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Recently they have all agreed that voter ID laws "just make sense." But they don't even bring up any of the unpleasant history around IDs. This year is the 80t

Recently they have all agreed that voter ID laws "just make sense." But they don't even bring up any of the unpleasant history around IDs. This year is the 80th anniversary of the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, do they really need to go through the history of IDs? We need to rebuild confidence in the integrity of elections, Voter ID, which most democratic countries require, seems like an incredibly modest step. The states that historically had the worst race issues all have voter id anyway, it is the Northeast and West coast that are refusing.

troyvit 2y ago
> We need to rebuild confidence in the integrity of elections, Voter ID, which most democratic countries require, seems like an incredibly modest step. People didn't lose confidence in the integrity of elections because our elections lack integrity, they lost confidence because they were told in a way that resonates with them that our elections lack integrity. Voter ID would just be security theater in that it's an onerous rule that does nothing to help any actual problem aside from making things look better to some people.
- MyFedora 2y ago
  I'm having a hard time understanding your comment. I'm not American, but can someone explain why it wouldn't make sense to lose confidence in elections when gerrymandering and the electoral college skew the results so much? Sure, votes are technically counted, but if the system is set up so that those votes don't really impact the outcome the way you'd expect, isn't that a pretty valid reason to feel disillusioned?
  - hellotomyrars 2y ago
    The GP isn't making a statement about how voters feel disillusioned in the electoral process in general. They are making a statement about how one of the two political parties has spent 4 years telling their supporters that the 2020 election was stolen because of rampant voter fraud. It doesn't even matter if you agree with the claims that were made about voter fraud, I can't think of any good faith argument by literally anyone on the political compass that it didn't cause people to lose faith in electoral process.
    - lmm 2y ago
      > It doesn't even matter if you agree with the claims that were made about voter fraud, I can't think of any good faith argument by literally anyone on the political compass that it didn't cause people to lose faith in electoral process. Maybe people shouldn't have faith in the electoral process, and the way to rebuild confidence in the integrity of the electoral process is to rebuild the integrity of the electoral process first and tell people about it second.
      - parasubvert 2y ago
        That would make sense if there was an actual argument for the process being compromised. But there isn’t. You can rebuild it and be accused of inserting back doors. There’s no win - the whole argument is that the process is sound if a certain party wins, if that party loses, then the process is corrupt. Notice how there’s no cries of election integrity problems for this election? Because the “right” party won.
        lmm 2y ago
        > That would make sense if there was an actual argument for the process being compromised. But there isn’t. There are pretty strong arguments that many states illegally (according to their own rules) expanded the scope of postal ballots in 2020, added people to the voter rolls without adequate checks that resulted in people getting added who shouldn't have, etc., which could very plausibly have added up to enough to tip the knife-edge election. > Notice how there’s no cries of election integrity problems for this election? Because the “right” party won. I don't think anyone seriously disputes that the civil service has a partisan imbalance. If (and it's a big if) the "deep state" were to cheat, it's pretty clear which side they would cheat for. Well before the results came out this time, it was widely reported that the Republicans had filed hundreds of lawsuits questioning various election irregularities and the Democrats... hadn't. So yeah, only one party doubts the integrity of the election (or, if you want to be more cynical, only one party cares whether it's being rigged, since both parties know which way any rigging is going). That's exactly what we'd expect, whether it's being rigged or not?
  - a_cool_username 2y ago
    Those are definitely reasonable reasons to lose confidence in elections and feel disillusioned, but voter ID laws won't help you there (which was GP's point).
  - troyvit 2y ago
    You have an excellent point that I didn't take into account when I left my comment. Personally I don't mind the electoral college too much but the gerrymandering that goes on in the U.S. is epic. Against that we have people saying we need Voter ID? Is there any more better time to use the "arranging deck chairs on the Titanic" analogy, except for perhaps on an actual sinking ship?
- the_optimist 2y ago
  There is no magic here. Ballots have no identifiers attached to them. Fraudulent ballots are indistinguishable from real ballots. Envelopes do have identifiers attached to them but are separated from ballots. It is not always necessary to submit envelopes with ballots, and batch integrity is not necessarily maintained or useful based on batch size. False registration and/or false voting can produce fake ballots. Ballot-level fraud resolution diminishes to zero, by design, in the existing system in order to preserve a degree of voter anonymity. Without registration or voting resolution, there is a very limited check on fraud, including high likelihood of surplus of in-circulation empty ballots. please explain your position in this context.
  - troyvit 2y ago
    I wish people would've responded to you instead of down-voting you. I've heard those arguments, but the thing is there are several cases around the country right now where ballot-level fraud _was_ caught[1]. Without doing any research I'll say that while it's easier to generate a bogus ballot than it is to generate a bogus hundred dollar bill, it just doesn't scale to the point where it's useful. It's a pain in the ass to get your hands on enough ballots, fill them out, and deliver them to a drop box or whatever. You can't just pull up with a wagon full of ballots and drop them off. How much is it worth to somebody to flip a county? Which county do you flip? How many ballots will you need to flip it? What's the risk/reward ratio like? [1] https://www.cpr.org/2024/11/06/mesa-county-mail-ballots-fraudulently-filled-by-usps-employee-friend/ https://www.cpr.org/2024/11/06/mesa-county-mail-ballots-frau...
  - lmm 2y ago
    So what's the scenario where a voter ID check makes a difference - specifically, where an ID check eliminates more fake votes than it disenfranchises genuine voters? The ID check is presumably still attached to the envelope rather than the ballot, right? (Otherwise you have massive deanonymity problems). If there is fake voter registration happening, presumably obtaining fake IDs by the same methods is just as easy. I'm sure a certain amount of e.g. individuals submitting their dead relatives' ballots happens - but anyone doing that can probably grab their relative's ID too, and go to two polling stations. I doubt any large-scale partisan fraud via in-person submission at polling stations is going on, because it's impractical to make that happen while keeping it secret - the only way it could happen would be with widespread official collusion, and again in that case an ID check wouldn't move the needle.
the_imp 2y ago
2024 - 1964 = 60
avs733 2y ago
'its old so we can assume everyone shares the same information and perspective' is a bad way to do decision making and argumentation full stop. Topic and perspective independent. One of the things I used to see pushed back on, but it seems to have gone by the way side recently, is not citing the original source but rather citing the someone saying something about the source. Its increasingly pervasive in all types of research adn contributes to a giant and slow moving slide of meaning creep. The OP mentions that reviewing the history would inform the discussion. You dismissed being informed and simply provided a truism - specifically accepted a truism common from oen side. If the issue is confidence in integrity, but there never was an integrity issue, then fixing an integrity issue is neither possible nor a solution to the confidence problem. Again, I see this everywhere - from polite conversation to academic discourse adn it troubles me about the larger state of knowledge and knowing in the world.
- pessimizer 2y ago
  > The OP mentions that reviewing the history would inform the discussion. You dismissed being informed and simply provided a truism - specifically accepted a truism common from oen side. I'm sorry, but saying "review the history," without specifically referring to things that happened in history and why they are relevant today, is absolutely worthless and a copout. If you have a reason why voters can't use ID today, say it, this "educate yourself" crap is a weaselly way to get out of defending your position while looking down your nose at the same time. You can't work without ID. Surely that's worse than not being able to vote, not being able to eat?
jmyeet 2y ago
> Voter ID, which most democratic countries require, seems like an incredibly modest step. As always, you should ask "what purpose does this serve?" Do we need voter ID laws? Well, is there a widespread voter fraud problem? No [1]. When you declare something to be "common sense", you betray either a lack of knowledge of why something is the way it is, you know why it's like that but you're willing to lie about it to push an agenda or you have a position of privilege where something doesn't affect you so you just don't care. So if voter fraud isn't a widespread problem, you should then ask who is pushing for this and why? Also, why are things the way they are? A big part is that as many as 7% of Americans don't have the documents required to prove their birth or citizenship [2]. So Voter ID laws disenfranchise a right (voting) to millions of people. Voter ID is really about voter suppression. Why? Because you need ID to register and vote. If you don't have it, you lose that right. If you think those people are more likely to vote against your interests, you do what you can do make sure they can't vote. As a real example, Alabama has Voter ID laws but in certain counties that have a large black population, the DMV (where you would have to go to get a valid ID) was only open one day a month [3]. That's entirely intentional. Make it difficult to get an ID then it's less likely you'll vote. [1]: https://www.brennancenter.org/issues/ensure-every-american-can-vote/vote-suppression/myth-voter-fraud https://www.brennancenter.org/issues/ensure-every-american-c... [2]: https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/millions-americans-dont-have-documents-proving-their-citizenship-readily https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/mill... [3]: https://www.governing.com/archive/drivers-license-offices-will-reopen-on-limited-basis.html https://www.governing.com/archive/drivers-license-offices-wi...
- tmn 2y ago
  You’re going to lose people at the first point. You don’t believe there is fraud. But others do (or believe there could be in the future)
  - Lord-Jobo 2y ago
    His first point was sourced with evidence, something every single one of these "believers" has failed to produce, time and time again .
greenie_beans 2y ago
protecting the VRA is still relevant: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shelby_County_v._Holder https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shelby_County_v._Holder

troyvit 2y ago

> We need to rebuild confidence in the integrity of elections, Voter ID, which most democratic countries require, seems like an incredibly modest step. People didn't lose confidence in the integrity of elections because our elections lack integrity, they lost confidence because they were told in a way that resonates with them that our elections lack integrity. Voter ID would just be security theater in that it's an onerous rule that does nothing to help any actual problem aside from making things look better to some people.

MyFedora 2y ago
I'm having a hard time understanding your comment. I'm not American, but can someone explain why it wouldn't make sense to lose confidence in elections when gerrymandering and the electoral college skew the results so much? Sure, votes are technically counted, but if the system is set up so that those votes don't really impact the outcome the way you'd expect, isn't that a pretty valid reason to feel disillusioned?
- hellotomyrars 2y ago
  The GP isn't making a statement about how voters feel disillusioned in the electoral process in general. They are making a statement about how one of the two political parties has spent 4 years telling their supporters that the 2020 election was stolen because of rampant voter fraud. It doesn't even matter if you agree with the claims that were made about voter fraud, I can't think of any good faith argument by literally anyone on the political compass that it didn't cause people to lose faith in electoral process.
  - lmm 2y ago
    > It doesn't even matter if you agree with the claims that were made about voter fraud, I can't think of any good faith argument by literally anyone on the political compass that it didn't cause people to lose faith in electoral process. Maybe people shouldn't have faith in the electoral process, and the way to rebuild confidence in the integrity of the electoral process is to rebuild the integrity of the electoral process first and tell people about it second.
    - parasubvert 2y ago
      That would make sense if there was an actual argument for the process being compromised. But there isn’t. You can rebuild it and be accused of inserting back doors. There’s no win - the whole argument is that the process is sound if a certain party wins, if that party loses, then the process is corrupt. Notice how there’s no cries of election integrity problems for this election? Because the “right” party won.
      - lmm 2y ago
        > That would make sense if there was an actual argument for the process being compromised. But there isn’t. There are pretty strong arguments that many states illegally (according to their own rules) expanded the scope of postal ballots in 2020, added people to the voter rolls without adequate checks that resulted in people getting added who shouldn't have, etc., which could very plausibly have added up to enough to tip the knife-edge election. > Notice how there’s no cries of election integrity problems for this election? Because the “right” party won. I don't think anyone seriously disputes that the civil service has a partisan imbalance. If (and it's a big if) the "deep state" were to cheat, it's pretty clear which side they would cheat for. Well before the results came out this time, it was widely reported that the Republicans had filed hundreds of lawsuits questioning various election irregularities and the Democrats... hadn't. So yeah, only one party doubts the integrity of the election (or, if you want to be more cynical, only one party cares whether it's being rigged, since both parties know which way any rigging is going). That's exactly what we'd expect, whether it's being rigged or not?
- a_cool_username 2y ago
  Those are definitely reasonable reasons to lose confidence in elections and feel disillusioned, but voter ID laws won't help you there (which was GP's point).
- troyvit 2y ago
  You have an excellent point that I didn't take into account when I left my comment. Personally I don't mind the electoral college too much but the gerrymandering that goes on in the U.S. is epic. Against that we have people saying we need Voter ID? Is there any more better time to use the "arranging deck chairs on the Titanic" analogy, except for perhaps on an actual sinking ship?
the_optimist 2y ago
There is no magic here. Ballots have no identifiers attached to them. Fraudulent ballots are indistinguishable from real ballots. Envelopes do have identifiers attached to them but are separated from ballots. It is not always necessary to submit envelopes with ballots, and batch integrity is not necessarily maintained or useful based on batch size. False registration and/or false voting can produce fake ballots. Ballot-level fraud resolution diminishes to zero, by design, in the existing system in order to preserve a degree of voter anonymity. Without registration or voting resolution, there is a very limited check on fraud, including high likelihood of surplus of in-circulation empty ballots. please explain your position in this context.
- troyvit 2y ago
  I wish people would've responded to you instead of down-voting you. I've heard those arguments, but the thing is there are several cases around the country right now where ballot-level fraud _was_ caught[1]. Without doing any research I'll say that while it's easier to generate a bogus ballot than it is to generate a bogus hundred dollar bill, it just doesn't scale to the point where it's useful. It's a pain in the ass to get your hands on enough ballots, fill them out, and deliver them to a drop box or whatever. You can't just pull up with a wagon full of ballots and drop them off. How much is it worth to somebody to flip a county? Which county do you flip? How many ballots will you need to flip it? What's the risk/reward ratio like? [1] https://www.cpr.org/2024/11/06/mesa-county-mail-ballots-fraudulently-filled-by-usps-employee-friend/ https://www.cpr.org/2024/11/06/mesa-county-mail-ballots-frau...
- lmm 2y ago
  So what's the scenario where a voter ID check makes a difference - specifically, where an ID check eliminates more fake votes than it disenfranchises genuine voters? The ID check is presumably still attached to the envelope rather than the ballot, right? (Otherwise you have massive deanonymity problems). If there is fake voter registration happening, presumably obtaining fake IDs by the same methods is just as easy. I'm sure a certain amount of e.g. individuals submitting their dead relatives' ballots happens - but anyone doing that can probably grab their relative's ID too, and go to two polling stations. I doubt any large-scale partisan fraud via in-person submission at polling stations is going on, because it's impractical to make that happen while keeping it secret - the only way it could happen would be with widespread official collusion, and again in that case an ID check wouldn't move the needle.

the_imp 2y ago

2024 - 1964 = 60

avs733 2y ago

'its old so we can assume everyone shares the same information and perspective' is a bad way to do decision making and argumentation full stop. Topic and perspective independent. One of the things I used to see pushed back on, but it seems to have gone by the way side recently, is not citing the original source but rather citing the someone saying something about the source. Its increasingly pervasive in all types of research adn contributes to a giant and slow moving slide of meaning creep. The OP mentions that reviewing the history would inform the discussion. You dismissed being informed and simply provided a truism - specifically accepted a truism common from oen side. If the issue is confidence in integrity, but there never was an integrity issue, then fixing an integrity issue is neither possible nor a solution to the confidence problem. Again, I see this everywhere - from polite conversation to academic discourse adn it troubles me about the larger state of knowledge and knowing in the world.

pessimizer 2y ago
> The OP mentions that reviewing the history would inform the discussion. You dismissed being informed and simply provided a truism - specifically accepted a truism common from oen side. I'm sorry, but saying "review the history," without specifically referring to things that happened in history and why they are relevant today, is absolutely worthless and a copout. If you have a reason why voters can't use ID today, say it, this "educate yourself" crap is a weaselly way to get out of defending your position while looking down your nose at the same time. You can't work without ID. Surely that's worse than not being able to vote, not being able to eat?

jmyeet 2y ago

> Voter ID, which most democratic countries require, seems like an incredibly modest step. As always, you should ask "what purpose does this serve?" Do we need voter ID laws? Well, is there a widespread voter fraud problem? No [1]. When you declare something to be "common sense", you betray either a lack of knowledge of why something is the way it is, you know why it's like that but you're willing to lie about it to push an agenda or you have a position of privilege where something doesn't affect you so you just don't care. So if voter fraud isn't a widespread problem, you should then ask who is pushing for this and why? Also, why are things the way they are? A big part is that as many as 7% of Americans don't have the documents required to prove their birth or citizenship [2]. So Voter ID laws disenfranchise a right (voting) to millions of people. Voter ID is really about voter suppression. Why? Because you need ID to register and vote. If you don't have it, you lose that right. If you think those people are more likely to vote against your interests, you do what you can do make sure they can't vote. As a real example, Alabama has Voter ID laws but in certain counties that have a large black population, the DMV (where you would have to go to get a valid ID) was only open one day a month [3]. That's entirely intentional. Make it difficult to get an ID then it's less likely you'll vote. [1]: https://www.brennancenter.org/issues/ensure-every-american-can-vote/vote-suppression/myth-voter-fraud https://www.brennancenter.org/issues/ensure-every-american-c... [2]: https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/millions-americans-dont-have-documents-proving-their-citizenship-readily https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/mill... [3]: https://www.governing.com/archive/drivers-license-offices-will-reopen-on-limited-basis.html https://www.governing.com/archive/drivers-license-offices-wi...

tmn 2y ago
You’re going to lose people at the first point. You don’t believe there is fraud. But others do (or believe there could be in the future)
- Lord-Jobo 2y ago
  His first point was sourced with evidence, something every single one of these "believers" has failed to produce, time and time again .

greenie_beans 2y ago

protecting the VRA is still relevant: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shelby_County_v._Holder https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shelby_County_v._Holder