Comment by ryzvonusef
15 days ago
I'm from Pakistan, and the solution to 'it's difficult for people to get ID' was so simple even 3rd world poor illiterate country could do it: just go to them instead.
Our ID department has buses with computers and cameras/fingerprint machines on them, they go to remote villages and stuff and take everyone's bio data, then return a few weeks later and give everyone their cards.
There is literally NO valid excuse for NOT implementing voter ID.
NONE.
If we can do it, the richest country in the world can do it.
Such a pathetic hill for American Democratic party to die on.
That’s a government that’s interested and motivated in getting people an ID.
Now imagine the opposite. A government that’s not interested but rather is motivated in denying some people an ID. Why it increases that’s party likelihood of staying in power.
The US doesn't have a national id card, and the people who want to force ID for voting are the strongest block against having one, for religious reasons. What you suggest is impossible in the US.
I think it's on purpose to rather limit the voters than empower them.
No, I think that's just a republican boogie-man.
I think democrats started out with good intentions, helping enfranchise black voters a part of the civil rights act .... but somehow they have made it their morality point and refuse to accept that it is no longer fit for purpose.
They should made no voter-ID a temporary measure and created proper voter-IS systems in the meanwhile.
lets see where this whole thing heads to. May be in the end we will see the birth of a true democracy, which is social and where the strong ones will take care of weak ones. At least it should be .. in a dream :)
The problem is that we don't have those same systems for getting an ID.
There's no "government comes to you" to give you an ID. And, many Democrats would love to make it easier to get an ID, but the Republicans often deliberately make it harder to get an ID.
They shut down offices and reduce hours of locations, so people have to travel farther and take more time off work. They increase the bureaucratic requirements and hurdles, so people are more likely to need to take multiple trips.
I personally wouldn't have a problem with making a voter ID a requirement to vote, if we could also agree to make it as easy as you describe to get an ID. The problem is the GOP wants to require getting a voter ID and simultaneously make it harder to get an ID.
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>I am not an american, I don't have time for these petty excuses.
It's not that you don't have time for the excuses. It's that you are chiming in on a system you know nothing about and simply swallowing the propoganda that you read online.
If your mayor is actively undermining your ability to get an ID in order to surpress your vote, what does "holding him responsible mean"? And if your mayor is doing this at the behest of a billion dollar superpac that has run the number and realized that if they could get 1% reduction in opposition votes by implementing voter ID laws, what is lower class person to do?
It's incredibly easy to get an ID in democratic states, and the voter ID laws aren't about targeting states like California. They almost always target battleground states like Wisconsin where there are billions of dollars spent in TV ads. If you could guarantee that your opponent could like 2-3% of the vote by spending 1 billion dollars on Voter ID bullshit vs spending 10 billion on TV ads, what would you choose?
Electoral warfare is far more salient in US politics than in Pakistan - or any other country. The Heritage Foundation (one of the largest republican think tanks) already confirms that voter fraud is a non-issue - but billion dollar PACs have managed to convince a pakistani on the other side of the world that Voter ID is a real issue. You should ask yourself why you - a pakistani - has such strong feelings about Voter ID when Voter Fraud is completely a non-issue when both political sides look at the data.
Is it that Voter ID is a real issue, or has the billions being spent on making us think it's an issue bled into the media you consume as well?
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The problem isn't NY or California, it's in swing states with a thin Republican majority that gerrymanders (and other dirty tricks) its hold on the state.
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The problem in the US is they are not doing this if anything they are reducing the number of places you can get an ID.
The US is not a monolith, it's a collection of 50 states....
Democratic states collect taxes and implement policy independently, they CAN do this, at least in their own areas.
Start there first!
https://youtu.be/rHFOwlMCdto?si=OjoxCfE1noxvw3Fz
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I think the problem there is that in Pakistan where they do this they can reasonably assume that everyone in that remote village is a Pakistani citizen - they probably don't need to see your birth certificate to get you an ID, right? In US they want to see proof that you are a citizen and you are who you say you are, which is what (some) people have an issue with, even if you sent buses with all equipment on them to random american towns people just might not have the right documentation on them to pass the checks.
But yes, I agree, it is a pathetic problem for a 1st world country to have - just sort it out.
> they can reasonably assume that everyone in that remote village is a Pakistani citizen
absolutely not! we have had massive migrations both from India (after independence) and Afghanistan (after the russian occupation). This is NOT a given.
Things have NOT been easy... and in fact dare I say, our ID department is rather dumb and stupid. I personally have had MULTIPLE issues with them.
But we have been doing SOMETHING, and the fact that the US doesn't... is insane.
Alright, how do these mobile offices confirm who they are issuing the documents to then?
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