[BoiledCabbage]

Do you ever wonder why the conservative party in the US is pushing so strongly for Voter IDs and arguing them being mandatory when voter fraud is virtually non- existent?

Always take time to understand why people push strongly for a solution to a problem that isn't occurring. And usually when you do, you'll find there are second order effects that cause that group to benefit.

Looking into that gets to the root of the issue and the reason why people are correctly labeling it as anti-voter rights.

[_-david-_]

Do you believe European countries who keep voter id laws are trying to suppress voters or is it just the US that you have an issue with?

[jonp888]

The situation in Europe is entirely different.

In almost all European Countries there is a mandatory ID card which is issued to all citizens. So to require this ID card when voting has no effect.

[_-david-_]

As far as I know every state that has a voter id requirement provides a free id so it doesn't seem that different.

[seanmcdirmid]

Did you ever wonder why conservatives are so against the compulsory national ID systems that make those requirements feasible? If everyone had easy access to an ID, they wouldn't be able to make some people second class citizens so easily.

[_-david-_]

Every state that has a voter ID requirement offers free ids. This includes Republican states.

[seanmcdirmid]

They offer free IDs at some office far away with restricted hours ( what Texas did when they started requiring IDs, and just coincidentally closing up a bunch of D!V offices and restricting hours). They have experience from when they did the same things during Jim Crow, they know what they are doing.

[BoiledCabbage]

Again your missing or avoiding the point. Voter ID in Europe, is entirely different from what is being pushed in the US. The key question is Why is a group pushing for a solution to a problem that isn't happening?

There is almost zero voter fraud in this country. And it has been that way for decades. Do you acknowledge this? You can look back at countless research for the elections for 2020, 2016, 2012, 2008, 2004 ... As well as mid-terms.

Before discussing what we should do, we must estabilish the facts in common. This has been estabilished time and time and time again in the US over all 50 states, presidential, senatorial elections. There is absolutely miniscule voter fraud - and the very few instances over the past decades.

There have been on the order of only 50 fraudulent votes over the past two decades of elections. Yet hundreds of thousands of legitimate voters have been blocked from voting due to the new laws.

Then we get to the second question of why is ID being pushed so hard if there is no actual fraud it is preventing?

The reason is that it's being intentionally used make it easier and harder for different groups to vote. For example states have allowed gun licenses for voter id, but not college student ID. These two groups traditionally vote for different parties. Or the number of license stations and their are limited in areas that certain groups live to only being open once per month.

This is the reason for the push for the Voter ID. It provides a party with an advantage by trimming voter roles by raising the barries to get IDs specifically with groups that vote for one party over the other.

There have been less than 50 invalid votes over tens of elections over two decades, while VoterID laws have prevented hundreds of thousands of legitament people from voting. Why are we preventing hundreds of thousands of people with the right to vote from voting, to stop 50 people from voting illegally. It's not to improving election quality, becaues improving election quality would be ensuring those hundreds of thousands with the right to vote can. So blocking that many, to avoid a problem measured in the tens in not about election integrity. It's about favoring one political group over another. And the data strongly backs that up. [And if you have any data showing otherwise, please do share.]

Again, when you see a solution to a problem that isn't happening, dig in to see who benfits from that change. This rule applies to life in general.

https://www.brennancenter.org/issues/ensure-every-american-c...

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/exhaustive-fact-check-find...

https://www.pnas.org/content/118/45/e2103619118

https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisondurkee/2021/12/07/wiscons...

[josephcsible]

> Voter ID in Europe, is entirely different from what is being pushed in the US.

How is it different?

> There is almost zero voter fraud in this country.

How can you be sure of this, since successful voter fraud doesn't get detected?

> For example states have allowed gun licenses for voter id, but not college student ID. These two groups traditionally vote for different parties.

Isn't a more reasonable explanation for this that gun licenses are issued by the government, and college student IDs are not?

[mrtesthah]

You missed the point of his comment, which is that political context matters. Most european countries aren’t dealing with an authoritarian movement which is trying to subvert democracy itself[1].

1. https://www.businessinsider.com/timothy-snyder-fears-democra...

[mrtesthah]

Ah, I see, downvoted because unfortunately many european countries are dealing with authoritarian movements of their own, sadly.

[Grakel]

Need a vaccine card to leave the house, but no ID to elect the government, it would be hilarious if it weren't literally destroying the country.

[dane-pgp]

Where do you need a vaccine card to leave the house? There may be private business premises that you can't enter without a vaccine card, but entering those premises isn't a constitutional right, whereas voting is, so restricting one but not the other makes sense.

In any case, the resistance isn't against voter ID itself, it's against the policies that are inevitably put in place to make those IDs harder to obtain for supporters of one party in comparison to another. If there weren't so many recent examples of states selectively closing down polling places[0][1] then maybe you could claim with a straight face that the ID requirements won't be abused, but there is no excuse for such naivety now.

[0] https://civilrights.org/democracy-diverted/

[1] https://texasyds.org/texas-republicans-plan-to-reduce-pollin...

[josephcsible]

> Where do you need a vaccine card to leave the house?

In New York, isn't it mandatory to show your vaccine card to go into any building that isn't your house?

> it's against the policies that are inevitably put in place to make those IDs harder to obtain for supporters of one party in comparison to another.

Which policies are these?

[dane-pgp]

> In New York, isn't it mandatory to show your vaccine card to go into any building that isn't your house?

That doesn't prevent you leaving your house, and are people really checking the vaccine passes of friends who visit their home? I suspect the rules are much less strict than the original comment suggested.

> Which policies are these?

By making the issuance (and renewal) of IDs require attending a government building, and limiting the locations of those buildings and the times they are open, it can be made disproportionately difficult for poor and working people to obtain those IDs, just like the removal of polling places. A state can also invent entirely new types of excuses, like "paper shortages".[0]

[0] https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/590213-texas-blames...

[josephcsible]

> That doesn't prevent you leaving your house

I think the difference between being allowed to leave your house and being allowed to go into buildings that aren't your house is minor enough that the analogy still works.

> are people really checking the vaccine passes of friends who visit their home?

If bad laws are okay just because some people will ignore them, then even if voter ID is a bad law, then let's just pass it anyway and let the pollworkers ignore it.

> A state can also invent entirely new types of excuses, like "paper shortages".

If you needed that paper form to register to vote, then I'd agree that's a problem. But you don't: https://vrapp.sos.state.tx.us/index.asp

[dane-pgp]

> If bad laws are okay

The reason I asked if people are checking vaccine passes when their friends visit them is because I don't actually believe this law exists at all, not because I think people are breaking it. It's possible that New York does require this, but if it doesn't, I think "You're prevented from accessing some non-essential buildings" isn't fairly analogized to "You can't leave your house".

> If you needed that paper form to register to vote, then I'd agree that's a problem.

If people's right to vote is contingent on the availability and non-discrimination of a web service (which can and will change without the need for any further legislation to pass) then we've already lost the battle against disenfranchisement.

[random314]

There are a gazillion lawsuits all trying very hard to find any instance of voter fraud. They found one instance of voter fraud by a Republican.

It sounds like to you "voter fraud" is a vote by any "undesirable" citizen. Wouldn't it be cool if black people couldn't vote, amirite guys?