And being able to vote: let’s work on disadvantaged people being able to vote. That’s important too.
This is the point you seem to be missing. You’re saying progressives should be working on helping disadvantaged people rather than wasting their time fighting voter ID laws. But progressives feel (correctly in my opinion) that fighting voter ID laws is part of the package of helping disadvantaged people.
It’s dependent on Dem victory, for a start.
Did you actually read Carter’s report? What Carter said was that he supports voter ID laws as long as they have safeguards against disenfranchisement. He does not endorse the current voter ID programs. He says they disenfranchise legitimate voters.
Once again: From The Voting Wars, by election lawyer Richard Hasen:
Now, if you want a real solution to America’s real problems with election administration (those problems being 1) the system is hyperfederalized, every county doing things its own way, and 2) the system is partisan, election officials being elected officials rather than civil servants), Hasen provides it:
From the same book:
Hasen’s not making that up, either. Vadum’s article.
Here’s the thing; education isn’t a one-way thing; the people being educated have to put forth some effort in order to learn.
I’m not saying that a lot of the schools in the country are below-par, but it’s staggering to a lot of people (the majority, I’ll wager) that people can be illiterate in the US in this day and age without being either mentally disabled in some fashion. Even the worst schools can teach the basics of reading and writing; for God’s sake, it’s a skill that plenty of people learn before they’re even in school.
Pointing at illiteracy as a governmental failure is simplistic at best, and misleading at worst.
And it’s equally hard for many of us to conceive of people so cut off from mainstream life that they don’t have some kind of photo ID that they can use.
I agree that there’s something fundamentally wrong about the level of disconnection that results in no photo ID and/or being illiterate. I don’t necessarily agree that it’s a failure of government or necessarily an issue to be solved by one side alone. You can’t force people to value those things, and if voting isn’t enough of an incentive to get a photo ID or learn to read, then I don’t know what is.
That is the truth whether you’re saying it or not.
. . . or?
Voter turn out in the US is around 60% of the eligible population.
Literacy in the US is about 99% (for those over the age of 15).
How many of those not casting a vote are disenfranchised and/or without any form of ID? My guess is that it’s a very small fraction of 40%.
I ask because illiteracy certainly is not a factor. So the problem we are trying to solve with voter id’s is not the problem we should be thinking about. We should be thinking about how to get more of the 40% involved in elections.
Or maybe not. Maybe having 40% of the population completely apathetic about who’s in charge means that the US as a whole is less likely to become so polarized politically that it leads to some sort of violent civil conflict.
Raving paranoia, and because if everyone had the card no one would be interested in it since the point of voter ID laws is exclusion. It would be ignored in favor of some ID that everyone didn’t have.
Of course; the majority of Americans are bigots, and see it as a way of re-introducing Jim Crow, which it is.
None of which will happen for people who are systematically disenfranchised by voter ID and therefore have no political power. They are more likely to receive beatings from police officers guarding the polling places from them to ensure than anyone with too dark a skin tone doesn’t vote, than they are to receive aid from the government.
Having the people who support you forbidden to vote will cost you far more votes.
That can’t be done, since if we can get them those IDs then the laws will be changed so they don’t count, or outright ignored by people finding imaginary “errors” in them. Exclusion is the point; no ID they show up with will be good enough.
Ten of millions, since “without currently acceptable id” is just code for “is non-white or votes Democrat”.
I don’t doubt that a large proportion of the population remains racist or at least look the other way when racism is taking place, but I don’t know if it would be possible for the kind of picture you’re painting to take place with current day national media access to everyone with a cell phone.
That sounds like an awfully large number to accept on pure assertion without supporting evidence.
Must be nice to have a car and/or have easy access to IDs, eh?
Remember the 60% figure is among registered voters. There are plenty of citizens who are eligible to vote but aren’t registered. For obvious reasons, they skew poor and minority.
In Texas alone, literally millions of otherwise eligible citizens are negatively affected by voter ID laws. Before the law was enacted, there were nearly 2 million registered voters without a photo ID. And people who have not yet registered but could? They just add to that figure.
So, why doesn’t Texas just give them a “free” ID card? They do. But you have to show up at a DPS station to get one (DPS is where you get driver’s licenses, ID cards, etc) along with some serious documentation.
Well, what’s the problem with asking people to show up at a DPS? It’s the poor (who are predominately minorities and often non-English speaking) who have the hardest time getting to a DPS station. Many Texas counties don’t even have one, so it’s a several hours drive to get to one. Even in highly populated areas, like Houston, getting to one can often be a 2 hour one-way bus ride (remember, they’re poor = no car), which means taking time off work. And once you’re there, you’re in line for another couple hours. Even with a car, I budget a minimum of half a working day if I need to deal with the DPS.
Basically, in Texas, the voter ID law is an additional impediment to voting, especially so for poor, often minority would-be voters. If the idea is to encourage voter turnout, making it harder just to register to vote is an asinine idea. And making nearly 2 million registered voters jump through more hoops to exercise the franchise they already earned? That’s just un-American.
If you want to vote bad enough, you’ll make it happen. Everyone else has to take time off work to get their DL or get it renewed every so often, so what’s so special about poor people in that regard?
DPS offices are NOT that far apart; if places like Caldwell AND Bryan, or Cleburne AND Hamilton have them (both sets of cities roughly 20 miles apart), they’re making a pretty concerted effort to be convenient.
According to USA.gov, you can register by mail in virtually every state, including Texas…
What, are you trying to claim that there aren’t tens of millions of non-whites & Democrats in the country?
You’d like that wouldn’t you?! 
No, I’m asking if all those tens of millions of non-white & democrats are, in fact, disenfranchised voters without acceptable id’s and a burning desire to cast a vote.
If so, great - show me. And I’ll not consider this day to be an almost complete waste.
There are very justifiable reasons for requiring drivers to get photo driver’s licences. There are also very justifiable reasons for requiring Photo ID for various situations, like buying age restricted goods.
The reasoning behind Voter ID is specious at best, and disgustingly fraudulent at worst. They’re not trying to ensure that drivers are safely trained, or that teens can’t buy alcohol/cigarettes, they’re trying to make it inconvenient for marginalized, poor folk to participate in an election. They force these people to get an ID they don’t need, to guard against fraud that doesn’t happen, with the full expectation that some of those folks won’t jump through that last hoop to participate. Not only do they expect it, it’s the reason the law exists in the first place.
They’re trying but the locations aren’t conducive to the poorer parts of cities. Again, Houston. If you live in one of the poorer parts of South Houston, it really is a 2 hour bus ride to get to one. Or the need to bum a ride from someone with a car. I’ll ignore West Texas. DPS offices are sparse out there, but there aren’t that many people out there, either.
Me? They opened up one of their DPS mega offices within 15 minutes drive of my house. It’s nice. Of course, Fort Bend county doesn’t have public transit, either. Good thing I have a car and am not poor.
If the DPS were also open on Saturdays, most of my objections would go away. Alas, you have to go during working hours Monday through Friday.
So, registering to vote can literally be choosing to not go to work. Not everybody has a salaried job or flexible hours.
Great. Completely misses the point.
Even if you register to vote by mail in Texas, you still need an ID to actually vote. And the valid photo IDs for voting can only be obtained by going to a DPS office (see above for logistical issues if you don’t have a car). What’s the point in registering if you can’t vote when you actually get to the polling location?
You fail to see my point; it’s them being non-white and Democrat that means their IDs will be unacceptable, whatever IDs they have or don’t have. The point of voter ID laws is to disenfranchise them whether they are enfranchised now or not.
I’m not suggesting that voter id’s are the solution. As far as I’m concerned they won’t solve the issue any better than the current valid id’s recognized for most voters. But I’m hearing you both say that there are voters being rejected for their skin color and likelyhood to vote for Democrats.
I have little doubt that this does go on. But the number I hear is somewhere between “There are some reports of voters being turned away” and “Tens of Millions”. I’m asking if there is a reliable statistic and if that number is closer to the former or the latter.
Solution to what? What issue?
What kind of side effects are you willing to accept from a drug that cures a disease you don’t have? Does it matter if it’s just a headache or bloating instead of crippling liver damage and impotence?
The reliable statistic we NEED is the one that justifies the law in the first place, the one that tells us how many fraudulent votes occur via Voter Impersonation.
Among voters already registered, the figure in Texas alone was 1.9 million without valid IDs. That was a couple years ago. Mostly poor or old and many Hispanic. It is worth nothing that around 1/3 of these were over 65. They often have time but not the means to get the IDs. Those are DoJ figures, by the way.
The number of unregistered yet eligible voters in Texas? Around 5 million, of which about 2 million are Hispanic. Hispanics in Texas aren’t the most affluent ethnicity. So, yes, the Voter ID law disproportionately affects minorities and the poor. That was the point of the original DoJ lawsuit.
Are they being turned away? Not directly. But putting up multiple roadblocks to their ability to register or vote is like a poll tax or literacy test. A Voter ID law skirts the purpose of banning those practices, which is to reduce effective disenfranchisement of minorities and the poor. Nobody is directly turned away but it is made harder for them to even get to the polling stations.
Why make it harder for people to vote when voter fraud (the key issue) isn’t even a problem?