politics
Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
- Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.
Example:
- Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
- Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
- No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
- Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
- No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
That's all the rules!
Civic Links
• Congressional Awards Program
• Library of Congress Legislative Resources
• U.S. House of Representatives
Partnered Communities:
• News
view the rest of the comments
For me as a European it's weird why there is such push back against voter ID. could someone explain what the deal is? in my country you can't vote without an ID with a photo and I think it's normal that you need to prove who you are when you vote.
We have that as well but it's managed by each state instead of nationally. Usually with a state drivers license or state level ID card.
People are not against voter ID, we are against bad voter ID that disenfranchises people before an election.
We have our IDs, but they want more than that, they want birth certificates becuase apparently, they all want passports, birth certificates which is really hard to get because not everyone still has their natural name. Social Security Cards are hard because the Social Security Administration is a pain in the ass to work with and sometimes they don't have your information either.
To get a new SSN card, you're going to need your parent's SSN as well. Which is incredibly difficult because not every parent knows their SSN by heart or better yet, some people don't even know where their parents are, some people don't even have relationships with them anymore.
It's literally such a hassle, the regular common Joe/Jane is not gonna do that, they're going to ignore it becasue they don't want to deal with the hassle because the regular common person in America is working hard and working a hard life at that.
The problem is that in this country there is no automatically issued national id. To get one costs money and takes time, something the demographic they are trying to prevent voting does not have in abundance.
Also, elections are run by the states in this country, and most do already require a proof. My state requires a utility bill, or ID, or something that proves you live at the address, which are tied to voter roles. So the ID thing is a red herring mostly, and non-citizen voters are usually limited to tiny fractions of percentages if any. It is not an actual problem, just a useful one.
Note that it stipulates passport or birth certificate and perhaps marriage certificate, and gives them leeway to waive these requirements. It's rationalized by "voter identity", but a birth certificate doesn't prove your identity, even if you can validate it (mine is a rotting old piece of paper with an embossed stamp, seems easy enough to fake), it would only mean a person was born with the name that you claim to have.
For many people, the specifically requested documents are lost or they never had them.
Now if this was a "need to establish a fair voter id system and issue cards to all voters with a reasonable timeline to actually pull this off", then the argument could be made. But it is a last minute "better have you birth certificate right now, no time to get replacements from the government, don't vote instead, unless we decide you are ok, then you can vote anyway".
Particularly the leeway to not require the document is similar to another voter suppression method of the past. "Pass a literacy test to vote", which might sound like an ..ok.. idea, except the tests were designed to be impossible to pass, with bad wording, multiple plausibly correct options, etc. But at least it was unfair to everyone, right? Oh, if your grandfather could vote, you are exempted. So a lot of black people were conveniently blocked from exemption on a test that claimed to support educated voting but was just designed to ti fail everyone that would be required to take it.
Not US but the answer is simple.
IDs are a taboo in the US (otherwise the government would interfere with your privacy or something).
So they have