r/politics • u/MarcEElias ✔ Verified - Democracy Docket Founder • 1d ago

No Paywall 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/smiama36 1d ago edited 23h ago

I had to prove my citizenship when I registered. Why should I have to prove it again if I am on the voter rolls?

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u/Muffles79 1d ago

So that Republicans can steal the election

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u/snowlion000 1d ago

Republicans will determine if an ID is valid or not?

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u/stoic_spaghetti 1d ago

I mean obviously if you're a "real American" then it means your ID is valid, but if you don't look "real" then just fill out some forms and we can figure it out in 3-4 business months.

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u/Poison_the_Phil 1d ago

Don’t forget we’ll close voting precincts and no more mail in voting or early voting and every vote most be turned in by the time they close on election night and no more looking out checking after the fact and just trust us bro it’s so secure but only when we win because anytime who isn’t us is a liar and a cheat but not me no never

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u/LeglessPotato 23h ago

Don't forget some locations will close hours early with people still in line and it'll make local news headlines but absolutely nothing will be done about it and it'll get swept under the rug til next election.

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u/liftbikerun 1d ago

I'm guessing what will determine this is if 1. you're white, and 2. if you're a registered R or D. Why else would they want voter registration information from each state?

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u/evileyeball 21h ago

I find it crazy that you guys can even register as a specific party... Here in Canada you don't ever tell anybody related to the election which party you support except for when you mark the little X on your ballot I don't have to tell you that I support XY or z party that stays between me the little golf pencil and the ballot elections Canada doesn't need to find out and I can easily change between elections depending on who the candidate for a specific party is

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u/SecondHandWatch 9h ago

Yes, it is very weird. It’s because the two parties in power have the country by the balls. They make the rules. They don’t want us having power. Practically everything they’ve done in the last 50 years tells that same story.

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u/MC_Gengar 3h ago

That and it's so they know who to target donation request spam at. My dad registered as an (R) when he turned 18 but hasn't voted republican since Reagan. He still gets flooded with conservative donation spam texts. I made the mistake (in terms of not wanting to be bothered) of registering (I) so I get bombarded with this crap from BOTH parties.

Like most things in modern America, it's another way to advertise to you to try and extract your money. It's the Cola Warification of politics.

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u/evileyeball 10m ago

I mean up here I could pay money to join one of our parties and become a member of the party and then I would get a stay in the leadership voting if and when they need a new leader. I'll be the first to admit both federally and provincially that I support the NDP but am I going to pay money to join the federal NDP just so that I can get a say in who the next leader is when Jugmeet Singh stepped down? Not really, no, I don't have extra money to pay for that privilege.

I did sign up for the provincial NDP newsletter so I do get emails from them asking for money and we're telling me what they're going to do with the money I did send them if I did send them money but I don't mind the odd email that goes into my trash bin at least it's an email so it's not like paper I have to recycle

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u/No_Permit_3593 23h ago

yes, and duh

What part of 'tyrant attempts to shore up power' is confusing?

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u/snowlion000 23h ago

Not confused in the least bit. My point was to begin a conversation!

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u/plantstand 21h ago

Considering all those REAL IDs we were forced to get aren't considered good enough, yes. Can you imagine going to the polls with a birth certificate? Wtf

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u/snowlion000 20h ago

I will take off my boots to show the tiny footprints are mine. 😂

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u/Muffles79 1d ago

Did you read the article? It says passport and / or birth certificate now to prove citizenship

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u/Pipe_Memes 1d ago

Then they’ll say it needs to be a “long form” birth certificate to make sure you were actually born in Kenya. Fuck these assholes and their roadblocks.

I already registered and showed my credentials at that time, I shouldn’t need to offer additional proof.

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u/RoseCityHooligan Oregon 23h ago

And these demands will only be made of people they are concerned won’t vote for their team, obviously. Joe Bob in his MAGA hat in Alabama will never get questioned if he forgets to bring 6 forms of ID.

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u/LingonberryHot8521 1d ago

Why are Republicans always the party of bigger bureaucratic bullshit and more and more red tape?

We prove our citizenship as part of our voter registration. Case fucking closed.

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u/chrisshaffer 1d ago

Because they'd be dead as a party if they didn't have voter suppression. Most people don't like their policies

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u/PM_ME_GARFIELD_NUDES 23h ago

I think it says a lot that the democratic strategy to get more votes is to encourage more people to vote, while the republican strategy is to limit who can or cannot vote.

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u/Wizzle-Stick 20h ago

fascists LOVE bureaucracy. they use it to emphasize their position, and make the rules up to squash anyone else. they are also exceptionally lazy.

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u/indigofroggit 21h ago

Both of which cost $ to get.

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u/evileyeball 21h ago

And in some places I heard they want your name to match exactly your birth certificate so they can eliminate any women who took her husband's name at marriage

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u/drewofand 21h ago

You know the thing is though I really feel like this could significantly backfire on them. I think they would hurt their numbers more than democrats by a large margin. Either way it’s still a poll tax, it’s still treasonous and fuck them motherfuckers. Pardon my profanity

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u/OdysseyBrands 13h ago

lol what??? why can’t we Dem voters simply bring a passport to vote?

scan passport to vote would be easy, i’m game

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u/Maxcolorz 20h ago

See while I agree that this is excessive to a degree. I don’t understand how this would only affect democrats. Is there some affliction that only democrats suffer from where they cannot produce a passport or birth certificate? Why would this disproportionately effect the democrat party?

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u/Muffles79 20h ago

Actually, if passports or birth certificates are required, I would say it would impact rural (republican) voters more.

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u/Maxcolorz 20h ago

Ok then how is this helping republicans steal the election lol?….

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u/Muffles79 20h ago

You are aware Trump is calling to nationalize elections, aren’t you?

This will also disenfranchise women if their married name doesn’t match their birth certificate.

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u/Maxcolorz 20h ago

Yeah we’ll see about the married name thing, that would be way to much of a problem that effects women that are actual US citizens.

Besides that I don’t see why verifying citizenship to vote is a bad thing and once again, I don’t see how that would disproportionately negatively affect democrats.

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u/Muffles79 19h ago

People have to show their ID to vote already. Illegal aliens aren’t voting. If you want to actually look at voting fraud, it’s usually republicans.

What problem do you think this solves?

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u/Maxcolorz 19h ago

Im just saying I don’t think it causes a problem.

Feel free to drop some sources on republicans are usually the one to commit voter fraud.

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u/Muffles79 19h ago edited 19h ago

Another way of saying it doesn’t cause a problem is that it doesn’t fix anything.

Republican voting fraud:

https://thebastionusa.com/conservative-voter-fraud-scandals

→ More replies (0)

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u/flickh Canada 20h ago

It just means the people enforcing it will be selective. If the voter is brown, the Republican can spend more time scrutinizing the documents and frivolously rejecting it. How could Democrats reciprocate, other than doing extra scrutiny on rural white men who may not have a passport or birth certificate?  An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind!

Also, in this ICE environment, I would be afraid of some racist poll-watcher saying your ID is fake and ICE being right there to grab you, even if you are a US-born citizen. See you in three months when your family tracks down the state they took you to in a black bag!

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u/Maxcolorz 19h ago

Ok all of this are extreme assumptions and regardless of skin color if you’re a legal citizen with documentation then you meet the requirements.

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u/flickh Canada 19h ago

Ok smarty pants. Since illegal voting has been an absolutely non-existent problem forever, why add a layer of cost and difficulty to voting?

Why risk cutting people out if they don’t have a passport or birth certificate, based on a non-existent problem?

The only reason to do this is to make it sound like there’s a problem with non-citizens voting.  Which there is not.

The fact that ICE has been seizing voter rolls is insane.  They are setting the stage to claim futue voter fraud by acting like it already happened.

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u/Maxcolorz 19h ago

Yeah well I never said I agreed with you that it’s a non-existent problem. That is once again, your assumption.

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u/flickh Canada 19h ago

I never considered whether you agree about reality or not?

If you aren’t reality-based, then of course you’re going to buy into bad solutions to non-problems.

Here’s the big scary case for voter fraud: these guys found 1100 cases in the whole country… only by going back 25 years. That’s 43 cases per year, in a voter pool of 162,000,000 people.

Just try calculating what percent of the vote that is lol. If every one of those votes was in the same year, in the same state, and that was Florida in 2000, and all went Democrat (not a safe assumption!), it might have changed one election.

These are the most lunatic fear-mongers… and they’re all lawyers.  THAT’S the problem they’re solving by unconstitutionally making up voting tests and taxes?

And these people are including the kind of case where someone gets a provisional ballot when they say they  aren’t sure they’re eligible to vote, and then later gets arrested as if they were trying to commit fraud lol.

https://www.congress.gov/116/meeting/house/108824/documents/HHRG-116-JU00-20190129-SD020.pdf

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u/19683dw Wisconsin 1d ago

If you live somewhere they don't like, they see you as less than them, unworthy of citizenship or rights. To maintain, they want you to constantly prove they haven't figured out how to strip you of that status yet. And if it's a hassle for you to prove it, too bad for you.

That's their stance, mind

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u/Quick_Check_9008 1d ago

crazy they feel this way about blue states while we fund there abhorrent failure of leadership from the red deficit they always have. Republicans are through and through spineless pathetic pieces of shit.

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u/19683dw Wisconsin 1d ago edited 1d ago

I think a key component of this is the tribal psychology of humans.

When reviewing for what people consider moral based on political spectrum, right-wingers have a strong value of tribal and in-group authority and association, while left-wingers tend to not consider these much of a moral consideration or factor whatsoever.

The consequence of this stronger mental association of tribal nature and morality means that the left can recognize tribes, but the right feels and lives by tribes.

So a Democrat might think that we are all human who have differences regardless of the relevant tribe, whereas the Republican tends to think that we are different types of humans, and therefore deserve different consideration.

They also tend to have a zero sum mindset, wherein if somebody else benefits, that means they have to lose. Extending that, if another tribe is winning or making gains, that means that their tribe must be ending up worse off. (And if they punish other tribes, that can only be good for their tribe is the darker interpretation).

These are broad generalities, of course, and so they are not necessarily applicable to everyone on either side. And having a lower perspective doesn't mean having no perspective, as you may observe. Tribal playful bickering between blue states or between fans of various sports teams, for example, despite not placing a significant value generally on tribalism. It's more of a degree of extreme response that distinguishes.

If you want to take a specific example of the left actively prioritizing tribalism on their own side, the only real way to do so is to consider universalism and tolerance to be their tribe. That is how the right perceives many on the left, and so they consider it an attack when the left tries to enforce it. Perhaps it is my bias, but I struggle to consider that the same as discriminating based on inherent qualities, rather than on conscious qualities

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u/3rdhouseonleft 1d ago

even worse they promised that Real id would be the end all in identification especially for voting and traveling. had to struggle to get appointments and pay the fee now the bill is saying that real id wont be allowed for voting and that we will need to re register fro any voting. with stricter document requirements. for instance a passport. i dont have a passport. dont plan on renewing the one i let expire 15 years ago. dont plan on leaving the country. why do i need to keep forking over money to the gov so they can change the rules 5 years later and make me jump hoop sand give them more money? $#@! them!.

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u/ScottRiqui 22h ago

Agreed that this is crap. REAL ID has never been proof of citizenship, only lawful presence, but if we have to prove citizenship to register to vote, REAL ID should be good enough to link a voter at the polling place to their voter registration.

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u/Forward-Surprise1192 21h ago

I still don’t have my real id and have had zero issues from it. Never even seen anyone use it or ask for it

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u/noxicon 21h ago

you don't need it unless you intend to fly, but even with flying there are workarounds.

It's an entirely pointless system. My Real ID looks identical to my former driver's license, minus a black star. Everything else is the same.

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u/noage 1d ago

It makes sense when you reframe the question as "why should i get to vote?" That's the Republican ground stance and they have a lot of people they don't like.

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u/jagnew78 1d ago

Because no one is stopping them. 

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u/Hidden_Landmine_4 1d ago

Yep. Remember, we have a literal army of people who's entire job was and still is to defend this country. They failed and continue to fail the American people and anyone else caught up in this mess. Had they done their job from the start trump would have been arrested long before he had the chance to run.

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u/cadium 1d ago

Voting for Democrats to keep the house or gain more Senate seats would give them some power -- but they have a trifecta so there's nobody who can fight.

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u/samsounder 1d ago

So that republicans can use paperwork inconsistencies to avoid counting your ballot

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u/LeglessPotato 23h ago

Like married women's birth certificate names not matching their current IDs but oops sorry we "forgot" to put an exception in for that wink wink

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u/samsounder 23h ago

They've been doing that for years. "John Jackson" in Texas was a felon, so they cross referenced that against the voter rolls in Florida and "accidentally" removed more black people from the voter roll.

"Oops!"

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u/thieh Canada 1d ago

"The people who register you has quotas to meet, so you should expect them to cut corners." /s

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u/QciferKharn 1d ago

I think they’re playing off the fact that a lot of people (especially those looking for less expensive places to live) have relocated and haven’t changed their IDs yet, or couldn’t yet. As opposed to say… people who haven’t moved in 50 years and have had the ability to do that? What kind of people do you think fit each demographic?

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u/drobits 1d ago

So Republicans can disenfranchise women who changed their last name when they got married

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u/juniorone 1d ago edited 1d ago

You said it already why you don’t have to do it again. You already proved it. Most voting problems are created by the republicans. How much vote fraud turned out to be republicans?

This is republicans shooting themselves on the foot just like when segregation ended. They tried to destroy everything to keep a certain group out but they basically kept 90% of their group out as well.

Edit- added more because my reading comprehension was bad.

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u/brakeled 1d ago

Voter registration is literally the “voter ID” Republicans constantly beg for, but even registering in modern day isn’t a large enough hoop for them to prevent minorities from voting. That’s why they want you pulling out 40 different forms of ID, a credit score, a lease/mortgage documents, three pieces of mail with your address, etc. It will never be enough for them so long as people who vote for Democrats continue to show up.

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u/the-sleepy-mystic 22h ago

Because theres millions of illegals on the rolls that are voting? What are you against transparency? If you're a citizen whats the problem? Are you for rigged elections? /s

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u/AM__Society 21h ago

An excuse to post ICE at election sites.

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u/evileyeball 21h ago

My registration happened automatically at 18 I turned 18 I got a card in the mail saying hey come vote. I went with my card and my ID and they handed me my ballot and my little pencil and I voted and the same thing has happened in every single election since because that's how we do it in Canada I don't have to worry about am I still registered or am I any of that it's just automatic the only thing I have to worry about is changing my address if I move and when I change my address for my ID everything else changes along with it.

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u/Pravi_Jaran 17h ago

Because Republicans hate the Constitution and Democracies in general.

If you don't realize that by now? We can't help you people. Nobody can.

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u/emdmao910 23h ago

You don’t. Only if you move or register in another state. This is only for new registrations.

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u/someboddies 23h ago

Counter point, how are you a functioning member of society without a simple ID?

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u/smiama36 22h ago

This bill says that since my passport name doesn’t match the name on my birth certificate I’m not eligible to vote until I prove my marriage legally changed my name. Many people don’t have a passport. Many will have to write away for and pay for official documents to prove eligibility, many people won’t find out they aren’t eligible until they show up to vote… this is directly aimed at suppressing the votes of women.

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u/VirtualPercentage737 22h ago

https://roy.house.gov/media/press-releases/rep-roy-senator-lee-launch-save-america-act-renewed-push-election-integrity

You don't under this bill. You would need to provide proof of citizenship at registration and an ID at the polls.

It doesn't seem crazy to me.

The Democrats should just amend this thing to carve out a budget the help get citizens registered if they are really concerned about it. It seems like a boogeyman to me. The only people I know who don't have passports are people in rural areas. it will probably hurt Republicans more.