4 ms·
> what do you actually gain by requiring ID? Preventing non-citizens from voting. Some counties in the US have almost half of the population who are non-citize
by celeritascelery 1y ago
> what do you actually gain by requiring ID?
Preventing non-citizens from voting. Some counties in the US have almost half of the population who are non-citizens. It's great that we have so many people wanting to come to the states, but they can't vote until they become citizens. This is not a controversial issue anywhere except in the US.
- nerdponx 1y agohttps://www.migrationpolicy.org/content/noncitizen-voting-us-elections https://www.migrationpolicy.org/content/noncitizen-voting-us... > There is no evidence that unauthorized immigrants, green-card holders, or immigrants on temporary visas are voting in significant numbers, despite some claims that “millions” of noncitizens are voting in U.S. elections. In fact, audits by election officials and numerous studies reflect that voter fraud by noncitizens is extremely rare. > A [Heritage Foundation database](https://electionfraud.heritage.org/search?combine=citizenship&state=All&year=&case_type=All&fraud_type=All&page=0 https://electionfraud.heritage.org/search?combine=citizenshi...) of election fraud cases identified just 23 instances of noncitizen voting between 2003 and 2022.
- celeritascelery 1y agoIt’s great that those organizations say it’s uncommon. But this shouldn’t even be an issue. It doesn’t take many votes to tip a close election. Requiring ID like every other country is the common sense thing to do. And it helps build confidence in the election process without the need for organizations to try and demonstrate that the election was legitimate after the fact.
- hypeatei 1y agoCommon sense isn't saying "oh there's no ID required at the polls? Illegals must be tipping elections", it's recognizing that there are armies of people auditing these elections each cycle. Irregularities are caught and people challenge results in court all the time. In practice, if you tried to commit voter fraud, I think you'd find it very hard to accomplish (especially if you're trying to change the outcome) Even in your ideal scenario where ID is a hard requirement and nothing should slip through the cracks, you could still introduce doubt somewhere in the chain (e.g. did the poll worker actually check your ID?)
- celeritascelery 1y agoIf ID is required, then your whole “Illegals must be tipping elections" argument just goes away. People keep making this debate in the US of “we need ID to prevent election fraud” vs “we can’t have ID required because ID can be hard to obtain”. It’s just silly. If you take a step back and make it easier to get an ID than the whole things resolves itself. The pro-ID people are happy Because only registered voters can vote and the non-ID people are happy because voting is accessible. The real question is, why are they not doing that? Every other country can do it, why not the US? Why do we have to be stuck in this silly debate forever? And I don’t believe the whole “the mean republicans won’t let us!” narrative. Democrats controlled the executive branch 12 of the last 16 years and control half the states. If they care about voters rights, why haven’t we tried to fix this?
- yakz 1y agoThe lawmakers that demand ID for voting also work to reduce access to ID. The most obvious way is just closing facilities that issue IDs, but also through fees and documentation requirements.
- Freedom2 1y ago> Every other country can do it, why not the US? American exceptionalism is a real thing, unfortunately. And what I've found is that when confronted with a flaw or aspect of their society that could be improved, Americans tend to work backwards from the problem and try to explain away the problem, while inventing ridiculous hypotheticals for why other countries implementations won't work. See: this thread and voter ID, any kind of firearm laws, gerrymandering, lack of public transport, etc.
- nerdponx 1y agoApart from the fact that you are basically disregarding all of the detail explanations on why the US is in fact different when it comes to voter ID, all of the things you mentioned are primarily decided by states, with relatively federal authority beyond the ability to withhold funding conditional on states adopting certain policies, which is a very crude instrument that is only used in a handful of circumstances like establishing a nationwide minimum drinking age. And what you will find is that there is a tremendous amount of heterogeneity across states in all of those categories.
- esseph 1y agoTriage, you work by priority to maximize impact. Look at the problems in this country 23 instances. 23. As an analogy, let's say I'm triaging a broken neck, a burn, a gunshot wound, a compound fracture, a stab wound, a broken toe, and a hangnail. If Voter ID were to be placed somewhere on here, it would be below hangnail. This is smoke and mirrors nonsense that is using minorities and trans people as a scapegoat and distraction. How much fucking richer are people getting? Poor people have been convinced by rich people that their problems are the other poor people. It's insane. You can pull this pattern out of every modern fascist government and yet people are lacking on to it like a bunch of suckers. It's embarrassing. We should be fucking ashamed of ourselves.
- pseudo0 1y agoThat's a specious argument because the voter ID problem requires basically zero resources. Just mandate voter ID, problem solved. Practically every other first-world country does, including progressive European countries.
- esseph 1y agoBack to the triage analogy, there is a person with a compound fracture that is losing blood. The gsw needs care. We need pressure on that artery. We're arguing over the color of the bandaid for the hangnail. That's why I don't give a fuck about voter ID, because the people that give a fuck about voter ID have been fucking duped, and I don't know how to reason with that human, so I just have given up trying and scream into the void. If somebody will streamline the process and actually fund some DMVs to get this done I'd be all for it - but they won't, because it's not the point, they'll just mandate it as a form of voter suppression without doing anything to fix the infrastructure problem. deep sigh
- Hikikomori 1y agoThey can't vote already.
- wtallis 1y agoYou're glossing over the distinction between voting without ID, and registering to vote without having your citizenship confirmed.