Here’s one question I’ve not seen asked of voter-suppression advocates:
The U.S.A. has a single most-important election once every four years; its scheduling does not come as a surprise. If you wanted to institute a major change in voting laws
Would you choose the period immediately before such a major election to do so?
Only one?
Even the republicans and Bricker now concede that vote suppression is the reason, seriously everyone gets it. I think though people are trying to have discussions about the bigger issue.
People really underestimate the complications of being poor when they’ve never been there.
Or people who have lost theirs in a move, in poor paperwork management or because they’ve been homeless and you don’t generally keep boxes of paperwork with you when you’re homeless. Now, it’s relatively easy to get a replacement birth certificate, but it costs money, and takes about 2 weeks.
In my state, you also have to provide a social security card for a driver’s license or state ID. Not just the number, but the actual card. Again, people lose them. You can get a replacement, but again, it’s a 2 week wait. And you have to have your birth certificate (official, not copy) *before *you can apply for a replacement SSN card. So that’s at least a month before you can get an ID.
Utility bills? Many poor people don’t have utility bills in their name. When you can’t pay your bills, eventually they won’t let you have a utility account in your name, so you beg a family member or friend to open up an account in their name at your address. Many poor people live multiple families to a single address, and only one of those people will have utilities in their name. Others live in assisted living or low income/rent assist apartments where the utilities are paid by the management and rent includes all utilities.
Lease agreement/proof of address? Again, poor people often don’t have a lease. They live with someone else who owns the home or has the lease or they’re on a month-to-month verbal agreement with no written lease. When you’re poor with shitty credit, landlords don’t want to give you a lease, because it makes it much harder to evict you if you end up not paying your rent. Not to mention that when you’re poor, your address tends to change pretty frequently. Many people won’t go through the expense and bother to get an ID when they know they’re likely going to be moving in a few weeks or months anyhow, and will just have to do it all over again.
None of these are insurmountable, but they all require time and money - two things that poor people are often lacking in - and for what? To “solve” a non-existent problem.
Well that is a different issue than not having a birth certificate, not having a copy handy. Never having had a birth certificate is a way more complicated problem.
I’m not sure a New York birth certificate would even be relatively easy to get for someone who has trouble scrounging up the documents needed to get ID. And if you don’t grease them with $15 extra to speed up your application, they say it will take 10 to 12 weeks.
(And this isn’t a common problem, but to get a birth certificate, you usually have to know your legal name and at the very least the state in which you were born. Somewhere out there, there’s a Jim who doesn’t know that his legal name is spelled “Jym” and that he was born in another state because his mom went into labor too early during a road trip.)
Funny you mention this because I was just trying to find an article about a guy named “Shawn” which was how everyone said his name. His name was really Sean:p
I have to say, it’s interesting to see the left resort to American Exceptionalism for once. The right has healthcare, the left has voting ID. In both cases, the fact that the rest of the civilized world uses it just isn’t a good enough reason.
The rest of the civilized world has universal healthcare. The rest of the civilized world also has better healthcare outcomes in terms of things like life expectancies and percent of GDP spent on healthcare.
Does the rest of the civilized world also have a provably lower incidence of voting fraud due to impersonation of voters and/or voting by people who are not actually eligible to vote? 'Cause the main argument I see against voter IDs are that they place an undue burden on people (especially poor people) in order to solve a problem that doesn’t actually seem to exist.
I believe their are ulterior motives going on in the USA concerning the difficulty in obtaining ID that go beyond the recent voter ID issue, I believe intentionally making it difficult for the homeless and transients is only part of the issue.
I know it will get everyone’s hackles up but what is obtaining ID like in one of those “third world countries”, well I live in one so I checked.
Ok so assuming you are a citizen born inside the country(the most common situation) what do you need to bring?
And how much does it cost?
The first one is free isn’t only for drug dealers!
Oh and registering to vote happens when getting the ID, and the national ID is also your voting ID.
Why isn’t it this easy in the USA?
When I was 16 years old, I got a letter from the government telling me to come and get my ID. I went down to the Ministry of Interior offices, stood in line, got my picture taken, and a few weeks later got my ID in the mail. I had to bring the ID card of one of my parents; no payment was involved. And that’s it. It’s not a complex process.
So “the rest of the civilized world” doesn’t have US-style voter ID laws, then? I’m against voter ID in the US, but mainly because ID can be so hard to get. It’s the opposite of American exceptionalism, really.
Well I won’t speak for the world, but actually it does seem that presenting ID to vote is the norm. The difference seems to be in how easy and costly it is to acquire said ID.
My guess is that other countries have higher voting rates due to the fact that voting is more convenient - for instance, you don’t have to remember to register before every vote. I don’t have numbers for you, but I suspect that young and poor people vote *more *in places with mandatory voter IDs.
And the fact of the matter is, just as other countries with universal healthcare are more healthy overall, countries with national ID systems have higher overall voter turnout.
I have to agree with Alessen on this. What is the big deal? All voter ID does is show whether or not that person is authorised to vote, being of the right age, citizenship and residency (if required). I really don’t see how this disenfranchises anyone except the clueless.
It is a big deal in the USA because it is a freaking ordeal to get ID, if you made it as easy as showing your birth cert and boom ID I don’t think anyone would care.
Its freaking difficult to get a social security number? A Driving license?
So generally, come voting day what happens in the US when you show up at the polls. They just wave you in and let you vote?
Ditto, except I was 18 and it was optional and I had to pay a fee if I wanted it mailed to me, otherwise come back and collect in two weeks.
I don’t mean this negatively but you’re not understanding the issue.
Not only are the types of ID accepted restrictive and in some states suspiciously politically motivated(a concealed carry permit is acceptable?) but the laws have been changed before a major election.
Yes it is freaking difficult to get a driver’s license in the USA, you need in addition to a birth cert your social security card AND multiple documents proving residency in the state you’re getting the license at and you’ll pay around twenty to thirty dollars for the pleasure. How many poor, unemployed, or homeless people could get that together or would bother to?
What used to happen was exactly as you said, you’d show up to the polls and just vote after giving your name. Each state was different but documents may have been collected when registering to vote only. So grandma who registered 30 years ago and has voted since is suddenly going to get surprise come polling day,
Here is the process in my home state of Texas for someone with no photo ID to enter the system:
http://www.txdps.state.tx.us/DriverLicense/applyforID.htm
It is even more restrictive than when I applied, now you need two pieces of supporting documentation instead of just the social security card.
Now in addition to all that you also have to prove residency!
And finally you must pay $16.00 for it.
Easy as pie! And note no one made me aware a affidavit could be sworn out for those who could not prove residency, in person in the olden days it was prove residency or forget it. Not sure if that is a new addition or not.