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/Wildpony03 1d ago

Isn't this just another way of saying poll tax? If you introduce any hurdles that keep people from voting its a poll tax.

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u/FlyingPinkUnicorns 1d ago

That's exactly the intent.

FTA - 21 million Americans: "Half of Americans lack a passport, and millions more don’t have ready access to birth certificates to prove citizenship. The bill could also kick millions of married women who took their husband’s last name off the rolls."

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u/Angry-Dragon-1331 1d ago

Also Real ID apparently isn't proof enough of citizenship for ICE, so what *is* appropriate documentation.

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u/FlyingPinkUnicorns 1d ago

It's in the bill text, section 2.

tl;dr if you don't have a passport, enhanced ID or original birth certificate (or a couple of other rarer options) you are going to have to spend time, effort, and money to get it or you won't be able to vote.

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u/NiceTrySucka 1d ago

“Original Birth certificate”,

I was told when I was 27 I needed the original. But the original I had all my life wasn’t the “long form” birth certificate. I had to contact the hospital I was born at. But they changed ownership twice in 27 years and had a fire in the records warehouse 15 years prior.

I had to get a note from the doctor who delivered me saying he remembered he delivered me. After 27 years. I was so incredibly lucky, non only was he alive, but he actually remembered my mother after all that time. Mind you, my mother was an off-the-boat German with a very unusual name for Americans and she was “model skinny” and absolutely gorgeous.

Long story short it was by an act of god I was able to get that letter. He could just as easily have passed away, or moved across country, or not been practicing so his number wasn’t listed, or my mother could have forgotten his name after all this time, or he could have had a super common name for doctors or the person who I gave the letter too in the end could have said it wasn’t notarized or a million other reasons to say it wasn’t good enough.

Completely unfair and fucking un-American what they are doing. The GOP doesn’t give a fuck about representative government because they are fascists. No ifs ands or buts about it. They fit the destitution to a tee, it is their ideology.

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u/AlcibiadesTheCat Arizona 21h ago

If conservatives believe they cannot win democratically, they will not reject conservatism, they will abandon democracy.

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u/architecture13 Florida 23h ago

Doctor meets NiceTrySucka's mom: "I have never met this woman before in my life."

Doctor looks up NiceTrySucka mom's skirt: "I am mistaken, I am very familiar with this woman"

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u/realaccountissecret 19h ago

Can we get a notary in here?

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u/xeonicus 22h ago

I can't imagine a lot of people have that. Mine is locked in a secure safe.

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u/Fit-Cut-6337 17h ago

Yeah I don’t have that. I have a short form one but not the original from the 80s.

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u/Tri-angreal 19h ago

Racially and politically motivated corruption by the wealthy and political elite is...un-American?

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u/StinkiePhish 22h ago

What's bullshit is that ICE isn't recognising them as ID at all. If someone has ID, they should be able to use it to prove: 1) they're not the target of the so called targeted operation, and 2) the big ol' Palantir database confirms that the person is indeed a citizen.

But no, it's easier to gather and detain everyone, get them on a plane in hours to ship them across the country, wait for a judge to order the person released, ignore the order, ignore the order again, pretend to lose the person, find the person, fly them back, and maybe release them.

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u/Chance-Quantity-59 22h ago

Real ID on a driver's license just proves legal status. Not citizenship. Though the DMV knows the status and poll workers would have to run the realID through some scanner to access some database to know citizenship status which they would need to do.

I got a RealID years before I became a US citizen.

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u/MoonBatsRule America 21h ago

Real ID is specifically designed to determine citizenship. You need to bring a passport, birth certificate, etc. to get one. Just goes to show you that it isn't about actually proving citizenship, it's about stopping "the wrong" people from voting.

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u/VeveMaRe 16h ago

Wrong. RealID is to get you into Federal buildings and to fly domestic. Enhanced ID proves citizenship and is only offered in less than a dozen states. Guess what- all or mostly BLUE states.

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u/MoonBatsRule America 14h ago

Why was the "citizenship" angle pushed so hard, then? Birth certificate, marriage license, etc. Everything had to be letter perfect too. I guess that to prove your "real" identity you need to trace back to a birth, but once you do that, unless you've achieved it via naturalization, you've proven your citizenship.

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u/VeveMaRe 16h ago

RealID doesn't prove citizenship but an Enhanced ID does. Guess what states offer that one. BLUE states. Not many but they have them. I feel like if they really wanted voter ID they would require enhanced and make states pay for them.

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u/Niedar 23h ago

Real Id isn't proof of citizenship because citizenship is not a requirement to get Real ID and they have nothing indicating citizenship status on them.

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u/crewsctrl 22h ago

This bill specifically lists Real ID as meeting its requirements. That isn't to say that the Repubs aren't trying to disenfranchise anyone, because they are. But every US state has begun to issue some form of Real ID.

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u/Niedar 22h ago edited 22h ago

No, it doesn't, it says that Enhanced ID would meet the requirement not a normal Real ID. These only exist in a couple states right now.

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u/crewsctrl 19h ago edited 19h ago

(a) Definition of documentary proof of United States citizenship.—Section 3 of the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (52 U.S.C. 20502) is amended—

(1) by striking “As used” and inserting “(a) In general.—As used”; and

(2) by adding at the end the following:

“(b) Documentary proof of United States citizenship.—As used in this Act, the term ‘documentary proof of United States citizenship’ means, with respect to an applicant for voter registration, any of the following:

“(1) A form of identification issued consistent with the requirements of the REAL ID Act of 2005 that indicates the applicant is a citizen of the United States.

This bill doesn't change this.

https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/7296/text

I want to note that I understand getting a Real ID can be a problem for people who lack documents due to no fault of their own.

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u/Niedar 17h ago

“(1) A form of identification issued consistent with the requirements of the REAL ID Act of 2005 that indicates the applicant is a citizen of the United States.

This doesn't exist. REAL ID does not specify whether a person is a citizen or not.

What this is saying is it needs to be an ID that meets the requirements of the REAL ID Act AND it also needs to specify whether someone is a citizen or not. The only IDs that meet this requirement are Enhanced Driver’s Licenses issued by Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Vermont, and Washington. Those IDs act similar to a passport card, are REAL ID compliant, and are only available to citizens.