in confidence is driven by republican voters. Interestingly, the issue of eligible voters not being able to cast their vote ranks higher than non eligible people casting votes. So, voter suppression is perceived as more important than voter fraud. Let me reiterate, there is no proof of widespread voter fraud. The issue here is that voter IDs are, sometimes, quite difficult to obtain. If republicans were serious about this issue, they would make it universal, free, and compulsory. If every single person born in the US could have an ID card issued in a matter of minutes, which is something pretty common in most developed countries, this "problem" would automatically be solved. But this is not what Republicans want. They don't want to make it easier or cheaper to obtain a voter ID, they want to keep the current model and make it harder to vote. > Let me start out by saying that this article did not meet my stated criteria of asking for a specific name of somebody who was unable to get an ID. Well, this is unfortunate. Frankly, I find it a bit dishonest to peddle the narrative that people want harsher voter ID laws, since, as stated, they care more about suppression than they do about fraud. It's also not great that your argument revolves around that voter ID laws would make elections more "secure", when there is no proof that they weren't in the first place. A poll is not proof of anything. Public sentiment is just that, a sentiment. The fact that most republican voters believe that voter fraud is widespread, does not mean that they would change their minds if what they ask for is granted. And I don't need to go back too far to prove my point, because the fraud narrative has been moving goalposts since the very beginning, as they went from illegal absentee votes, to votes arriving too late to be counted, to dead people voting, to foreign votes (?) being counted, to voting machines being hacked, and so on and so forth. None of these claims could be verified, yet here we are. [1] https://news.gallup.com/poll/285608/faith-elections-relatively-short-supply.aspxrecord-low.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/285608/faith-elections-relative... [2] https://news.gallup.com/poll/321665/confidence-accuracy-election-matches-record-low.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/321665/confidence-accuracy-elec...

manuelabeledo 5y ago

> Do you want to have a credible government or not? That's not at stake, again, unless you can prove that widespread election fraud is a thing. Which, so far, isn't. > Here's a poll from early in 2020 that says that about 59% of Americans distrust the election system. Out of curiosity, I went to check out the actual Gallup article and poll results [1]. What it actually says is that the drop is likely driven by allegations of foreign interference and cybersecurity issues, neither had anything to do with voter ID. A more recent poll [2] increases confidence in the electoral process to 59%. Drop in confidence is driven by republican voters. Interestingly, the issue of eligible voters not being able to cast their vote ranks higher than non eligible people casting votes. So, voter suppression is perceived as more important than voter fraud. Let me reiterate, there is no proof of widespread voter fraud. The issue here is that voter IDs are, sometimes, quite difficult to obtain. If republicans were serious about this issue, they would make it universal, free, and compulsory. If every single person born in the US could have an ID card issued in a matter of minutes, which is something pretty common in most developed countries, this "problem" would automatically be solved. But this is not what Republicans want. They don't want to make it easier or cheaper to obtain a voter ID, they want to keep the current model and make it harder to vote. > Let me start out by saying that this article did not meet my stated criteria of asking for a specific name of somebody who was unable to get an ID. Well, this is unfortunate. Frankly, I find it a bit dishonest to peddle the narrative that people want harsher voter ID laws, since, as stated, they care more about suppression than they do about fraud. It's also not great that your argument revolves around that voter ID laws would make elections more "secure", when there is no proof that they weren't in the first place. A poll is not proof of anything. Public sentiment is just that, a sentiment. The fact that most republican voters believe that voter fraud is widespread, does not mean that they would change their minds if what they ask for is granted. And I don't need to go back too far to prove my point, because the fraud narrative has been moving goalposts since the very beginning, as they went from illegal absentee votes, to votes arriving too late to be counted, to dead people voting, to foreign votes (?) being counted, to voting machines being hacked, and so on and so forth. None of these claims could be verified, yet here we are. [1] https://news.gallup.com/poll/285608/faith-elections-relatively-short-supply.aspxrecord-low.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/285608/faith-elections-relative... [2] https://news.gallup.com/poll/321665/confidence-accuracy-election-matches-record-low.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/321665/confidence-accuracy-elec...