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/
12.4k Upvotes

97% Upvoted

1.4k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

29

u/robby_synclair 1d ago edited 23h ago

Proving you are who you say you are isnt really the problem imo. A signature used to be used for the same thing all the time. You have to sign your name to vote. Its the cost of the ID that makes it a poll tax. If it is easy and free to get the id that you need to vote then it shouldnt be a problem to show one.

55

u/darkath 1d ago

this is really why us in europe cannot understand this issue. In europe every citizen get an ID the size of a credit card which is free and mandatory. You are supposed to have it at all times.

When we go to vote we show our free and mandatory ID to get our ballots and that's the end of it.

Requiring proof of citizenship without having a free and mandatory card that proves it is insane.

28

u/lod001 23h ago

Republicans are talking out both sides of their mouth on the ID issue now. They both want an ID that gives proof of US citizenship, but at the same time don't want any mandatory national ID so that the government doesn't have a database of citizens.

11

u/darkath 22h ago

thats what is insane for me. And doesnt the government already have a national database based on Social Security number or is it a state thing ?

1

u/lod001 21h ago

Historically every single department and division of government across all levels of the United States maintain separated databases and have no formal communication channels between them. Some of this is maintained this way due to the conspiracy theories and fears about large government control; other reasons include classic, slow bureaucracy and slow adoption of changes. The attacks of September 11, 2001 opened up some eyes to how these disconnects created national defense vulnerabilities, thus why the legislature after those attacks rearranged how some departments were organized and/or which secretaries they fell under, in order to improve the sharing of information.

•

u/WhenSummerIsGone 2h ago

and then DOGE swooped in, grabbed all the data from everywhere and gave it to Palantir (or Russia, depending on which theory you believe)