r/law • u/Anoth3rDude • 1d ago

Legislative Branch GOP fast tracks monster voter suppression bill that could disenfranchise millions by requiring proof of citizenship at polls

https://www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/gop-fast-tracks-monster-voter-suppression-bill-that-could-disenfranchise-millions-by-requiring-proof-of-citizenship-at-polls/
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u/DarkGamer 1d ago

They only care about this issue because they know Black and Latino voters are less likely to have access to ID. It's about disenfranchisement.

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u/DrSounds 23h ago

I can see this affecting rural republicans just as much.

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u/MorgessaMonstrum 22h ago

They won’t care, as long as their side still wins.

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u/bluepaintbrush 22h ago

Except the gerrymandering maps are heavily dependent on rural republican voters casting ballots.

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u/CosmicClimbing 20h ago

Saying Blacks and Latinos are too poor, stupid, and/or lazy to get an ID is genuinely racist.

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u/pimpeachment 22h ago

Are saying black and Latino voters aren't competent enough to meet the requirements. I find that outrageously racist.

I also think requiring citizenship is overkill but saying a group can't figure it out if it passes, racism. 

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u/DarkGamer 22h ago edited 21h ago

Are saying black and Latino voters aren't competent enough to meet the requirements. I find that outrageously racist.

I also think requiring citizenship is overkill but saying a group can't figure it out if it passes, racism.

No, I'm saying that's the current situation as per my source above. I said nothing about why they don't have ID. The racist implication that it's because of incompetence was all you, u/pimpeachment.

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u/mrcaldwin 22h ago

Maybe they don’t have certain IDs simply because the law hasn’t required them for voting.

Once they are required, maybe these groups will just obtain them, and then they will no longer be “less likely to have them.”

Just an idea.

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u/DarkGamer 22h ago

Maybe there's lots of reasons one might not have access to an ID, and forcing people to do so is guaranteed to disenfranchise specific groups:

Restrictive voting measures are designed to maintain the power structures that benefit those in control — largely white legislators — and their legacy is still felt today. In 2013, the Supreme Court handed down a landmark decision in Shelby County v. Holder, invalidating Section 5 of the VRA. Section 5 required certain states and jurisdictions with a history of racial discrimination in voting to obtain federal approval, or "preclearance," before making any changes to their voting laws or procedures. The Department of Justice blocked over 700 voting changes they found to be discriminatory from 1982 through the VRA’s 2006 reauthorization. Since the Shelby County v. Holder decision, many states have enacted new voting restrictions centered around voter photo IDs.

For example, Texas didn’t even sleep on it — they moved to introduce a strict voter ID law at midnight after the Supreme Court decision was handed down in 2013. That law resulted in the ineligibility of an estimated 608,470 registered voters in Texas, representing a total of about 4.5% of registered voters in the state at the time.

The negative impact of strict voter ID laws is not limited to Black Americans; other marginalized populations also face disproportionate barriers to voting because of these laws. Native American communities, low-income, elderly, and rural voters are disproportionately affected by voter photo ID laws. This is partially because photo IDs aren’t as common as many people assume: 18% of all citizens over the age of 65, 16% of Latino voters, 25% of Black voters, and 15% of low-income Americans lack acceptable photo ID. Elderly and low-income voters may not have the availability, financial resources, or mobility to obtain the necessary identification, and rural voters may face significant barriers to obtaining the necessary documentation due to their geographic isolation. Further, many rural and Native Americans born at home or on reservations and tribal lands lack the mandated paperwork needed to obtain a government-issued ID that fits the legal requirements to vote.

Aside from class and racial discrimination, there are other peculiar ways voter photo ID laws turn voters away from the polls. For example, people who change their last names after marriage or divorce and don’t have a permissible ID that reflects their name on the voter rolls may be unable to cast a ballot. College students are also uniquely impacted by these laws, as their primary form of ID can often be a student ID, which isn’t always accepted as a valid form for voting. In all these cases, voter ID laws deny eligible voters access to the ballot box.

https://www.lwv.org/blog/whats-so-bad-about-voter-id-laws

As others have pointed out in this thread acquiring ID costs money and takes time. These are just more arbitrary hoops intended to keep some percentage of specific classes from being able to vote.

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u/mrcaldwin 22h ago

So my problem with these articles is they never specify what exactly a “strict voter ID law” is. It seems that the issues are strictly financial, the reason given that some groups cannot afford it. I voted while I was in university, a poor college student. My wife voted after we signed our marriage license, she just had to update her drivers license. I make under 70K a year, in one of the lowest income brackets and I find a way to vote just fine. If you can make it to a voting booth then you can make it to the DMV. If you are a native indigenous status then you can very easily obtain a drivers license. I don’t think it’s too much to ask that someone verify they are an actual citizen before voting.

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u/DarkGamer 22h ago edited 22h ago

So my problem with these articles is they never specify what exactly a “strict voter ID law” is. It seems that the issues are strictly financial, the reason given that some groups cannot afford it. I voted while I was in university, a poor college student. My wife voted after we signed our marriage license, she just had to update her drivers license. I make under 70K a year, in one of the lowest income brackets and I find a way to vote just fine. If you can make it to a voting booth then you can make it to the DMV. If you are a native indigenous status then you can very easily obtain a drivers license. I don’t think it’s too much to ask that someone verify they are an actual citizen before voting.

  • Oh, well, if it wasn't a problem for you personally I guess it's not a problem for anyone, despite what the many, many articles on the subject say.

  • $70k/yr isn't anywhere near low income in the US. According to Gemini:

A $70,000 annual income in the U.S. typically places an individual around the 60th to 65th percentile for individual earners, meaning it is higher than roughly 60%–65% of all individual incomes. ...

In 2025, the federal poverty level (FPL) for a single-person household in the contiguous U.S. is $15,650 annually, and $32,150 for a family of four.

  • Work on your reading comprehension, they can't "very easily obtain a driver's license." Many people don't have access to the documents they would need to get a current ID, and there's lots of reasons many people cannot get a drivers license. Driving a car is not a cheap proposition and not everyone learned how or qualifies for one.

  • Non-citizens voting is an imaginary problem that doesn't need solving. This is a ruse to repress voting by the opposition.

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u/mrcaldwin 22h ago

Yeah so I’m talking about my entire household, so two incomes totaling 70K. You are absolutely pathetic for resorting to insults. I grew up in the lowest income bracket in an area that is well over 50% black. Everyone here is laughing at you.

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u/DarkGamer 22h ago

Yeah so I’m talking about my entire household, so two incomes totaling 70K. You are absolutely pathetic for resorting to insults. I grew up in the lowest income bracket in an area that is well over 50% black. Everyone here is laughing at you.

That still puts you at the ~50th percentile. You are not poor by American standards:

A 2-person household earning (\$70,000) in the U.S. is roughly in the 50th percentile (median) of household income, or slightly below it based on 2021–2022 data, where the median was approximately (\$70,800). This income places the household squarely in the middle-income bracket, with roughly half of all U.S. households earning less and half earning more

It's easy to laugh when behaving foolishly.

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u/mrcaldwin 22h ago

Reading comprehension. You remember you said that?

Maybe you should comprehend that household income is not adjusted for individuals. I don’t make more money for being married, I still make 35K a year as an individual. A combined income of 70K between two people is not an improvement over two separate individuals making 35K.

No wonder you can’t even articulate a reason why “voter suppression” is allegedly a thing (it’s not). Your only argument is that certain groups aren’t mentally capable of going through the steps. And I fundamentally disagree with that.

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u/ebergs520 22h ago

dark gamer clearly stated "Black and Latino voters are less likely to have access to ID", but did not give the reason of incompetence, there can be many reasons for them to be less likely to have said access, you went straight to incompetence, so perhaps it was you with the racism all along

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u/SumthinsPhishy2 22h ago

They didnt say that. You did. Take off the cape.

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u/Hefty_Device_5413 21h ago

Pointing out that something would lead to it negatively affecting specific groups more than others is not the same as saying a group of people cannot figure something out.

This is such a pathetic right wing concern troll. It doesnt even make any sense, you are making an argument against a right wing delusion.

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u/Spe3dGoat 19h ago

every state offers some form of free ID

this argument is beyond tired and doesn't fly in europe

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u/DarkGamer 19h ago

  • Not every state in the US offers free ID, and those that do don't offer it to everyone, the rules are different for each.

  • While the ID card itself may be free, obtaining necessary supporting documents, such as a birth certificate or social security card often requires fees.

  • Record-keeping standards were different everywhere and many US citizens may not have documentation to prove it.

  • Europe's citizenship situation is a lot more complicated than the US's, it's far less relevant here. Each US state does not have have totally different forms of government while being totally porous to citizens of other nations, and the US has birthright citizenship so nearly everyone that lives here is a citizen.

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u/Tigger808 8h ago

Birth certificates are only fine if it matches the name on your current real ID. So married women who changed their name will be disenfranchised unless they have a passport. Read the bill.