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Comment by Jensson

15 days ago

> Domestically most people rely on drivers licence as their ID

So show your drivers license at the voting booth? Why is that unacceptable?

14 comments

Jensson

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mjamesaustin  15 days ago

Any form of ID held by the average voter will be unacceptable to the GOP, because it won't limit voting access from the people they don't want voting.

  • Jensson  15 days ago

    That doesn't explain why democrat run states like California can't have a sensible voter ID law that accepts such identifications?

    If they just said "accept more IDs" instead of "stop voter ID requirements" people wouldn't think its a problem, but that isn't what democrats are saying.

    • HelloMcFly  15 days ago

      The crux of the argument is that voting is a right, and voter ID laws create a unnecessary burden to exercising that right given the extremely low levels of individual voter fraud. Do I need my driver's license to practice free speech? Do I need my passport to be allowed to be an atheist?

      It would be different if we were solving a problem with voter ID laws because then you're balancing rights with real pragmatism. You can as hypothetical about it as you want, you can go down the slippery slope fallacy if you want, but the evidence shows us we do not have an issue here.

      It would also be different if IDs were easier to come by, because then the burden is not disproportionate to the problem. But neither of these things are true.

      Instead we're just enacting barriers to the use of our constitutional rights, barriers to participation in society, not to solve a problem but to enact a political end.

    • amanaplanacanal  15 days ago

      What problem are you trying to solve here? Republicans say the problem is people voting who are ineligible, Democrats accuse them of trying to make it harder for democratic voters to vote.

      4 replies →

orwin  15 days ago

I don't think a driver license is a valid voting id in the US, because you don't have to be a citizen to get one.

  • Jensson  15 days ago

    When you show your id they check if you are allowed to vote, the id is just to identify you as a person it doesn't mean everyone with an id gets to vote.

    • orwin  15 days ago

      I misunderstood what my West Virginian friend wrote me then, from my understanding the new ID laws will require an ID as 'proof of citizenship' to register to vote, which a driver license isn't. Those who vote among his group are a bit mad about it.

ryan_lane  15 days ago

Not everyone has drivers licenses, especially poorer folks, especially minorities. The requirements for drivers IDs are now to get RealIDs and some of these folks don't have access to things like birth certificates and other requirements of getting a RealID.

There's also additional requirements of your gender matching your ID (which eliminates many transgender folks), your name matching on all documents (good luck if you're a married woman), etc.

Folks are rightly pointing out that these laws are engineered to suppress votes, and you seem to not be willing to listen to understand why.

  • Jensson  15 days ago

    > Folks are rightly pointing out that these laws are engineered to suppress votes, and you seem to not be willing to listen to understand why.

    Are you saying democrats will engineer these laws to suppress votes? Is that why democrats don't have voter id laws? The GOP isn't relevant here, we are just wondering why democrat states can't seem to do this.