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Comment by leflambeur

15 days ago

This makes no sense. You can literally register to vote at the DMV and I know very few adult Americans, of one ethnicity or another, who don't have a driver's license.

35 comments

leflambeur

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Aloha  15 days ago

You dont know many poor people, or very young people.

I work a furry convention in the Southern US, about 3% of our attendees have some ID related malady - can't get a timely appointment at DMV, missing core documentation, unable to prove residency, etc - nevermind rural voters who may live hours from a DMV.. which they can't get to without a license (assuming they can afford a car) or a ride. No bus service to speak of either.

Its a huge issue, I'd 100% support voter ID if getting an ID was free and easy, without it I'm skeptical.

  • matwood  15 days ago

    Yeah, see the article about "RealID" yesterday. The first step is to require an ID, and the next step is to make it harder to get. For example, a married woman without a perfect paper trail of name changes? No Id.

    • Spivak  15 days ago

      I unironically keep an original copy of those documents in my safety deposit box because of this. In theory I should be able to go to the courthouse and get another copy but if 40 years down the line they've lost them I'm screwed.

      I feel bad for the people in states that don't require court orders for this because they apparently have the worst time trying to update accounts.

nemothekid  15 days ago

What state do you live in? I think this argument is very frustrating when people who live largely in blue states (like California) that don't up any hurdles to getting an ID, can't imagine the level of dysfunction that is intentionally executed in other states in order to prevent people from getting IDs.

Yeah, everyone you know has a valid ID because you don't live in a battleground state that is currently fighting electoral welfare. Republicans don't care to put up barriers to getting an ID in California, Texas or New York.

ncallaway  15 days ago

> I know very few adult Americans

Do you think there's a chance there's a selection bias to your random sampling of the population?

  • leflambeur  15 days ago

    It's easier if you just tell me what the bias is.

    Incidentally, there are many less privileged people around me and, let me tell you, they're not going to work on foot.

    • bawolff  15 days ago

      Most people are friends with people like themselves?

      The selection bias of extrapolating an entire country (not to mention one as large and diverse as usa) by using your friend group should be very obvious.

      4 replies →

    • aredox  15 days ago

      Just read all the answers in this thread. Your PoV is far from reality, especially at a time where elections are decided by single digit margins.

kevin_thibedeau  15 days ago

RealID documentation requirements are a PITA. I have a birth certificate and passport and valid DL and it still was a nuisance the accumulate the required point allocation. People without those golden documents can be very hard pressed to meet the bar.

tzs  15 days ago

Around 9% of US citizens 18 or older do not have a non-expired driver's license. It's even more for various minorities [1][2].

[1] https://cdce.umd.edu/sites/cdce.umd.edu/files/pubs/Voter%20I...

[2] https://papersplease.org/wp/2024/06/07/who-lacks-id-in-ameri...

  • leflambeur  15 days ago

    I only mentioned DMVs to point out that even if you didn't set out to get a voting document, you can still check the box and get it.

    In other words, it's not "people need driver's licenses to vote".

  • dzhiurgis  15 days ago

    Aren't poor and dumb usually republicans tho?

    • UncleMeat  15 days ago

      The poor disproportionately votes left. Somebody who is poor and lives without a valid ID that meets voting requirements is also not necessarily dumb.

piva00  15 days ago

Almost 10% of eligible voters do not have access to citizenship proof at ready[0].

Trump changed voting rules to require proof of citizenship[1].

Disenfranchising 21 million voters makes sense now, no?

[0] https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/213-...

[1] https://edition.cnn.com/2025/03/25/politics/voting-proof-of-...

  • ltbarcly3  15 days ago

    [flagged]

    • orwin  15 days ago

      The group I stayed with in West Virginia (back to lander hippies basically) only had driver license, which to my understanding, is not a valid voting ID (it isn't a proof of citizenship), so they cannot vote (Lincoln county, WV). Some are a bit mad about it, most don't care.

    • Terr_  15 days ago

      "Things that might work for other purposes" != "An ID your State government is guaranteed to accept with the new rules they want to impose."

      4 replies →

    • piva00  15 days ago

      I don't live in the USA to be able to name people, you have 350 million people, there's definitely enough to have gone through life without doing any of the stuff you mentioned, barring them from voting is antithetical to democratic values. It's very simple probabilities, there's a non-zero number of people that will be affected.

      On top of that, making vote more difficult through technicalities (voter roll purges, increased friction to vote, increased uncertainty if one can vote and will be punished if not eligible due to a technicality, etc.) further tilts the scale of who votes or not, either being barred by technicalities or fear.

      None of that has any place in a real democracy, if democratic values are to be uphold it should be as easy as possible for any eligible voter to exercise their vote if they so wish.

      You want anecdotes to fight against statistics, I think you got stuff reversed there, mate...

      Edit: ah, lol, I think I need to repeat your own words back to you:

      > This is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_ignorance and is also asking someone else to prove nonexistence of a situation.

      3 replies →