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Isn't it possible that closing DMVs had absolutely nothing to do with voting? Alaska, for example, has been restricting services provided by DMVs to cut back o

Isn't it possible that closing DMVs had absolutely nothing to do with voting? Alaska, for example, has been restricting services provided by DMVs to cut back on spending. Democrats have claimed an inability for some to get IDs as a wedge every time voter ID is proposed. Often the claim is that minorities aren't able to get an ID. What a condescending statement. Everybody that wants an ID has an ID. ID is required for many aspects of life in the US. I do not believe that an inability to get an ID is as widespread as is talked about. Skin color certainly is not a factor on ability to get an ID. There are 22 states that require photo ID to vote. There are an additional 15 states that require ID but accept non-photo IDs. There are only 15 states that do not require any verification that a person is who they say they are when voting. Not requiring any ID to vote is a minority position. The Democrat party seems to be exceptionally vocal about not requiring ID to vote. That only leads me to ask why? What do they gain from not requiring ID to vote? I would be asking these questions regardless of the party that was vocal about the issue. I do not have allegiance to either party. I see government in general as an enemy of the individual. I do support voter ID as it prevents a specific type of shenanigans.

jnosCo 4y ago
> Skin color certainly is not a factor on ability to get an ID. "GAO compared turnout in two states—Kansas and Tennessee—that changed ID requirements from the 2008 to 2012 general elections with turnout in fourselected states—Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, and Maine—that did not. GAO used a quasi-experimental approach, a type of policy evaluation that compares how an outcome changes over time in a treatment groupthat adopted a new policy, to a comparison group that did not make the same change. GAO selected states for evaluation that did not have other factors in their election environments that also may have affected turnout, such as significant changes to other election laws. GAO analyzed three sources of turnout data for the 2008 and 2012 general elections: (1) data on eligible voters, using official voter records compiled by the United States Elections Project at George Mason University, (2) data on registered voters, using state voter databases that were cleaned by a vendor through data-matching procedures to remove voters who had died or moved, and (3) data on registered voters, as reported to the Current Population Survey conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau. [...] GAO also estimated changes in turnout among subpopulations of registrants in Kansas and Tennessee according to their age, length of voter registration, and race or ethnicity. In both Kansas and Tennessee, compared with the four comparison states, GAO found that turnout was reduced by larger amounts: among registrants, as of 2008, between the ages of 18 and 23 than among registrants between the ages of 44 and 53; among registrants who had been registered less than 1 year than among registrants who had been registered 20 years or more; and *among African-American registrants than among White, Asian-American, and Hispanic registrants. GAO did not find consistent reductions in turnout among Asian-American or Hispanic registrants compared to White registrants, thus suggesting that the laws did not have larger effects among these subgroups." https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-14-634 https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-14-634 I'd like to see a more recent study, but analysis shows voter ID law impacting
mulmen 4y ago
Voter fraud is a made up problem. It simply doesn't meaningfully exist. We already have guardrails on it. They work. Take a look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_suppression_in_the_United_States#Modern_examples https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_suppression_in_the_Unite... for inspiration on how Voter ID laws could be used to suppress votes in a targeted manner. There absolutely are people in the United States today who do not have government issued ID, do not want it, and still are and should be entitled to vote.

jnosCo 4y ago

> Skin color certainly is not a factor on ability to get an ID. "GAO compared turnout in two states—Kansas and Tennessee—that changed ID requirements from the 2008 to 2012 general elections with turnout in fourselected states—Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, and Maine—that did not. GAO used a quasi-experimental approach, a type of policy evaluation that compares how an outcome changes over time in a treatment groupthat adopted a new policy, to a comparison group that did not make the same change. GAO selected states for evaluation that did not have other factors in their election environments that also may have affected turnout, such as significant changes to other election laws. GAO analyzed three sources of turnout data for the 2008 and 2012 general elections: (1) data on eligible voters, using official voter records compiled by the United States Elections Project at George Mason University, (2) data on registered voters, using state voter databases that were cleaned by a vendor through data-matching procedures to remove voters who had died or moved, and (3) data on registered voters, as reported to the Current Population Survey conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau. [...] GAO also estimated changes in turnout among subpopulations of registrants in Kansas and Tennessee according to their age, length of voter registration, and race or ethnicity. In both Kansas and Tennessee, compared with the four comparison states, GAO found that turnout was reduced by larger amounts: among registrants, as of 2008, between the ages of 18 and 23 than among registrants between the ages of 44 and 53; among registrants who had been registered less than 1 year than among registrants who had been registered 20 years or more; and *among African-American registrants than among White, Asian-American, and Hispanic registrants. GAO did not find consistent reductions in turnout among Asian-American or Hispanic registrants compared to White registrants, thus suggesting that the laws did not have larger effects among these subgroups." https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-14-634 https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-14-634 I'd like to see a more recent study, but analysis shows voter ID law impacting

mulmen 4y ago

Voter fraud is a made up problem. It simply doesn't meaningfully exist. We already have guardrails on it. They work. Take a look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_suppression_in_the_United_States#Modern_examples https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_suppression_in_the_Unite... for inspiration on how Voter ID laws could be used to suppress votes in a targeted manner. There absolutely are people in the United States today who do not have government issued ID, do not want it, and still are and should be entitled to vote.