8 ms·

> For some reason progressives are against voter ID laws. It’s a barrier preventing citizens from exercising constitutional rights. The need isn’t clearly de

by mulmen 4y ago

> For some reason progressives are against voter ID laws. It’s a barrier preventing citizens from exercising constitutional rights. The need isn’t clearly demonstrated to justify the restriction. Voter ID laws have different outcomes based on economic status. It’s especially difficult for poor people to exercise their rights. > People have stopped thinking for themselves. Or maybe someone else thought of something you haven’t. None of us can discover everything individually. Almost everything you know is someone else thinking for you.

jjslocum3 4y ago
I think that the progressive default argument on this topic is pretty transparent BS. If it's too hard for some people to get an ID, make it easier for everyone to get an ID. Don't open up elections to an obvious fraud vector.
- corrral 4y ago
  The Republicans aren't interested in ensuring IDs are easy & free to get as part of their voter ID bills, because it defeats the purpose of why they're so enthusiastic for this to begin with. Democrats don't trust anything short of very concrete and explicit measures in that regard, for fear that the rug will be pulled later, similar to polling-place distribution/availability issues in some places. Standard, universal, free federal IDs are an obvious solution to this that would also solve a shitload of other problems and irritations that come with living in this country, but they're opposed by both sides—more by the Republicans, for a mix of general don't-trust-the-government and religious reasons (to international readers: yes, seriously), but also by many Democrats (largely over a history of absolutely crazy-to-read-about, but very much real, police surveillance and harassment programs targeting civil rights activists).
  - _-david-_ 4y ago
    Republicans do offer free IDs in every state where they mandate IDs for voting. It may not always be the easiest to get since you have to go to the DMV though. Do you think Democrats would be willing to have voter ID laws if the post office offered free IDs?
    - corrral 4y ago
      > Do you think Democrats would be willing to have voter ID laws if the post office offered free IDs? Possibly. The Democrats' motivations aren't enabling voter fraud—they're driven by concern that these laws will disadvantage them at the polls for non-fraud-related reasons, and probably to some degree by not wanting to give the Republicans a "win" over something they see as political grandstanding without an actual, realized-in-the-world problem that it's addressing. If you can address enough of one or both of those, they'd probably at least not fight it very hard, if not support it. [EDIT] I love that I have no idea which sort of person I've upset enough to get two downvotes on this. I truly have no clue. Seemed like a very neutral observation, to me, but I guess not.
    - mulmen 4y ago
      > Do you think Democrats would be willing to have voter ID laws if the post office offered free IDs? No because proximity to a Post Office isn't a reasonable criteria for suppressing a persons right to vote. Especially because: > It may not always be the easiest to get
      - _-david-_ 4y ago
        >No because proximity to a Post Office isn't a reasonable criteria for suppressing a persons right to vote. How does Europe do it? Do you believe the way they do it suppresses a person's right to vote? If we did it the same way as Europe would you be fine with ID laws in the US? If requiring an ID is suppressing voting rights then requiring and ID and a background check (that you may even have to pay for) to purchase a gun is a violation of rights. Do you support removing the background check cost and ID requirement? If not then I don't really care if you think requiring an ID is suppressing voting since you support suppressing other rights with ID requirements. >Especially because There are two hardships currently 1. You have to prove you are who you say you are. 2. You have to wait in the DMV For #1 this is a requirement in Europe as far as I know. I haven't seen anybody saying that suppresses votes. You may be the first? For #2 that is easy to solve by allowing ID services at additional places like the post office. I would be open to more than just the post office and DMVs, I just used the post office because they already have passport services so it is easy to add other IDs.
  - lp0_on_fire 4y ago
    Can you name a single state with voter id laws on the books that does not offer a free form of ID suitable to vote? Reminder: a _drivers license_ and state-issued ID are _not_ one and the same.
    - corrral 4y ago
      The easy-to-get is also important. Plenty of people who absolutely are citizens, born in this country, lack things like birth certificates or social security cards, and getting one can be a huge pain, sometimes requiring significant travel and expense. Often these are older people, or the homeless.
- mulmen 4y ago
  Well the fraud vector isn't obvious. Voter IDs wouldn't solve any of the fraud that has been uncovered as far as I can tell. So it seems to be a solution in search of a problem. Now if you want to talk about National IDs that's a whole other can of worms.
- eropple 4y ago
  If the folks pushing voter IDs were doing so for egalitarian reasons, they would be doing this. They're not. What's that tell you?
- vkou 4y ago
  > make it easier for everyone to get an ID. The same people that push for voter ID also make it difficult for everyone to get an ID. Those people also have a stranglehold on their state legislatures, and executive agencies that assign IDs. They also push for other laughably biased voting rules, like only allowing mail-in ballots from demographics that vote for them (65+). [1] It's not about fairness for them, it's about winning. It's why I can't give the time of day to their fig leaf about voter fraud. [1] https://www.sos.texas.gov/elections/voter/reqabbm.shtml https://www.sos.texas.gov/elections/voter/reqabbm.shtml
  - adamrezich 4y ago
    does this notion solely come from people who live in states with ridiculous taxes on everything? here in SD it just cost me somewhere around $22 to get my driver's license renewed. when I lived in WA I went to the DMV with a friend who had to get her license renewed one day and I said screw it I might as well get a WA license while I'm here. my jaw fell to the floor when, at the end of the process, they said it would cost me $80. $22 is not hard for anyone to save, especially with all the generous welfare programs we have. if you're impoverished, you can easily get EBT to buy food, WIC to buy baby formula, and, here at least, Section 8 housing and other programs to get a place to live. no amount of "think of the poor people whom I've never met but assume exist somewhere despite me never interacting with them directly" will ever convince me that someone who really wants to vote can't save $22 to acquire a legal ID. hell, if it's that big of a deal, then start some charity program to pay for people to get legal ID!
    - lp0_on_fire 4y ago
      > $22 is not hard for anyone to save, especially with all the generous welfare programs we have. if you're impoverished, you can easily get EBT to buy food, WIC to buy baby formula, and, here at least, Section 8 housing and other programs to get a place to live. no amount of "think of the poor people whom I've never met but assume exist somewhere despite me never interacting with them directly" will ever convince me that someone who really wants to vote can't save $22 to acquire a legal ID. You don't even need to save 22 bucks. Every state in the union has _at least_ a free "needs based" ID option and for the Voter ID states they all provide a free IDs (for the purposes of voting, not necessarily drivers licenses).
tyen_ 4y ago
> It’s a barrier for poor people to exercise their rights. This is delusional. ID is required for so many daily activities and the price of an ID (if they charge for it) is less than $10.
- jcranmer 4y ago
  In Alabama, it's $36.25 (cite: https://www.alea.gov/dps/driver-license/license-and-id-cards https://www.alea.gov/dps/driver-license/license-and-id-cards).
  - systemvoltage 4y ago
    So instead of opposing the entire idea of voter IDs, why do we not pass a Federal law that makes getting an ID free of charge? Seems like that's the root cause or the main contention.
    - shadowgovt 4y ago
      There's a big can of worms here. The thumbnail sketch is "Americans have some (as viewed from outside the US) odd and severe hangups about being tracked by the government that is, ostensibly, theirs." Reasons range from the practical / legal ones listed by the ACLU (https://www.aclu.org/other/5-problems-national-id-cards https://www.aclu.org/other/5-problems-national-id-cards) to a small-but-vocal subset of voters who actually believe (because so much of the US is descended from Christian zealots fleeing persecution in their home countries for heterodoxy) that a card issued by your government that is required to participate in society is a literal "mark of the beast" as per the biblical Book of Revelations and therefore something to be resisted as part of a struggle against anti-Christendom.
      - systemvoltage 4y ago
        No, I meant, passing a law that says "$0 for all state IDs". Not talking about National ID.
- mulmen 4y ago
Georgelemental 4y ago
> It’s a barrier preventing citizens from exercising constitutional rights. No, election fraud enabled by lack of voter ID is a barrier that prevents eligible voters from fully exercising their constitutional right to the franchise by diluting the power of their legitimate votes with fraudulent ones.
- mulmen 4y ago
  Voter ID doesn't prevent election fraud. And it is an imperfect solution to voter fraud, which doesn't meaningfully exist because we already have better mechanisms to prevent it.
skissane 4y ago
> Voter ID laws have different outcomes based on economic status. It’s especially difficult for poor people to exercise their rights. Increasingly, Republicans are the party of the poor and Democrats the party of the rich. In the 2020 election, "the wealthiest parts of the country overwhelmingly voted for Biden and the poorest overwhelmingly for Trump". [0] In 2016, "the Republican Party won almost twice the share of votes in the nation’s most destitute counties — home to the poorest 10 percent of Americans — than it won in the richest". [1] If voter ID requirements are all about suppressing the vote of the poor, does this mean that Democrats will start supporting them and Republicans start opposing them, now that the vote of the poor skews increasingly more Republican than Democratic? Or, could it be, that very many poor Americans have no trouble getting ID, and even support voter ID requirements? Increasingly, even many poor minority voters vote Republican. Trump made significant gains in the 2020 election in Hispanic majority counties of southern Texas – which are also among the poorest areas in the state. [2] [0] https://www.businessinsider.com/how-the-2020-election-revealed-divide-in-american-dream-2020-11 https://www.businessinsider.com/how-the-2020-election-reveal... [1] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/01/27/business/economy/republican-party-voters-income.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/01/27/business/econ... [2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/02/28/republicans-south-texas-primary/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/02/28/republica...
- mulmen 4y ago
  Or maybe the Republicans are better at voter suppression and that's why you don't see the poor Democratic voters?
  - skissane 4y ago
    I cited a NY Times article on how poor Americans are increasingly voting Republican. Given the overall political lean of the NY Times, I expect they'd be very happy to promote your theory if there was any evidence for it. Yet they didn't mention it, because there doesn't appear to be any.
    - mulmen 4y ago

by mulmen 4y ago

jjslocum3 4y ago

I think that the progressive default argument on this topic is pretty transparent BS. If it's too hard for some people to get an ID, make it easier for everyone to get an ID. Don't open up elections to an obvious fraud vector.

corrral 4y ago
The Republicans aren't interested in ensuring IDs are easy & free to get as part of their voter ID bills, because it defeats the purpose of why they're so enthusiastic for this to begin with. Democrats don't trust anything short of very concrete and explicit measures in that regard, for fear that the rug will be pulled later, similar to polling-place distribution/availability issues in some places. Standard, universal, free federal IDs are an obvious solution to this that would also solve a shitload of other problems and irritations that come with living in this country, but they're opposed by both sides—more by the Republicans, for a mix of general don't-trust-the-government and religious reasons (to international readers: yes, seriously), but also by many Democrats (largely over a history of absolutely crazy-to-read-about, but very much real, police surveillance and harassment programs targeting civil rights activists).
- _-david-_ 4y ago
  Republicans do offer free IDs in every state where they mandate IDs for voting. It may not always be the easiest to get since you have to go to the DMV though. Do you think Democrats would be willing to have voter ID laws if the post office offered free IDs?
  - corrral 4y ago
    > Do you think Democrats would be willing to have voter ID laws if the post office offered free IDs? Possibly. The Democrats' motivations aren't enabling voter fraud—they're driven by concern that these laws will disadvantage them at the polls for non-fraud-related reasons, and probably to some degree by not wanting to give the Republicans a "win" over something they see as political grandstanding without an actual, realized-in-the-world problem that it's addressing. If you can address enough of one or both of those, they'd probably at least not fight it very hard, if not support it. [EDIT] I love that I have no idea which sort of person I've upset enough to get two downvotes on this. I truly have no clue. Seemed like a very neutral observation, to me, but I guess not.
  - mulmen 4y ago
    > Do you think Democrats would be willing to have voter ID laws if the post office offered free IDs? No because proximity to a Post Office isn't a reasonable criteria for suppressing a persons right to vote. Especially because: > It may not always be the easiest to get
    - _-david-_ 4y ago
      >No because proximity to a Post Office isn't a reasonable criteria for suppressing a persons right to vote. How does Europe do it? Do you believe the way they do it suppresses a person's right to vote? If we did it the same way as Europe would you be fine with ID laws in the US? If requiring an ID is suppressing voting rights then requiring and ID and a background check (that you may even have to pay for) to purchase a gun is a violation of rights. Do you support removing the background check cost and ID requirement? If not then I don't really care if you think requiring an ID is suppressing voting since you support suppressing other rights with ID requirements. >Especially because There are two hardships currently 1. You have to prove you are who you say you are. 2. You have to wait in the DMV For #1 this is a requirement in Europe as far as I know. I haven't seen anybody saying that suppresses votes. You may be the first? For #2 that is easy to solve by allowing ID services at additional places like the post office. I would be open to more than just the post office and DMVs, I just used the post office because they already have passport services so it is easy to add other IDs.
- lp0_on_fire 4y ago
  Can you name a single state with voter id laws on the books that does not offer a free form of ID suitable to vote? Reminder: a _drivers license_ and state-issued ID are _not_ one and the same.
  - corrral 4y ago
    The easy-to-get is also important. Plenty of people who absolutely are citizens, born in this country, lack things like birth certificates or social security cards, and getting one can be a huge pain, sometimes requiring significant travel and expense. Often these are older people, or the homeless.
mulmen 4y ago
Well the fraud vector isn't obvious. Voter IDs wouldn't solve any of the fraud that has been uncovered as far as I can tell. So it seems to be a solution in search of a problem. Now if you want to talk about National IDs that's a whole other can of worms.
eropple 4y ago
If the folks pushing voter IDs were doing so for egalitarian reasons, they would be doing this. They're not. What's that tell you?
vkou 4y ago
> make it easier for everyone to get an ID. The same people that push for voter ID also make it difficult for everyone to get an ID. Those people also have a stranglehold on their state legislatures, and executive agencies that assign IDs. They also push for other laughably biased voting rules, like only allowing mail-in ballots from demographics that vote for them (65+). [1] It's not about fairness for them, it's about winning. It's why I can't give the time of day to their fig leaf about voter fraud. [1] https://www.sos.texas.gov/elections/voter/reqabbm.shtml https://www.sos.texas.gov/elections/voter/reqabbm.shtml
- adamrezich 4y ago
  does this notion solely come from people who live in states with ridiculous taxes on everything? here in SD it just cost me somewhere around $22 to get my driver's license renewed. when I lived in WA I went to the DMV with a friend who had to get her license renewed one day and I said screw it I might as well get a WA license while I'm here. my jaw fell to the floor when, at the end of the process, they said it would cost me $80. $22 is not hard for anyone to save, especially with all the generous welfare programs we have. if you're impoverished, you can easily get EBT to buy food, WIC to buy baby formula, and, here at least, Section 8 housing and other programs to get a place to live. no amount of "think of the poor people whom I've never met but assume exist somewhere despite me never interacting with them directly" will ever convince me that someone who really wants to vote can't save $22 to acquire a legal ID. hell, if it's that big of a deal, then start some charity program to pay for people to get legal ID!
  - lp0_on_fire 4y ago
    > $22 is not hard for anyone to save, especially with all the generous welfare programs we have. if you're impoverished, you can easily get EBT to buy food, WIC to buy baby formula, and, here at least, Section 8 housing and other programs to get a place to live. no amount of "think of the poor people whom I've never met but assume exist somewhere despite me never interacting with them directly" will ever convince me that someone who really wants to vote can't save $22 to acquire a legal ID. You don't even need to save 22 bucks. Every state in the union has _at least_ a free "needs based" ID option and for the Voter ID states they all provide a free IDs (for the purposes of voting, not necessarily drivers licenses).

tyen_ 4y ago

> It’s a barrier for poor people to exercise their rights. This is delusional. ID is required for so many daily activities and the price of an ID (if they charge for it) is less than $10.

jcranmer 4y ago
In Alabama, it's $36.25 (cite: https://www.alea.gov/dps/driver-license/license-and-id-cards https://www.alea.gov/dps/driver-license/license-and-id-cards).
- systemvoltage 4y ago
  So instead of opposing the entire idea of voter IDs, why do we not pass a Federal law that makes getting an ID free of charge? Seems like that's the root cause or the main contention.
  - shadowgovt 4y ago
    There's a big can of worms here. The thumbnail sketch is "Americans have some (as viewed from outside the US) odd and severe hangups about being tracked by the government that is, ostensibly, theirs." Reasons range from the practical / legal ones listed by the ACLU (https://www.aclu.org/other/5-problems-national-id-cards https://www.aclu.org/other/5-problems-national-id-cards) to a small-but-vocal subset of voters who actually believe (because so much of the US is descended from Christian zealots fleeing persecution in their home countries for heterodoxy) that a card issued by your government that is required to participate in society is a literal "mark of the beast" as per the biblical Book of Revelations and therefore something to be resisted as part of a struggle against anti-Christendom.
    - systemvoltage 4y ago
      No, I meant, passing a law that says "$0 for all state IDs". Not talking about National ID.
mulmen 4y ago

Georgelemental 4y ago

> It’s a barrier preventing citizens from exercising constitutional rights. No, election fraud enabled by lack of voter ID is a barrier that prevents eligible voters from fully exercising their constitutional right to the franchise by diluting the power of their legitimate votes with fraudulent ones.

mulmen 4y ago
Voter ID doesn't prevent election fraud. And it is an imperfect solution to voter fraud, which doesn't meaningfully exist because we already have better mechanisms to prevent it.

skissane 4y ago

> Voter ID laws have different outcomes based on economic status. It’s especially difficult for poor people to exercise their rights. Increasingly, Republicans are the party of the poor and Democrats the party of the rich. In the 2020 election, "the wealthiest parts of the country overwhelmingly voted for Biden and the poorest overwhelmingly for Trump". [0] In 2016, "the Republican Party won almost twice the share of votes in the nation’s most destitute counties — home to the poorest 10 percent of Americans — than it won in the richest". [1] If voter ID requirements are all about suppressing the vote of the poor, does this mean that Democrats will start supporting them and Republicans start opposing them, now that the vote of the poor skews increasingly more Republican than Democratic? Or, could it be, that very many poor Americans have no trouble getting ID, and even support voter ID requirements? Increasingly, even many poor minority voters vote Republican. Trump made significant gains in the 2020 election in Hispanic majority counties of southern Texas – which are also among the poorest areas in the state. [2] [0] https://www.businessinsider.com/how-the-2020-election-revealed-divide-in-american-dream-2020-11 https://www.businessinsider.com/how-the-2020-election-reveal... [1] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/01/27/business/economy/republican-party-voters-income.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/01/27/business/econ... [2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/02/28/republicans-south-texas-primary/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/02/28/republica...

mulmen 4y ago
Or maybe the Republicans are better at voter suppression and that's why you don't see the poor Democratic voters?
- skissane 4y ago
  I cited a NY Times article on how poor Americans are increasingly voting Republican. Given the overall political lean of the NY Times, I expect they'd be very happy to promote your theory if there was any evidence for it. Yet they didn't mention it, because there doesn't appear to be any.
  - mulmen 4y ago