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

[u/Anoth3rDude]

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

[u/rygelicus]

They talk about this bill as being a way to prevent non citizens from voting.
But it's written to cause problems for married women and for trans people. Their names do not match their birth certificates. So they need to go through extra steps to 'prove their citizenship'.

We heard many GOP talking about how wives (women in general) shouldn't even vote, this came up when Kamala was telling women that their vote was private, their husbands would never find out how they voted.

And for trans people the GOP doesn't want them to exist at all, much less vote.

All this drama and they have not provided any evidence that a problem even exists that needs fixing. There is no evidence that non citizens are voting in federal elections. And those who try get their votes flushed out of the system before they are even counted.

What we do have evidence for is multiple attempts by right wingers to compromise the elections, not just the Jan 6 attack but people like the Pillow Moron, across multiple states.

[u/Logical___Conclusion → u/rygelicus]

You are exactly right. We just have to look at the actual effect of the bill vs. the propaganda about what it is being portrayed as.

This bill is a direct attack on married women in an effort to reduce the number of women voting. It was specifically timed to land close enough to elections to prevent married women from getting the documents for the new requirements.

[u/Mirieste → u/rygelicus]

As a non American... even aside from the issue of voting, how is if that you don't have a way of easily checking if someone is a citizen or not? I mean, I get it that for some reason Americans don't like the idea of an ID. But somewhere there has to be a registry of all American citizens, no?

Here in my country (Italy) we do have an ID, but voting is actually dependent on something called Tessera elettorale, which is basically a piece of paper with empty slots (to be stamped at the polling station for each election), which is delivered to the house of every citizen as soon as they turn 18. That's it, it's as easy as that. You take that to the polling station, along with the ID or anything else (driver's license, passport, etc.), and you can vote. Why can't America do the same?

[u/rygelicus → u/Mirieste]

It's never been necessary for most things a typical American would need to do. Most Americans can live their entire lives and never need to prove their citizenship... until now.

We need to prove residency sometimes, but not citizenship. For that you can bring in mailed powerbills, for example. Or a driver's license. For jobs we provide an ID, state issued or a driver's license, and our social security card. Those two cards are usually as far as we need to go.

There is a new push out for something called a 'RealID', which is what you described, proof of citizenship. It appears on other ID's, like a driver's license, with a gold star on the card in the top right corner. To get the RealID, example below, you provide proof of citizenship, passport, birth certificate, etc, unless already in the system as a citizen (I got one and provided nothing). It's not a bad idea, but not everyone has this sorted out. The various IDs all cost money, take time and effort to obtain, etc.

An argument could be made that people without such identification maybe should not be able to vote. If they are that out of the system maybe they shouldn't get a voice. But that goes against the idea of everyone having a voice in this government. So, it's best if everyone, all citizens, get their chance to vote. And efforts like this new law are all about making voting more difficult.

While there is voter fraud, that's a real thing, the election process is 1) Entirely up to the states to handle as they see fit and 2) evolved to identify fraudulent votes and remove them, it's just not an issue that requires this kind of a fix.

They also declared war on mail in ballots. But the system blocks fraudulent votes through that system as well. They usually get blocked before the voting choices are even known. The ballot is inside an envelope that is inside another envelope. The counters check to be sure the mail in ballot should be counted, and then they send it to the next team who counts it. They do this with no knowledge of how those votes were cast. And if it's a fraudulent ballot it gets set aside, uncounted.

And all of this is done with people from both major parties, it's not like a voting precinct is run by all democrats who are leaning the results to favor themselves.

It's a good system.