Fellow progressives: Aren't you missing the point with your opposition to voter ID?

Great Debates
1

Let me beseech conservative proponents of voter ID to please stay out of this and stick to the other voter ID threads that generally bounce back and forth on the right/left axis. If you listen to this NPR story and believe that the people they interview should simply not be able to vote, but neither should the government intervene to make their lives better, then this thread is irrelevant to you. (Also, you are heartless.)

Most of my fellow progressive Democrats on this board (and off it for that matter) are fiercely against voter ID laws. And the NPR story strikes me as pretty sympathetic to your camp. But I ask you to think beyond just being concerned about protecting Democratic candidates in elections, and connect with your core progressive values when listening to the story.

After doing so, please tell me how I’m wrong in thinking that any Democrat who battles to preserve the status quo (or at least the recent status quo before the ID law was passed) is just putting a Band-Aid on a much deeper problem. That these poor, rural African Americans don’t have state IDs* is, to me, a symptom of their profound alienation from the American economy. Shouldn’t we really be trying to fix that problem, rather than just asserting that they can stay as they are and vote without ID?

Because let’s face it: no one who is really integrated into the 21st century American economy in a meaningful way is going to lack ID. These people are not just on the margins, they are way past the margins. Their numbers are shockingly large, but what they really need is to be brought out of the shadows and into full participation in society. Unless and until that happens, their votes are clearly being wasted anyway. In what way can they really be said to be full participants in a modern democracy when they live this way?

*Just, in many cases, Food Stamps IDs–which probably should be good enough; but that is beside my point.

2

Do you really think handing somebody an ID card is going to improve their life in any meaningful way? If somebody doesn’t have an ID card because they’re poor and uneducated and lack opportunities, they’ll still be poor and uneducated and lack opportunities after you give them an ID card.

3

So your way of bringing them “into full participation in society” is to take away their right to vote? :dubious:

4

The laws that are being enacted are about voter ID, so that’s what people argue against. Voter ID is an immediate issue with a very simple solution for opponents, so it’s very easy to be loud about it.

What’s my solution to laws that require photo ID for voting? Get rid of them.
What’s my solution to crippling poverty and social alienation? That’s bad, so…do…stuff?

5

No, no, no. I’m not saying they should be “handed an ID card”. I’m saying they should be given a job (and, yes, an education), so they can participate meaningfully in our society and economy. As part of that, they are going to need an ID, and then the point about voting becomes moot.

Note that one of the points made in the story was that some people didn’t get hurricane disaster relief because they couldn’t read or write. The anti-voter ID crowd, it seems to me, are analogous to someone who hears that and says “I’m outraged–we must stop discriminating and provide disaster relief to the illiterate”. I say, “Jesus fucking Christ, this is the 21st century and we are the richest nation on earth–how about we insist on 100% goddamned literacy in this country just to start off with?!?”

6

I think you’re missing the point. The entire concept of Voter ID, its raison d’etre, is to selectively reduce participation in elections. The point is to make it less convenient to vote for some US Citizens, namely a group of citizens who are likely to vote for the Democrat.

There is no amount of opposition too great when the program is designed to reduce participation in our elections as a method to skew the vote to a particular candidate.

If you want literacy, you get people out there to teach people to read. Does Voter ID do ANYTHING to actually HELP these people? If not (and I’m pretty sure the answer is ‘not’) then why would I change my thoughts on Voter ID, in the slightest? Voter ID isn’t about fixing the problem you’ve identified, it’s about leveraging that problem to benefit Republican candidates. It’s about further marginalizing those folks by taking something else away from them.

7

Yes, that’s a nice long-term goal, but in the meantime, people need the relief.

8

Okay, I insist on that. Should I stop insisting on everything else until that comes about, or is it alright with you if I insist on some other stuff in the meantime?

9

I think the primary problem with your confused logic has been made quite clear. People don’t become meaningfully involved in the American economy just because they have an ID.

It’s also worth noting that most people do have acceptable forms of ID, such as birth certificates or social security cards.

What other common state-issued photo ID is there than a driver’s license? Your premise, then, is that one has to have a driver’s license so as to not be alienated from the American economy. This is not entirely true, and with the increasing use of technology that allows people to work from remote locations rather than a centralized office, is becoming less and less the case.

Finally, I’m actually surprised you consider yourself a progressive.

10

No, you have completely misread the directional arrow of cause and effect that I am talking about. I am saying that if someone is not deeply alienated from American society and its economy, they will have a state ID as an incidental aspect of that integrated existence. I am certainly not saying that handing them an ID will magically fix all of their other problems. I’m surprised that multiple people seem to have interpreted me this way; but apparently I should have stated this in bold lettering in my OP.

I do have a few maverick-y positions on certain issues; but I don’t know how I could be described as anything but a progressive. I am for a higher minimum wage; for guaranteed employment for all; for strong protection of the environment; for sharply increased taxes on the rich; for marriage equality; for strong protections of consumer and worker safety. What would you call me?

ETA: You are aware, aren’t you, that there are state IDs which are not authorisations to drive a motor vehicle? They still look similar and have a photo, the person’s address and whatever holograms and such the state uses to fight counterfeiters. I have had friends that have had these because they did not drive.

11

I will respect the OP’s request to stay out of the thread only to the extent of not discussing the merits or lack thereof of Voter ID laws.

But I will pop in to say that “Give them a job,” is an illuminating phrase. I’m more sanguine with “give them an education,” because, of course, that’s what we do already. But as a general principle, that’s where it ends. We don’t typically “give” jobs – we give education and skills to allow the population to GET jobs, and that job is not a gift but a mutually beneficial contract between the employer and the employee.

“Give them a job,” should lie on the dustbin of history next to central planning committees and five-year-plans.

12

Most countries have some sort of national ID card; that can be very convenient. I’m not sure what the arguments for and against are. (I do suspect illegal immigrants would be unhappy with the idea.) If OP wants to discuss that, it might be a useful thread. But the title of such a thread would not contain the word “voter.”

The “voter ID” concept being pushed in today’s America has only three objectives:
[ul]
[li] Suppressing likely Democrat voters,[/li][li] Suppressing likely Democrat voters, and[/li][li] Suppressing likely Democrat voters.[/li][/ul]
Anyone who doesn’t realize that has been drinking the wrong Kool-Aid.

Yes. To pretend that election integrity, or help for minorities has anything to do with the issue is nauseating hypocrisy. One of the Board’s lawyers babbles incessantly about voter ID being good in the abstract. But in practice U.S.A. doesn’t have the sort of fraud voter ID would alleviate. Instead voter ID is the fraud.

No. Your thread title suggests you’re ready to drink the Kool-Aid. If you want to discuss national ID, or minority rights, open a new thread with an appropriate title.

13

This is obviously true, but has nothing to do with Voter ID, other than the fact that Voter ID seeks to make voting inconvenient for deeply alienated citizens.

14

They are going to lack the “right” kind of ID, since as said that’s the whole point of voter ID laws; to keep them from voting. Either a form of ID they don’t typcially have will be picked, or their IDs will mysteriously all have errors that just happen to keep them from voting while white Republicans will of course be approved to vote without exception.

15

Hoo boy. Another item which I thought would be so obvious as to not need to be spelled out, but apparently I must do:

Yeah, I kinda cottoned long ago to Republicans not having pure motives in pushing voter ID laws. So any time they are being disingenuous and have nefarious motives, we must jump up and down and firmly push in the 180 degree, opposite direction? That is incredibly simple-minded; worse, it falls neatly into their trap. Wake up!

I’m choosing to go at a 90 degree angle, to seek to make the issue irrelevant while accomplishing progressive aims.

BTW, you are also falling into another right wing trap by calling them “Democrat voters” instead of the proper “Democratic voters”. Please don’t do that.

I tend to find that reductio ad absurdem helps delineate an issue nicely, so I use it often. I know that some (clearly intelligent and thoughtful) people don’t agree with this approach and consider it hyperbolic. I’m a fan, though, so I’m going to keep doing it, including right here.

Let’s say the Republicans had a whole group of people herded into the bottom of an abandoned quarry. There, they kind of huddled and moaned. Republicans have no interest in helping them and in fact throw impediments in the way of their escaping; but they used to let a few of them vote if they were determined enough. Now Republicans are clamping down and saying only people who have completely escaped from the muck at the bottom of the quarry can vote.

Should Democrats:

(A) Fight like mad to make sure we can go back to the old status quo of having a few of the moaning, writhing, muck-dwelling quarry folk vote?

or

(B) Get them THE FUCK OUT OF THE QUARRY?

I mean, srsly. C’mon!

ETA:

This is a red herring as the crux of it has nothing to do with newly passed voter ID laws. Either the enforcement mechanisms of the Voting Rights Act are still strong enough, even after the SCOTUS decision, to nip these abuses in the bud; or they are not strong enough, and election officials can pull Jim Crow crap with impunity, regardless of the law. If the latter, that is the issue Democrats should focus on, not brand new laws that are irrelevant to the problem.

16

And what do we do WHILE trying to get them out of the quarry?

And it would probably have to be addressed at conservatives, as to why do they tend to generally oppose a universal ID.

But as other people have said: Sure we need to invest every citizen with a stake in society. That’s a worthy goal. But we are not doing it effectively, and if lack of ID is a consequence of socioeconomic disenfranchisement, then how does it make sense to make it a prior requirement for electoral enfranchisement? If they’re so socioeconomically disenfranchised they might as well not vote because “their votes are being wasted anyway”? We *did away *with actual literacy and taxpaying requirements back in the 20th century – were we wrong to?

17

It’s going to be really hard to get them out of the quarry if your candidates lose elections due to the change in voting dynamic created by Voter ID.

What’s probably more important, if you want those folks out of the quarry, is to get rid of the people herding them into the quarry, and impeding their escape.

And, really, I think the Democrats generally do want to get them out of the quarry, and are working towards that end already. Do you really think that these folks are in the situation they’re in because the government doesn’t realize they could use a bit of help? This is a complicated problem that doesn’t just fix itself by virtue of one political party deciding to focus on it.

18

Not hard enough, clearly. I mean, we’re heading toward the 50th anniversary of the War on Poverty here. Maybe if Democrats need to get them *out *of the quarry to get their votes, they will work a little harder on building ladders instead of just lowering little buckets on ropes and pulleys for the quarry dwellers to put their votes in. (And I honestly am usually one to resist that kind of incendiary, “circular firing squad” type rhetoric, but this is just too much, man.)

ETA upon further consideration:

Agreed! But falling into the trap of seeming not to be about anything real and substantive, but instead appearing to be so vocal about standing up for the right to vote without ID (which looks mighty fishy and “machine-like” to Ma and Pa Swing Voter) is *not *the way to go about it.

19

If these people are so far outside the margins of mainstream American society it makes me wonder; do these people even vote?

20

Why Voter ID though?

Why not issue everyone a national ID card, replacing all other forms of ID?
No state ID, no SNAP card. It all happens on your National ID.