> 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.
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.
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).
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?
> 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.
> No because proximity to a Post Office isn't a reasonable criteria for suppressing a persons right to vote.
In rural areas, one often has to travel a long distance to reach a post office or DMV. In urban or suburban areas, while the distance may vary, on average it is significantly less.
So, if requiring someone to go to a government office to receive ID to vote suppresses the vote of people who live far away from that office, you'd expect that to produce more voter suppression in rural areas than in urban or suburban areas. But, since rural areas tend to skew Republican and urban areas tend to skew Democratic (with suburban areas being more mixed/swinging), this would seem to suppress Republican voters much more than Democratic ones.
Does it follow therefore that Republicans would be primarily suppressing the vote of their own voters? If that's true, why should Democrats be upset about such a self-inflicted wound on their political opponents?
Requiring Voter ID enables suppression. Specifically by making it harder for some people to vote. Consider the example of the polling station bus being targeted. Those people could have complied but because of their race were prevented.
> Consider the example of the polling station bus being targeted. Those people could have complied but because of their race were prevented.
I take it you are talking about the incident you mentioned in another comment, in Louisville, Georgia, in 2018, in which African-American senior citizens got on a bus to take them to an early voting center, and then told to get off the bus and it didn't take them there? (Did they end up voting in that election? Did the organisers find another way to get them to the polls?)
I don't fully understood what happened in that case, but from what I've read of it, it sounds like the bus was owned by the county, and someone objected to using a county-owned bus for a trip organised by a political advocacy group which was de facto running a GOTV operation for a single political party, and that led to the bus trip being cancelled at the very last minute.
That rule – (implicitly or explicitly) partisan political groups can't use county-owned resources at election time – in itself doesn't seem inherently unreasonable. Possibly it was being enforced in a biased way, but a single incident by itself can't demonstrate bias in the application of a rule. (And even if you had evidence that Jefferson County was indeed applying that rule in a biased manner, how do you determine whether that bias is racial or political?) So, I really don't think this particular incident is a clearcut example of "voter suppression".
The retirement home belongs to the county. I see no claim the van does. I don’t know the details either but I can’t find any evidence to support your claims.
That is one example of literally dozens on that page alone. Many of them more concrete, with convictions.
> The retirement home belongs to the county. I see no claim the van does.
So, yes, having read some more, it sounds like bus in question belonged to the activist group rather than the county.
Still, what I don't quite understand here is – they got on the bus, did someone from the county force them to get off the bus? Ask them nicely? Threaten them with something if they didn't? Exactly what happened is rather unclear.
> I don’t know the details either but I can’t find any evidence to support your claims
That's the thing – neither of us really knows what happened at that event. I was just speculating based on incomplete knowledge – much as you are. I'm not aware of any clear, detailed and independent account of what actually happened. But, you seem to be citing this as an example of a pattern without knowing much about what really happened–which is a rather questionable approach.
> That is one example of literally dozens on that page alone. Many of them more concrete, with convictions.
I'm reading that Wikipedia page, who has a conviction for voter suppression?
* In 2006, in Wisconsin, four Democratic campaign workers, from John Kerry's presidential campaign, were convicted of slashing tires of Republican Party vehicles to stop them from driving voters and poll workers to the polls in the 2004 election, and sentenced to 4-6 months jail
* In 2011, in Maryland, a Republican campaign manager was sentenced, albeit to no actual jail time (probation, community service, home detention, and a suspended sentence), for having placed fake calls to Democratic voters (the majority of whom were African-American) to try to trick them into not voting in the 2010 Maryland gubernatorial election. Despite this tactic, the Republican candidate still lost by 10 points.
Those are the only two mentions I can find on that page of anyone actually being convicted of voter suppression (and in neither case changing the outcome of the election). Is there something else I'm missing, or when you speak of "convictions" do you only mean those two cases?
I have continually provided you with clear true facts that you either misinterpreted or ignored. With further evidence that you drew incorrect conclusions you then doubled down on your initial unfounded position.
I am left with no choice but to conclude that you have nothing constructive to provide to this conversation.
Is your point that the conviction doesn’t literally say “voter suppression”? If so you don’t understand how the US legal system works either.
No, my point is two convictions for voter suppression are insufficient to tell us whether it is a serious problem in practice, just as two convictions for voter fraud (which you can also find) would be insufficient to tell us whether voter fraud is a serious problem in practice - yet you pointed to those two convictions as support for your view that voter suppression is a serious contemporary problem.
Furthermore, you clearly believe that one side of US politics is much more guilty of contemporary voter suppression than the other, yet the convictions you point to are 50-50 (1 Republican case, 1 Democratic) - and the Democratic case involved more defendants (4 vs 1), and a greater punishment (actual jail time vs no jail time). I think your belief may well have some degree of truth to it, but the evidence you point to in supporting it is rather poor.
I think you read something that you interpret as supporting your beliefs, and don’t stop to think about how well it actually does. And when someone else points out the poor quality of your argument, your response is to attack them rather than consider whether they actually have a valid point.
>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.
> How does Europe do it? Do you believe the way they do it suppresses a person's right to vote?
Not sure, I assume lots of ways? Europe is a whole continent full of countries that have a long history of disagreement. I wouldn't be surprised to learn some of them do suppress votes.
> If we did it the same way as Europe would you be fine with ID laws in the US?
"Europe" is not itself a compelling reason for me to do anything so, no.
2A WARNING. My words relate to my interpretation of the Second Amendment and do not indicate support.
> 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.
I think the Second Amendment says I can call Boeing and buy an F/A-18 Super Hornet, with missiles. So yes, I think asking for a background check or a name or literally anything other than "paper or plastic?" is a violation of my Second Amendment rights.
> Do you support removing the background check cost and ID requirement?
I think it is unconstitutional to impose a background check on the purchase of any weapon of war.
> 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.
Please don't put words in my mouth. Let's keep this civil.
> There are two hardships currently
You forgot "you have to actually get to the place to get the ID". This may not be the DMV but it may be deliberately chosen to reduce your personal likelihood to try. You may be harassed on the way. The reasons for this may be racial, religious, or political. There is a long, established history of this behavior in the United States specifically. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_suppression_in_the_Unite... for inspiration.
You are still overlooking the part where the voter ID doesn't actually do anything useful. Making it easier to get doesn't change the fact that it provides no meaningful benefit while also infringing constitutional rights.
>Not sure, I assume lots of ways? Europe is a whole continent full of countries that have a long history of disagreement. I wouldn't be surprised to learn some of them do suppress votes.
>"Europe" is not itself a compelling reason for me to do anything so, no.
I didn't mean to imply you would support something just because Europe does it. Many people who oppose voter ID laws are fine with Europe's laws. I don't actually know how European countries do it, but since nobody really thinks it violates rights I would be fine doing it however they do it.
If some of them may violate rights then presumably some don't? If that is the case then it seems like it is possible to implement voter ID laws without suppressing rights? What would it take for you to support voter ID laws that don't suppress rights?
>I think the Second Amendment it says I can call Boeing and buy a F/A 18 Super Hornet, with missiles. So yes, I think asking for a background check or a name or literally anything other than "paper or plastic?" is a violation of my Second Amendment rights
>I think it is unconstitutional to impose a background check on the purchase of any weapon of war.
Are you being sarcastic or do you genuinely believe this? It seems pretty sarcastic to me.
>This does not mean I agree with the Second Amendment as written but lets stay on track here.
>Please don't put words in my mouth. Let's keep this civil
Seeing how you sound like you are opposed to the second amendment you are likely not a libertarian / anarchist and as such are probably being sarcastic in your support for no ID requirements on weapons. I will continue with that assumption.
If somebody is not some arbitrary distance to a DMV or post office it would be a violation of their rights. If that is a violation then so is ID requirements for guns.
>You forgot "you have to actually get to the place to get the ID". This may not be the DMV but it may be deliberately chosen to reduce your personal likelihood to try. The reasons for this may be racial or political. There is a long, established history of this behavior in the US.
I did forget that one. I am in favor of widespread locations for getting an ID to eliminate this issue. Do you also believe that not allowing mail in voting is a violation for the same reason? If you do believe that then do you think it was a violation of rights to not implement mail in voting until the late 70s for California and later for other states?
>You are still overlooking the part where the voter ID doesn't actually do anything useful. Making it easier to get doesn't change the fact that it provides no meaningful benefit while also infringing constitutional rights
Regardless if it does anything tangible it increases confidence in our elections. Also, voter turnout increases when voter ID laws are implemented. (It may or may not be related though.) It also will lower the amount of accusations of stolen elections.
We also don't know how much voter fraud (that would be stopped by IDs) there really is so it is hard to say it wouldn't have an impact. It may have no impact but also could. Just because you don't catch crimes doesn't mean it doesn't happen. There are very few investigations into voter fraud.
I would also say that anytime a person illegally votes it cancels out a legitimate vote. This is in essence voter suppression. This is just as bad as stooping a legitimate person from voting.
> I don't actually know how European countries do it, but since nobody really thinks it violates rights I would be fine doing it however they do it.
I don't think Europe is relevant to this conversation. We have a functioning democracy. People can look around and form their opinions then vote on it. Personally I don't know or care how voting is done in Europe.
> If some of them may violate rights then presumably some don't?
Logically this does not follow.
> If that is the case then it seems like it is possible to implement voter ID laws without suppressing rights?
It might be theoretically possible but I don't believe it is practical or necessary to try. Even if it is possible I think the risk outweighs any benefit.
> What would it take for you to support voter ID laws that don't suppress rights?
Evidence of widespread voter fraud materially impacting the outcome of an election. Also exhausting other options that don't run up against the 14A.
> Are you being sarcastic or do you genuinely believe this? It seems pretty sarcastic to me.
I am 100% serious that I believe that is what the 2A says. As I very, very explicitly said, that does not imply I support the 2A. Drawing any conclusion about my gun control beliefs based on that statement would be misinformed.
> Seeing how you sound like you are opposed to the second amendment you are likely not a libertarian / anarchist and as such are probably being sarcastic in your support for no ID requirements on weapons. I will continue with that assumption.
Labels aren't going to be helpful here. I am not being sarcastic.
> ... are probably being sarcastic in your support for no ID requirements on weapons.
I expressed no such support and in fact explicitly disclaimed it. Please do not put words in my mouth, especially these types of words.
> If somebody is not some arbitrary distance to a DMV or post office it would be a violation of their rights. If that is a violation then so is ID requirements for guns.
I think both the 2A and 24A say you can't make this hard for people. In the case of the 24A I don't think it goes far enough. I'm deliberately avoiding providing my thoughts on the 2A because it's irrelevant here.
> I am in favor of widespread locations for getting an ID to eliminate this issue.
There is literally no issue to resolve here. There is no voter fraud problem. It is made up.
> Do you also believe that not allowing mail in voting is a violation for the same reason? If you do believe that then do you think it was a violation of rights to not implement mail in voting until the late 70s for California and later for other states?
I do believe that opposition to mail-in voting is another form of attempted voter suppression. I would not say that lack of access to mail in voting itself means your vote was suppressed. But this feels like nitpicking.
> Regardless if it does anything tangible it increases confidence in our elections.
Maybe, but it also rewards people who lied about the need for them in the first place. I'm not convinced this is a benefit to society.
If you lack confidence in our elections I invite you to learn how they actually work. It's an impressive system of checks and balances that ensures both anonymous results and verified participation. It's a fascinating application of decentralized systems and trustless cooperation. The system as it stands for actually voting is very much trustworthy. There may be chances for improvements but I don't think Voter ID is one of them.
> Also, voter turnout increases when voter ID laws are implemented. (It may or may not be related though.)
I'd like to see those numbers to make sure this isn't because turnout is measured in terms of registered voters instead of eligible voters. Even if it is true I don't believe Voter ID laws are a necessary or desirable method of improving turnout. Something like making election day a national holiday would do more for that and has fewer constitutional hangups.
> It also will lower the amount of accusations of stolen elections.
I don't believe this is a real problem and it is instead a cynical attempt to suppress voting. I believe this because of the long historical record of exactly that happening. So I believe Voter ID laws would actually increase accusations that our elections are stolen. In fact I believe Voter ID laws are themselves an attempt to steal elections.
> We also don't know how much voter fraud (that would be stopped by IDs) there really is so it is hard to say it wouldn't have an impact. It may have no impact but also could. Just because you don't catch crimes doesn't mean it doesn't happen.
I prefer not to have my rights infringed until we have a compelling reason. "Maybe" isn't compelling. Especially given the historical context.
> There are very few investigations into voter fraud.
This is obviously false. Post 2020 election there were endless lawsuits and claims of voter fraud with nothing to show for it.
> I would also say that anytime a person illegally votes it cancels out a legitimate vote. This is in essence voter suppression. This is just as bad as stooping a legitimate person from voting.
Sure but which one is actually happening? Consider there's no evidence of any widespread voter fraud or of any significant effects on election outcomes. Meanwhile there is long and established history of voter suppression.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
> $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).
Now consider the intentional difficulty of actually getting to offices that can issue those documents, during working hours, and so on and so forth. Many people in many low-wage jobs can't just leave for the afternoon to catch the correct bus to catch the connecting bus to go get identification to vote.
The money is part of it, but the time is another, and the (intentional) roadblocks put into place to hinder citizens are never being argued for in good faith.
> does this notion solely come from people who live in states with ridiculous taxes on everything?
You're missing the point. Why should you need an ID to vote? It doesn't make sense.
> $22 is not hard for anyone to save, especially with all the generous welfare programs we have.
Please. It is a barrier that exists. Not everyone has $22.00. They still deserve access to their human rights. Welfare doesn't fix this.
> hell, if it's that big of a deal, then start some charity program to pay for people to get legal ID!
Charities are subject to laws and attack. This is a common voter suppression tactic. It should not require a charity to exercise fundamental human rights.
Voting is a fundamental right. It should be as easy as possible to vote. You do not need ID cards to prevent voter fraud. That is as simple as cross referencing registration with votes and then investigating differences.
Voting systems need to be anonymous and accessible. Accessible both in terms of literally voting and understanding how the system works so it is trusted. We already invented systems for this, they work. Voter fraud is a made up problem and voter IDs wouldn't stop it even if it existed.
Voter ID is a red herring. It's a convenient way to suppress votes.
> In the 2002 New Hampshire Senate election phone jamming scandal, Republican officials attempted to reduce the number of Democratic voters by paying professional telemarketers in Idaho to make repeated hang-up calls to the telephone numbers used by the Democratic Party's ride-to-the-polls phone lines on election day. By tying up the lines, voters seeking rides from the Democratic Party would have more difficulty reaching the party to ask for transportation to and from their polling places.
To your "start a charity" argument above, good luck if the phone lines are jammed.
> Michigan Republican state legislator John Pappageorge was quoted as saying, "If we do not suppress the Detroit vote, we're going to have a tough time in this election."
Well there's a smoking gun.
> In 2006, four employees of candidate John Kerry's campaign were convicted of slashing the tires of 25 vans rented by the Wisconsin state Republican Party which were to be used for driving Republican voters and monitors to the polls on Election Day 2004. They received jail terms of four to six months.
Again, good luck to a charity countering literal vandalism.
> Democratic voters receiving calls incorrectly informing them voting will lead to arrest.
> Widespread calls fraudulently claiming to be "[Democratic Senate candidate Jim] Webb Volunteers," falsely telling voters their voting location had changed.
> Fliers paid for by the Republican Party, stating "SKIP THIS ELECTION" that allegedly attempted to suppress African-American turnout.
> On October 30, 2008, a federal appeals court ordered the reinstatement of 5,500 voters wrongly purged from the voter rolls by the state, in response to an ACLU of Michigan lawsuit which questioned the legality of a Michigan state law requiring local clerks to nullify the registrations of newly registered voters whenever their voter identification cards are returned by the post office as undeliverable.
Ever have trouble getting mail to a new address? Can you imagine it happening? Hope the USPS is well funded in your area.
> In Louisville, Georgia, in October 2018, Black senior citizens were told to get off a bus that was to have taken them to a polling place for early voting. The bus trip was supposed to have been part of the "South Rising" bus tour sponsored by the advocacy group Black Voters Matter. A clerk of the local Jefferson County Commission allegedly called the intended voters' senior center to claim that the bus tour constituted "political activity," which is barred at events sponsored by the county.
> Why should you need an ID to vote? It doesn't make sense.
so that only citizens can vote in elections?
> Please. It is a barrier that exists. Not everyone has $22.00.
yes they do. I know one person who does not have a driver's license or state ID, because she doesn't have a birth certificate (lost it). she was almost unable to take her newborn children home because of her lack of birth certificate. she had ample time to save money to acquire these things leading up to her twin sons' birth, but she squandered it weekly on weed. I have worked minimum-wage jobs while living in shitty housing with zero welfare and saving $22 was not difficult. while living in Section 8 housing, receiving WIC and EBT benefits, as well as other forms of welfare, like this ID-less person I know, it would be a cinch. she simply cared more about spending all of her money on weed every paycheck. if she had any desire to vote at all (she doesn't), I would not have any pity for her.
hell, at least around here, if you don't want to work yet still somehow feel like you're contributing to society and therefore want to vote for some reason, it is very easy to panhandle $22 in a single day, as long as you don't spend it on meth or whatever. you're not going to be able to use vague emotional claims that some vague swath of poor downtrodden people (all undoubtedly "minorities" in one way or another, because everywhere in the US is just oh so racist that every time a white person sees someone with a different skin color voting at the booth next to them, their nose visibly wrinkles in disgust, before returning home to recount their experience to their Klansmen buddies, or whatever hallucination you choose to inhabit) who live paycheck to paycheck or are homeless or whatever yet feel that participating in an election is somehow more important than getting a couple dozen bucks together in order to obtain a state ID necessary to participate in society. if you actually cared, again, you would be interested in finding solutions to this problem, instead of throwing your hands up, saying "the mere concept of voter ID in the US is discriminatory and racist and evil and bad and morally wrong, and there's just nothing we can do to change that so the only possible solution is to throw the vote-integrity baby out with the voter-ID bathwater!" if you genuinely cared about this topic then you would be more willing to find compromise in any way, but you're not, so there's not really much further discussion that could be had. and anyway,
In Ohio, it's much easier to vote with a drivers license than with a state ID card. People that are disabled or can't afford a car have state ID cards.
Also, poll taxes are unconstitutional in the US. $10 is more than $0.
It takes very little to imagine how this causes inequality. Maybe you can’t get the state ID either! Voter ID and State ID aren’t necessarily the same thing. Maybe you need both! Maybe you can get your State ID at a local office but the Voter ID only from the county courthouse two towns away. Maybe you don’t have a car and a day off. Maybe they are only available on certain days and times. Maybe those times change at the last minute.
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) 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.
> 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.
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.
> 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]
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.
Maybe this NY Times article isn't biased and is simply reporting on the data. I don't find "NY Times liberals" to be a compelling refutation of the assertion that the Republican party might be good at voter suppression.
I'm not even claiming they are better at it but it is certainly possible and would explain the data.
> Maybe this NY Times article isn't biased and is simply reporting on the data. I don't find "NY Times liberals" to be a compelling refutation of the assertion that the Republican party might be good at voter suppression.
I don’t think you understand my point about bias. Let me put it this way - the fact that the conservative majority of SCOTUS failed to endorse Trump’s claims about the 2020 elections - in spite of the fact that their own bias would lead them to be sympathetic to them - is good evidence that his claims suffer from a serious lack of supporting evidence. Or, similarly - while Fox News hosts such as Tucker Carlson have expressed some sympathy for the members of the QAnon movement as individuals, nobody at Fox News has publicly endorsed their outlandish factual claims - and if there was remotely any evidence for them, surely Fox News would have done so, which is good evidence there isn’t.
This is what I am talking about here - everyone is biased, but when a person whose bias would naturally lead them to support some position fails to do so, that is in itself a form of indirect evidence against the position.
And I’m sure some voter suppression happens. But, let me put it this way - no doubt some fraud occurred in the 2020 election (just like every other), but it seems unlikely it occurred on a sufficient scale to change the outcome, and there is no good evidence that it did. Similarly, no doubt voter suppression sometimes happens, but it seems unlikely it happens on a sufficient scale to change national demographic trends in voting, and there is no good evidence that it does.
> Similarly, no doubt voter suppression sometimes happens, but it seems unlikely it happens on a sufficient scale to change national demographic trends in voting, and there is no good evidence that it does.
This is where we disagree. There is longstanding evidence for exactly this. It stretches back literally centuries.
There is no evidence of widespread voter fraud. There is clear, established evidence of ongoing, large scale, material voter suppression.
It looks like you are not an American so consider that this is a thing in living memory here:
There is certainly a history in the US of voting suppression targeted at racial minorities, especially African-Americans. (And although I am indeed not an American, my own country also has a history of racial discrimination in voting, also within living memory–the US is less unique in that regard that you seem to think it is.)
However, if working class non-Hispanic whites appear to have been switching, over the last several elections, from Democrats to Republicans – it isn't clear how voter suppression explains that particular change. Your theory suggests that working class non-Hispanic whites haven't changed their collective political allegiance at all, it is simply that Republicans have managed to selectively suppress their vote, but only of those among them who vote Democrat. I don't think that's very plausible – it isn't consistent with the observed changes in turnout figures. And a history of electoral discrimination against racial minorities isn't very relevant to that theory either, since to explain this it would require, not voter suppression against a racial minority, but rather large-scale politically-selective voter suppression against the historical ethnic/racial majority, which is a rather different thing.
And, it isn't just non-Hispanic whites. The biggest swing towards Trump between 2016 and 2020 was in Laredo, Texas–27.7 percentage points. [0] And Laredo is over 95% Hispanic, indeed the most Hispanic city in the United States outside of Puerto Rico. It is also not a rich city by any measure – 30% of its population are below the poverty line. So, it looks like a significant chunk of Hispanic people in Laredo (and elsewhere in southern Texas) – many of whom would be of lower socioeconomic status – decided to switch their vote to Republican, or turnout for the first time for the GOP, in 2020. And the idea that, instead, Republicans just worked out how to suppress Democrats from voting, is inconsistent with the fact that turnout actually increased in Webb County from 2016 to 2020. [1]
I mean just logically the shifting voting habits of a given demographic don’t demonstrate the absence of voter suppression. Those shifting preferences could be for any number of reasons, including suppression itself. We don’t know.
What we do know is that there is no evidence of meaningful voter fraud in the US.
We also know there is an established history of voter suppression and to a lesser extent election fraud.
With this knowledge I see no reason to enact Voter ID.
> Those shifting preferences could be for any number of reasons, including suppression itself. We don’t know.
So, Trump improved his position between 2016 and 2020 in Laredo, Texas, by over 27 percentage points. Two possible explanations:
Explanation (1): He achieved that outcome through the ordinary legitimate means that any politician uses to improve their vote share – adjusting his message to better appeal to that audience, investment in grassroots campaigning, adopting policies which attract those voters, etc
Explanation (2): He achieved that outcome through some form of voter suppression
Some questions:
Question (a): What is the relative probability of Explanation (1) and Explanation (2)?
Question (b): What can we infer from media coverage of this topic as to how most journalists covering it would answer question (a)?
Question (c): Does the answer to question (b) tell us anything about the answer to question (a)?
> With this knowledge I see no reason to enact Voter ID.
I don't support voter ID – but I'm sceptical of claims made by both its proponents and its opponents that the issue would have any significant impact on election outcomes. I think we'd likely get the same election outcomes whether it was enacted or not, and I'm not aware of any hard evidence against that. I think, to a great extent, it is a symbolic issue, a political shibboleth.
Worldwide, there are several models for running elections. The US uses what is called the "executive model", in which the operation of elections is overseen by elected officials (and civil servants who directly report to those elected officials). It also uses a particularly decentralised version of the executive model, in which state and even local officials play a major role in national elections.
Most other English-speaking countries instead use what is called the "independent model", in which elected officials have no direct involvement in running elections, instead they are run by one or more independent government agencies. Australia and Canada are the most directly comparable Anglophone countries to the US, since they both have federal systems (unlike the unitary system used in Ireland and New Zealand, and the devolutionary system of the UK). In both Australia and the Canada, federal elections are fully run by an independent federal agency, while there are separate independent state/provincial agencies used to run state/provincial elections.
I think the widespread lack of faith in the US voting system, found on both sides, is in large part due to its use of the inferior executive model, and switching to the independent model used in most of the rest of the English-speaking world could do a lot to improve public confidence. (There is also a lot to be said for the "judicial model" used in much of Latin America, where elections are run by the judicial branch instead of the executive branch – but I imagine the US would be more open to copying an Anglophone approach to this issue than a Latin American one.)
I realise that having the FEC take over the running of federal elections, like the AEC does in Australia or Elections Canada does in Canada, is probably a non-starter due to constitutional issues. However, if a US state was to adopt a state constitutional amendment establishing a politically independent state agency with sole power over all elections in the state, taking that power away from state and local elected officials–I can't see SCOTUS could possibly object to that.
Your entire premise is flawed. There are more than two explanations for changes in votes by demographic. Your biggest mistake is assuming that race itself is a predictor of political affiliation.
In a world with established voter suppression efforts and a lack of evidence for voter fraud I see no reason to enact Voter ID. There’s no clear benefit and obvious downsides.
> Your entire premise is flawed. There are more than two explanations for changes in votes by demographic.
But which is the larger contributor? We of course will probably never be able to answer that with certainty, but which is more likely to be the larger factor?
> Your biggest mistake is assuming that race itself is a predictor of political affiliation.
But obviously there do exist correlations between race/ethnicity and political affiliation, both in the US and most other countries too. Almost never are they absolute (a group might split politically 60-40 or even 90-10 but almost never 100-0), and the correlations often change over time-the majority of group X might vote for one party now, but some decades ago they voted for the other instead, and maybe in a few more decades they might even swing back. Are you actually disputing this rather obvious fact?
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.