I spent last election cycle on a college campus, and I talked to a lot of students for whom it was their first election. There will be a lot of college students who won’t bother registering if they have to go home and present their birth certificate in person.
~Max
Any voter who requires assistance to vote by reason of blindness, disability, or inability to read or write may be given assistance by a person of the voter’s choice, other than the voter’s employer or agent of that employer or officer or agent of the voter’s union.
(Pub. L. 89–110, title II, § 208, as added Pub. L. 97–205, § 5, June 29, 1982, 96 Stat. 135.)
That was a rhetorical question for the purposes of analogy: I’m aware that illiterate people have options, and that the general level of literacy in America is not as high as I’d like in any case.
Literarcy tests were used as a weapon against minorities to prevent them from voting. Voting ID laws are the new literacy test because it is not simply a requirement to have such ID to vote; it’s combining that requirement while at the same time making it more difficult for minorities to obtain government-issued identification.
And of Voter ID specifically; it’s always about suppressing the Democratic/minority/female vote. Always. It has no other purpose in the US. Which is why a fair and effective voter ID is never implemented; if the Democrats propose one the Republicans lose interest, because ID is not the point. Voter suppression is.
I’m sure it’s been fairly implemented in other countries, but that would because those other countries actually wanted it that way. The people supporting it in the US don’t.
The analysis link does not include education. My belief is that if you could pull out low income voters, being educated to become high income, you would find that they disproportionately have passports, are disproportionately Democrats, and behave more like the income they are going to than the income they are in. Income and education would then line up with higher being Democratic. It is the lifetime low income earners who are more likely to be MAGA.
The problem, for the thread, is that we do not have any direct data on the real question – whether Democrats or Republicans are more likely to jump through silly hoops to register. All available data severely suffers from the ecological fallacy. If we could cite age-adjusted income, and age adjusted education level, for each party, we would still have an ecological fallacy, but it would be less severe. Intelligent posters can thus fairly disagree – I don’t deny that.
The way you save democracy is by defeating MAGA at the polls.
Then you make our democracy even more democratic by, years later, repealing the SAVE Act.
True.
The SAVE Act is so poorly worded that I’d think the Republicans will have to amend it. But taken literally, no current Real ID is acceptable.
Why would they want to amendment it, then?
But seriously, that is not the point. It doesn’t matter who skews which way. The people pushing this know exactly how to implement it so it suppresses voter turn out. That is the point of the whole endeavor.
Right. It doesn’t matter if you can bring a birth certificate or whatever. They will selectively flag and harass people they choose to in order to prevent them from voting. All this talk of, it’s easy to get an ID is missing the point.
The people pushing it are all Republicans. The people who would implement – mostly not.
I predict that if it passes, implementation will be chaotic, with lots of news stories about inconsistent interpretations and long lines.
That’s true. And who does best in low turnout elections? Democrats.
Thinking again, I change my mind there. I have no idea on this secondary issue.
The reason for the GOP to amend is that the current poor wording increases risk the likely chaotic implementation will reflect poorly on the GOP. But maybe Trump, who has endorsed the SAVE Act, will say he likes it as written, and lickspittle congressional Republicans won’t dare change it.
They? As in – government employees who are mostly, by American political standards, a bit left of center?
The GOP is overconfident of their competence. To judge from these threads, Democrats think Donald Trump is confused, but the rest of MAGAworld consists of disciplined geniuses. I don’t think it works like that.
This is another good point, but we need to compare between groups.
About two thirds of college students do NOT live with a parent, so you correct to highlight them. And it is going to be harder, everything else being equal, for them to register than it is for commuter students.
What about the first time voters who are done with education? Some of them live with their parents, and some do not.
So we have at least four big first time voter groups.
It seems so obvious that the college students living away from home are highly Democratic-leaning. But are they? Consider where these students went to high school. The ones who live in a rural area, or a far-out suburb, are usually far from a college and thus have to live away from home – and those areas are GOP strongholds. While some college students rebel against their upbringing, most do not. The students for whom it is practical to commute live with their parents in cities and close-in suburbs, and those families are mostly Democratic. This overwhelmingly Democratic cohort is more likely to have an available birth certificate.
As for first time non-college voters, I have no idea. If the ones who live away from parents are mostly Democrats, that is a bit of problem for me.
P.S. Any argument like this has weaknesses, and I am going to own up to what I see as the biggest weakness, to my OP argument, not yet mentioned. It’s that more Democrats than Republicans are planning to move. Since the SAVE Act only applies to new voters, and those who need to re-register, higher Democratic moving intentions could be the main weakness of my argument. But since a large portion of the Democrats who say they want to move are giving MAGA neighbors as the reason, one hopes they are political enough to go through a somewhat difficult voter registration process. Or maybe it is all talk and they just won’t move. Moving and re-registration rates could easily determine who wins in 2026 and 2028…
Exactly right. But for the moment let’s pretend the Democrats in red states orgainize mass appointments for minorities in places where getting government-issued ID has not already been made difficult. How would that work? First off, the venue is not set up for processing such a surge in clientele. Second, how many of the prospective registrants can afford the time away from work to make such a trek.
We already witnessed just a few months ago the weaponization of the government against voters in line in certain districts. That’s just more proof that it’s not about getting people registered to vote or ensuring voters’ rights are protected.
This is to ensure “the right voters” are able to vote and “the wrong voters” are not.
Any argument against that is disingenuous at best and intentionally dishonest at worst.
Yeah, so do I. But registering to vote is as simple and checking a box on your income tax return and ID could be an electric bill, driver’s licence or health card. The point is they want you to vote, the Pubs don’t.
Yes, I get this. I only mentioned it to show that pure logic isn’t enough to understand the issue: you need the historical and cultural context of American voter suppression.
I must not have been clear, because now everyone is working very hard to convince me!
It’s much, much longer a list than that, as shown by Elections Canada:
Quoted for truth.
Until Trump forcibly annexes us, of course. Then only people in Canada who can show a valid US birth certificate or passport will be able to vote. Maybe.
The absolute worst time to disenfranchise someone is when, for the first and possibly only time in their life, they have the inclination to get involved in the political process. I have personally broke the news to kids who missed the registration deadline (i.e. out-of-state residents), and it is a horrible, horrible feeling. Nobody enjoys that.
Whatever marginal political advantage you are imagining, isn’t worthwhile. Political apathy is the root of all evil in American politics.
Say what you will about Republicans, or Democrats (@Saint_Cad), one of the few bipartisan activities is trying to get out the vote, inform people what documentation is required, how to get said documentation, where and how to present it to get registered, and where and when to vote.
~Max
I’m getting messages the SAVE ACT passed the house. And for some reason people who are already registered to vote are freaking out that they will be prevented from voting if their birth certificate does not match their current name. 70 million women potentially disenfranchised. I kinda call BS.
I’m married, took my husbands last name. I am Registered to vote. I carry my ID. Will I be turned away at the ballot box?
I know this is an actual problem with the “Real ID”. My wife was turned away initially because her birth certificate didn’t match her other forms of ID, and she didn’t bring our marriage license.
No, 70 million women won’t be disenfranchised because most election judges are from within the district and either know them or are reasonable human beings. That being said, I’m sure there will be hundred or thousands where the election judge is a partisan hack and will refuse them a ballot.
Election judge? Not sure what that is?
Will anyone who is already registered to vote be expected to produce documents other than a valid id when voting? And how would they know what my birth certificate says?
I’m looking for clarification that the requirements of the SAVE ACT apply to those people registering to vote. Not those already registered. My passport is expired so if I moved to another state and want to register to vote I may have to produce my birth cert and a marriage cert which imo is not that big a deal.