# Mail in voting will be made harder in some states **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [December 15, 2020, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mail-in-voting-will-be-made-harder-in-some-states/928104 "2020-12-15T15:51:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![flurb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/51bf81/32.png) [@flurb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flurb)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2021, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mail-in-voting-will-be-made-harder-in-some-states/928104/21 "2021-02-02T23:49:59Z")
Here in Texas, our (Republican) Governor just added “election integrity” as an emergency item for the legislature – meaning that bills dealing with the issue can be voted on earlier in the legislative session than usually allowed and making it more likely that they’ll pass. We haven’t seen yet what specifically his proposal for “election integrity” will entail, but it won’t be anything good. ---
**Author:** ![ekedolphin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ekedolphin/32/10003_2.png) [@ekedolphin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ekedolphin)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2021, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mail-in-voting-will-be-made-harder-in-some-states/928104/22 "2021-02-03T21:19:34Z")
This idea of needing multiple copies of your ID is a poll tax by another name. ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2021, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mail-in-voting-will-be-made-harder-in-some-states/928104/23 "2021-02-03T22:26:48Z")
Yes, it’s a name that will likely pass SCOTUS review given the current make-up. ---
**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2021, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mail-in-voting-will-be-made-harder-in-some-states/928104/24 "2021-02-04T22:15:40Z")
Maybe? But appointing a Supreme Court Justice isn’t like electing a senator. They aren’t beholden to the people who put them there. I think that was apparent when Justice Roberts was put in place by GWB and soon after argued that the ACA was constitutional. And look at all the Trump appointees (lower courts, mind you) who basically laughed the election complaints right out of court. I’m not sure you can always count on judges doing what you expect them to, for better or worse. I guess we’ll see. ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2021, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mail-in-voting-will-be-made-harder-in-some-states/928104/25 "2021-02-04T22:46:22Z")
Roberts was part of the gutting of the Voting Rights Act: > **[Chief Justice Roberts’s lifelong crusade against voting rights, explained](https://www.vox.com/21211880/supreme-court-chief-justice-john-roberts-voting-rights-act-election-2020)** > > He has fought to undermine voting rights his entire career. I don’t think there’s any maybe about it. ---
**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2021, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mail-in-voting-will-be-made-harder-in-some-states/928104/26 "2021-02-04T22:48:25Z")
> [@RitterSport](#): > > I don’t think there’s any maybe about it. Okay, maybe with this particular issue it doesn’t look good. ---
**Author:** ![Red\_Wiggler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/red_wiggler/32/13190_2.png) [@Red\_Wiggler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Red_Wiggler)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2021, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mail-in-voting-will-be-made-harder-in-some-states/928104/27 "2021-02-05T00:13:59Z")
One problem (for them) with Republicans not caring about hiding their disdain for easy and widely participative voting is that the Dems have caught on and done a pretty good job at highlighting this as a difference between themselves and the GOP in the states that it runs. They’re helping voters jump the hurdles that are being placed before them, something that drives Republicans wild. That’s why we see even more suppressive actions like restricting how voters can be transported to the polls in some states. If too many Dem voters are jumping through their hoops, then the Republicans are committing a strategic error as well as a moral one. Their suppression efforts are costing them more voters than they could otherwise win by supporting ease of voting measures. Sometimes we see Republicans as far smarter players than they are. They ignored their own post-mortem reports in 2012 and now they’re turning two generations of young voters against them with the perception that they are anti-democratic by policy. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2021, 7:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mail-in-voting-will-be-made-harder-in-some-states/928104/28 "2021-02-06T07:29:07Z")
It doesn’t make a lot of sense to bother in states that are completely red. It would be more if they’re in charge in more purplish states (like Texas). It took quite a while for Arkansas to try to force the need for an ID to vote by mail, and even then they couldn’t actually force it completely, making it where any votes without ID would be provisional votes. I don’t see any reason they’ll try to change anything here since Arkansas still voted reliably red. But they may follow along after a while if others get away with it, just to make it look like the “normal” thing. ---
**Author:** ![Kolak\_of\_Twilo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kolak_of_twilo/32/73_2.png) [@Kolak\_of\_Twilo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kolak_of_Twilo)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2021, 8:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mail-in-voting-will-be-made-harder-in-some-states/928104/29 "2021-02-06T08:53:11Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > It doesn’t make a lot of sense to bother in states that are completely red. It would be more if they’re in charge in more purplish states (like Texas)… The continued fascination so many have with Texas is pretty much laughable to me. Texas is not purplish; it is pretty much still a red state. It makes much more sense for the Democrats to keep pushing GA and AZ to be more, more and more into the blue column. Texas may eventually come around but not as soon as many people wish. ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2021, 9:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mail-in-voting-will-be-made-harder-in-some-states/928104/30 "2021-02-06T09:07:38Z")
Eh, I think it’s a defensible strategic interest. Texas won’t flip blue for a generation, but by actively contesting it, Dems force the GOP to spend money and resources in a geographically large state with several major media markets, thus marginally diluting their effectiveness elsewhere. ---
**Author:** ![Kolak\_of\_Twilo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kolak_of_twilo/32/73_2.png) [@Kolak\_of\_Twilo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kolak_of_Twilo)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2021, 9:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mail-in-voting-will-be-made-harder-in-some-states/928104/31 "2021-02-06T09:27:18Z")
Meh. The same money in GA and AZ and is the better investment. TX won’t turn blue for a couple more election cycles. My money is on 2032. The Piney Woods is a haven for racists. ---
**Author:** ![flurb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/51bf81/32.png) [@flurb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flurb)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2021, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mail-in-voting-will-be-made-harder-in-some-states/928104/32 "2021-02-06T14:28:41Z")
Relevant to Texas, a state representative who offered to help Trump contest the Pennsylvania election results [has just been appointed to chair the Elections Committee](https://www.texastribune.org/2021/02/04/briscoe-cain-texas-house-election/). And the new chair of the redistricting committee was specifically called out by a federal judge in 2011 for racially gerrymandering a south Texas district to disadvantage Latinos. Might need to push that “Texas is a purple state” narrative back another ten years is so. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2021, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mail-in-voting-will-be-made-harder-in-some-states/928104/33 "2021-02-06T16:05:06Z")
Said another way, Texas would be a lot more purplish today if the voter suppression was stopped cold by appropriate Federal intervention. And that’s really a microcosm of the whole debate. Given the R head start on suppression, every state can be “whitewashed” to be red, or at least much redder than its reality. Which becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy. ---
**Author:** ![flurb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/51bf81/32.png) [@flurb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flurb)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2021, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mail-in-voting-will-be-made-harder-in-some-states/928104/34 "2021-02-06T18:37:15Z")
Partly. I do think there’s a danger, though, if Democrats tell themselves that their woes are due to voter suppression. The truth of the matter is that Republicans have built a top-notch fundraising, voter identification/communications and get-out-the-vote infrastructure in the state. Democrats are improving but lag significantly behind. And they’ve also taken a lot of their voters for granted. The most terrifying outcome of the 2020 election for Texas Democrats is that numerous, overwhelmingly-Hispanic South Texas counties moved strongly toward Trump. It seems like the default mode among a lot of Texas Democrats is to bitch about how the deck is stacked against them. There’s truth there, but the deck was equally if not more stacked by Republicans in Georgia and Arizona. It sucks, but sometimes you just have to work twice as hard to beat a rigged system so you can have the ability to change it. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2021, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mail-in-voting-will-be-made-harder-in-some-states/928104/35 "2021-02-06T19:29:54Z")
Could well be. I was speaking mostly in generalities about the country as a whole. I defer to your local expertise on TX specifically. My experience traveling there a lot and working for a company with HQ there is that culturally it’s pretty hard-right. And yes, it’s a total mistake for the D party to assume non-white = D anywhere. But perhaps especially so in Texas. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mail-in-voting-will-be-made-harder-in-some-states/928104.md?page=1)