As a point of information, the current HR 1 requires that states with Voter ID laws must also allow a voter to submit a sworn attestation in lieu of a government issued ID. Would this provision be removed as part of the “compromise”
To a libbie like me, agreeing to strict voter ID requirements in return for ramping up efforts to ensure that every eligible voter has one sounds like a perfectly reasonable compromise. But I’m afraid that my political opponents would see this compromise as “defeating the purpose.” They’ve made very clear their opposition to universal and convenient suffrage.
It would be acceptable if it was easy to get an ID. But the states that are gung ho on voter ID have also made them hard to get. When I needed a copy of my birth certificate (my employer wanted proof of age; why a passport wasn’t acceptable I cannot imagine) I wrote to the appropriate office in Harrisburg with a check for $6 and it came back by return mail. What I have read is that in many states you actually have to go to the state capital in person, probably needing to take a day off from work. Then getting a photo ID from the state generally requires a trip to the nearest motor vehicle office.
Here in Canada everyone has a photo ID: their medicare card. Yes, I had to go to the motor vehicle bureau to get it. It came automatically when I renewed my licence. My wife let her licence lapse and was able to get a new health card at a local provincial medical centre. There may have been a small charge. The point is that I would approve were there also an easy path to acquiring an ID.
I agree. The Republican goal is to create a process that prevents people from voting. So they will not support any reasonable compromise that allows the voting system to function. They want the system to be broken.
The two alternatives for the Republicans are to get the Democrats to agree to enact a broken system or to block the Democrats from enacting a working system until the Republicans have enough votes to enact a broken system without Democratic agreement.
This actually is a sane policy for the Republicans. They realize they can’t hold power in a system where people are allowed to vote freely. So the Republicans have to stop people from voting in order to retain power.
There were actually 62 ballets referred as potential fraud cases in Colorado in 2020. The Jefferson county, Colorado Republicans are asking for an audit of the 2018 and 2020 elections due to distrust of dominion machines being used.
So you’re correct its a non-issue in colorado but that doesn’t stop the crazies from crazying.
If the Republicans were genuinely concerned about voter fraud, there would be room for a compromise. We could develop a system that prevented voter fraud and allowed people to vote legally.
But the reality is that the Republicans don’t really care about voter fraud. Their real goal is to stop people from legally voting. And the Democrats want to allow people to legally vote. Those are conflicting goals. You can’t develop a system that both allows legal voting and prevents it. So there’s no room for a legitimate compromise.
The only compromise that might happen is if somebody develops a system that appears to support one goal while actually working against that goal. If a system like that is on the table, one side might support it for its real effects while the other side might support it for the effects they mistakenly believe it would have. As a Democrat, I would be reluctant to enter into this kind of compromise with the Republicans. I feel they are much better at hiding this kind of deceit than the Democrats are at uncovering it.
In the absence of any acceptable compromise, the only systems that are going to be enacted into law will be when one party has enough votes to enact laws without any support from the other party.
One reason I don’t buy the “voters can’t get an ID” excuse is that, since such arguments were first made in 2012, there have now been nine whole years in which voters had a chance to get an ID.
Nine. Years.
I have a hard time believing that, in over three thousand days, there were any voters (absent those who are in a permanent vegetative state and couldn’t vote anyway) who couldn’t have had at least one day in which they could have gotten an ID done.
It’s similar to the abortion issue, where there are restrictions put on clinics that are ostensibly for the sake of patient safety, but in reality are meant to make abortion access difficult.
Could they have? In many cases, probably. But, while there has been “arguments made” about requiring voter ID for years, in most states, the laws have not changed to date (or they have only very recently changed). Human nature being what it is, relatively few people are going to take an action to do something “just in case I might need it in the future.”
And, as @Hari_Seldon noted above, getting an ID does not necessarily just mean “spend a day doing so.” It may require documentation (such as an official copy of one’s birth certificate) that someone may not have (and which, again, may require jumping through hoops to get), it may require traveling some distance from home to go to one of a limited number of locations where IDs are issued in your state, and it may require a payment.
All of the above may be trivial to many people, but for some people (particularly the poor and the elderly), they may be substantial obstacles.
Part of the difficulty is that easy is relative to a cost benefit analysis. If you drive, then taking a few hours at the DMV get get your license renewed is not a big deal because the benefits of being able to drive heavily outweigh the additional effort to get it. Similarly if you live in Canada and you get free healthcare if you have ID, then pretty much everyone is going to jump through the hoops required to get it.
However, if the only thing you need the ID for is to vote, then the cost benefit changes. I mean when it comes right down to it, the only benefits am individual gets from voting is a warm fuzzy feeling of doing ones patriotic duty plus a minuscule effect in pushing the country in your chosen direction. Sure if a million people make the effort the results can be life changing but its basically the prisoners dilemma times a million. So in order to make it worth it to an individual to get an ID to vote that he won’t use anywhere else, you need getting it to be basically effortless.
But - not to go down the same old debate road again - but - there are a tremendous number of things in society that involve, “May I see your ID?” Voting is only one out of many of them.
The number of voters in America who never need an ID for anything else in life - that is, they never drive a car, never buy alcohol, never apply for a job, never open a bank account, apply to rent or buy a home, never fly, never stay at a hotel room, buy a cell phone, apply for SNAP benefits, etc. yet want to vote - is vanishingly small. That’s not just threading a probability needle, that’s threading multiple needles at once.
ID is usually required for more than driving or travel, though. How do these people take a job, open a bank account, rent an apartment, or apply for government assistance? AFAIK, all of those require ID. Heck, about 12-13 years ago, I had to show an ID to visit my own mother in the hospital.
Let’s be quite honest here–voter ID despite being pushed from a dishonest perspective, has never been shown AFAIK to have a significant impact on voter turnout. In fact in many places that have voter ID laws, minority voters vote at higher rates than white voters. The reality is if you could trade national voter ID for anti-gerrymandering, you would be stupid not to do so.
I don’t think the GOP is willing to make that trade though. Voter ID isn’t actually about suppressing votes as much as you think, it’s about riling up the base and continuing to build in their minds the idea that Democrats like election fraud, which is because Democrats commit election fraud. If they didn’t, why would they be opposed to having to prove who you are when you vote? Voter ID is much more valuable to the GOP as an “issue” versus a “policy.” Gerrymandering on the other hand directly gives them a number of U.S. House Seats and lots of state legislative seats, so it’s valuable to them innately and in a more meaningful way than Voter ID, they would never trade away gerrymandering to get a national voter ID law.
There’s a difference between having ID and having whatever the state has decided is sufficient ID for voter identification purposes. Many people may have a birth certificate, SSN card, or other documents sufficient for the purposes you mention. But they don’t meet voter ID requirements, which generally specify a photo ID. And the standards set by the state can be confoundingly arbitrary – for example in Texas a concealed carry permit is sufficient for Voter ID but a university-issued ID is not.
As already noted several times, it’s not “vanishingly small” – it’s more like 1 out of 10 Americans who are of eligible voting age. Granted, some of them may not care to vote, either, but all of the other things you list are not rights, and thus, eligibility for them (via providing a valid ID) can be treated differently.
The point isn’t how many don’t have picture ID, it’s who they are. People in major urban areas with mass transit often don’t drive and thus don’t have driver licenses. The very poor can’t afford cars and don’t have driver licenses. Those groups just happen to vote overwhelmingly Democratic.
I don’t want to offer voter ID as a bone to throw to the side that doesn’t believe in negotiation, only total victory. There is no logical reason to require it as the number of ineligible people who vote is vanishingly small.
In order to complete an I-9 form for employment, if you are over 18, some sort of photo ID, including passports, driver’s licenses, permanent resident cards, etc. is generally required. Otherwise, one has to provide two pieces of identification from two different lists, and if you don’t have them available, it will cost you time and expense to replace.
OK, but it’s entirely possible for people to vote despite not having a job.
And note that all of this hullabaloo over voter ID requirements is based on the false premise that voter fraud is a significant problem.
Yes, but what the GOP wants is for poor people and brown people not to be able to vote. How much of that are you willing to exchange?
Interesting podcast on that subject, what is “fairness” and how do you achieve it?
Gerrymandering is a problem I agree. But fixing it is not a straightforward proposition.
The last time I pulled my ID out of my wallet was 4 years ago at the DMV when I renewed it.