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Strict voter ID law approved in Michigan House
- Thread starter WedgeX
- Start date
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If you always have to be at work during the DMV's operating hours, then even if you have the money, you simply don't have the time. If your DMV is open from 8-5 and you work 8-4 and don't work near a DMV, good luck getting one. Just being open 2-3 more hours a day or being open for a short time on sat would be a massive improvement.
Kilau
Gold Member
I have had to show ID for every single election here in FL since 1998.
It's not like GOP cares about that though.
It seems easier for them to just prevent folks that'd vote dem to vote than to convince them to vote republican, so why wouldn't they do that.
It's a scummy strategy that works, but what can be done about that?
crooked spin
Member
I see. I personally had multiple forms of ID before I ever worked a full time job but again that is potentially a privileged experience. Thanks for elucidating.
theepicoftyler
Member
You still have to provide supporting documents to get it and prove permanent residence. Getting a replacement Social Security Card for example requires that you provide a Michigan issued state ID.
Getting an ID is a simple issue for people who are fortunate to have their shit together. It's not as easy as it sounds if you're in poverty or similar circumstances.
Yep. If you're against this measure and live in Michigan, might not hurt to volunteer for organizations that help drive people to the DMV between now and the election.
How can they even say they support democracy like this? Fucking shameless fucks.
Yep. I've compiled a folder of bookmarks that now ranges to nearly 200 on pure bad news ever since the election. I don't have the stomach to read them, so I save them.
I just can't anymore. How can things so quickly turn around and take us back even further than 8 years ago and yet it took us sooooo long to get to where we were before the election.
It's so hard to avoid depression. In fact, I'm confident I'm depressed.
Yep. I've compiled a folder of bookmarks that now ranges to nearly 200 on pure bad news ever since the election. I don't have the stomach to read them, so I save them.
I just can't anymore. How can things so quickly turn around and take us back even further than 8 years ago and yet it took us sooooo long to get to where we were before the election.
It's so hard to avoid depression. In fact, I'm confident I'm depressed.
Getting a driver's license or passport, or even just being issued your birth certificate, all take time and money. If you're a lower-income individual with no immediate access to, say, a DMV and you work all day on an hourly wage, are you likely to sacrifice several hours worth of pay -- plus money for ID fees, plus money for public transit costs to get to the DMV -- to get your photo ID?
It does take money and time (which is equal to more money) for people to get a photo ID, and if those costs are eating into your budget for food or rent, you're likely going to skip the ID. I get the surface-level feeling that everyone should have a photo ID anyway, and if the federal government or every state government that implements these laws would provide valid photo IDs for free, I might think differently about how this works. But, as it is, voter ID laws disproportionately discriminate against lower-income and minority citizens, and makes it much much harder to vote.
The extremely short version: it's like spending 3 million dollars to prevent 5 dollars worth of crime.
It's a guise of "protecting the elections!" but every time, the mechanism to get the ID itself is intentionally made difficult. Voting should be as easy as possible. Whenever someone wants voters removed from the rolls, it's always trying to optimize an election for yourself, not for the general good. Ideally, it would impossible to ever lose the right to vote in the first place for any reason.
What's even better (if you're GOP), is that Detroit municipal IDs are not valid ID for voting purposes. But hey, this is a completely race-neutral bill, right? Party of Lincoln, lol.
Strong generalization of people you do not know.
People make themselves known through their votes.
I don't believe in blanket judgments.
NoblesseOblige
Banned
I don't think anyone cares what you believe. Fact is GOP are terrible people, and those giving them power siphon much of the blame.
They own this monster. No backing out now. You cant intentionally kill someone and then say you didnt realize he would die.
They are being judged for their actions. Life is hard, now they gotta suck it up, realize they are awful and change. Or they deal with being judged. I will laugh at them either way.
GOP doesn't seem to have a problem passing blanket laws that unilaterally target minorities and people of certain skin tones. The party seems to LOVE generalizations, so I think its only fair that their voters be held to similar degrees of contempt for the human race.
Trump ran on a platform of generalizing immigrants, Mexicans, blanks, and everyone else including "white people" but that generalization was used in the reverse. So, please, take "I don't like sweeping generalizations" and promptly shove them.
Get involved at a local level. Educate your fellow man on these very subjects.
The district thing is what amazes me the most. Why is this legal again? is it just the electoral system inside states to allow less populous areas have decent representation?
How USA never just admits that the Republicans are fucking scum through and through amazes me as a outsider.
Where are you from?
I'm from Europe, voting without an ID seems strange to say the least, to me.
gutter_trash
Banned
their priorities are all upside down, go fix those water pipes ASAP
GOP = evil
GOP = evil
Pai Pai Master
Banned
Its not easy to obtain an ID that is valid for voting for many people, they may not be able to afford the cost of the ID or they don't have a car or can't drive so they can't obtain a driver's license, etc.
In a lot of cases people will find that their state issued ID is not valid for some reason (the reason is obvious) or they think their student ID will work (it is a state issued picture ID after all) then they get to the polls and find out it's not valid.
For instance if someone cannot drive or doesn't have a permanent residence they cant get a driver's license. So they're instructed to obtain a state issued ID from a county clerk office. Unsurprisingly, they then find out that there is no local office where they can get this done, the closest one is a 30-45 minute drive. or it is nearby, and their hours are so limited that they would have to miss a day of work in order to get it. And when you can't afford a car or a drivers Ed class, missing a day of work is a disaster for families.
BrutishMrFish
Member
The concept itself is fine on the surface, but Republicans have admitted to implementing strict voter ID laws to lower Democratic voter turnout.
EdibleKnife
Member
https://www.aclu.org/other/oppose-voter-id-legislation-fact-sheet
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/why-voter-id-laws-arent-really-about-fraud/
http://www.benjerry.com/whats-new/discriminatory-voter-id-laws
https://www.propublica.org/article/everything-youve-ever-wanted-to-know-about-voter-id-laws
The nuanced reasons for any given Republican's support for Trump or the GOP as a whole doesn't really mean much when the outcome is still going to be the same for the people who stand to be disadvantaged by policies like these.
Republican A voted for Donald Trump because of genuine economic anxiety. Republican B voted for Donald Trump because he's a Klan member who hates Muslims. Their different reasoning doesn't really matter when, in the end, they both chose to elect the pro-registry white nationalist as president.
Grassroots push to spread voter ID awareness and make it easier for people targeted by these laws to get registered and receive the proper IDs.
Kai Dracon
Writing a dinosaur space opera symphony
Birth certificates trip up an awful lot of poor persons and families. If you're poor, you may come from a broken home, have been shipped around the country for decades, or are not sure what city you may have been born it due to poor families migrating looking for work.
This is an area I've long been amazed that democrats haven't pushed for more programs to assist low-income individuals in getting ID. It's not just for voting but helps get people on track with things like bank accounts.
Maybe there are programs in some states but to me they haven't been very visible if so. I'd think the programs could be attached to public assistance. Require state ID to receive assistance but subsidize people who don't have the ID in getting it for the first time rather than just blockade them.
This is an area I've long been amazed that democrats haven't pushed for more programs to assist low-income individuals in getting ID. It's not just for voting but helps get people on track with things like bank accounts.
Maybe there are programs in some states but to me they haven't been very visible if so. I'd think the programs could be attached to public assistance. Require state ID to receive assistance but subsidize people who don't have the ID in getting it for the first time rather than just blockade them.
CyclopsRock
Member
Don't the stats from the latest election suggest that the vote turnout in states with these sorts of laws wasn't significantly different to those without them? The intention might be nefarious but it doesn't seem like it actually makes much difference.
Or like lawyers love to say, "ignorantia juris non excusat", ignorance of the law is no excuse. Likewise, ignorance of the outcome of your vote is no excuse. Do more research, learn how to filter out good info from bad.
Bruce Springsteen
Member
Michigan, the hell are you doing?
This is where most arguments against Voter ID always fall apart for me. Thanks for saying it bluntly and not dancing around it.
Azure Dream
Member
Yeah, I really think the era of "compassionate, understanding Democrat cutting our poor Republican fellows some slack for not doing one second of research or critical thinking" needs to come to an end. Time to smack the dog whistles out of their hands. They support a biggot, who runs on a platform of bigotry, and you can't be bothered to do even a little thinking to realize why this is terrible? You're enabling that garbage, and you are now a bigot by extension. No worming out of it because "oh, my taxes might go up" or "b-b-b-but emails". You could've seen through that shit with the least little bit of critical thinking, and you actively chose not to.
It does make a difference though. That's why they are pushing it.
Precisely. Now they get to own it and be judged by it.
Super_Cobra
Member
I mean I'm all for everyone having to vote but I think you should have to show ID to vote. Many countries already do this.
EdibleKnife
Member
They spend alot of time and money creating and pushing these laws. They spend alot of time and energy spreading the myth of an illegal voting scourge. They go through this trouble because it does have an effect that assists the GOP legislators behind the wheel.
Cool but the GOP is only interested in making more hoops to get one instead of pushing the much simpler task of making it easier for people to get IDs
Im cool with that, if we simultaneously make getting IDs free and mandatory. What is that? Nobody wants the government to pay for anything because they are selfish pricks? Oh...ok.
Until then, no fuck mandatory IDs.
TheLostBigBoss
Banned
This is just ignorance on the process that people have to go through to even get a "proper" ID.
1) It's not required by law to have an ID, although there are situations where it is needed
2) Not all ID's are "proper" enough to vote
3) People who are poor don't have the free time to make sure they have all the requirements
4) GOP controlled states are restricting where you can get such ID, like closing down DMV locations, restricting hours. This creates bottlenecks and hour long lines, things that people who work don't have time to stand in.
5) Some people who have moved their entire lives don't have the proper information to even get an ID required to vote, and the time needed to get those other identifications are easily great enough to prevent them from getting an ID all together.
In most cases it's not even the money, it's just the amount of effort that they are forcing people to go through which causes them to not have ID's to vote. Which is the entire reason they do this and make insane hoops to jump through.
According to the numbers in the article, there were 18k who voted without ID, out of about 3M voters total. So not much, but then again, Trump only won Michigan by 10k...
So now this is not an issue with whether the law has any impact, rather it's an issue with wasting tax dollars?
Goalposts are all over the place.
Super_Cobra
Member
I think they should be as cheap as possible. I don't get why people get so worked up about having to show ID to vote.
exmachina64
Banned
If you can, I am today.
Because Republicans make it as expensive and cumbersome as possible.
yet_another_alt
Member
How often does an ID have to be renewed in most places anyway? It's 6 years here and you can do it online every other renewal so it's 12 years before I even need to show up at a DMV.
The Elite
BOSS
Canadian Requirements from Elections Canada.
I'm not sure what people want to ultimately see in Michigan but I think some sort of ID is important as long as there is an easy and affordable way of acquiring identification. I believe the Provincial ID card costs around $35 CAD.
https://www.ontario.ca/page/ontario-photo-card
I'm not sure what people want to ultimately see in Michigan but I think some sort of ID is important as long as there is an easy and affordable way of acquiring identification. I believe the Provincial ID card costs around $35 CAD.
https://www.ontario.ca/page/ontario-photo-card
EdibleKnife
Member
Super_Cobra
Member
Well everyone has to have a drivers license so I think that they should include something on it where it shows that You can vote. This really shouldn't be an issue, I'm amazed how poorer countries implement voter IDs better than the USA
They need to be free 100%, period, if you want it mandatory to vote. Read the post above you that outlines the hurdles. Maybe you have no experience with the poor and disenfranchised, but that doesnt make it right to pass laws which disproportionately impact them. Voting is a fundamental right of being a citizen, or at least it should be.
exmachina64
Banned
No, they don't.
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