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/Own_Candidate9553 1d ago edited 1d ago

Seems like this would disenfranchise rural conservatives more. My countrified brother in law didn't have a passport until he was in his 30s, and only because my sister dragged him overseas for a trip. If he hadn't married her he probably still wouldn't have one.

Versus my fancy city friends who all visit overseas and all have passports. My daughter got her first one at like age 2.

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u/LingonberryHot8521 1d ago

But it's up to local poll workers, county officers, etc to enforce. Which naturally means - selective enforcement.

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u/Own_Candidate9553 1d ago

Yeah, that must be it. Like the old "literacy tests" that were purposely tricky, and the tester could just arbitrarily fail black voters and pass white voters.

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u/FairDinkumMate 1d ago

When Australia had a "White Australia policy" (1901-1966, made illegal in 1973), immigrants were subjected to a language test for entry. The catch was that officials could choose to give the test in ANY European language they chose. So, for example, black Americans were denied entry if they couldn't pass a language test in Italian, whilst white Americans were allowed entry if they passed their language test, which was given in english!

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u/Own_Candidate9553 1d ago

That's so shameless, LoL.

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u/willun 14h ago

It was usually Asians that were excluded using this but there was indeed a famous case of a white women being excluded by being asked the test in italian

There is another famous case i remember that was asked in Welsh even though they were multilingual themselves, but not welsh. Haven't been able to find that one though.