Impeachment

Because not everyone can get an ID.

There was recently a situation where a state restricted tribal members on a reservation from having IDs because they required a deliverable street address and all of their mail service was through PO Boxes. So right there, US citizens denied the right to vote.

There are poor people who, even if we made ID free, cannot afford the documents needed to get an ID or the transportation to get to places to gather said documents or apply for said ID. A birth certificate in New York costs around $35. I have two copies in my lockbox. Not everyone has the discretionary income to buy that so they can vote. Not everyone has the money to get to the social security office to get a new SSA card. Getting to a polling place can be a financial burden.

You shouldn't have to pay fees to multiple agencies to vote. Voting is a right, not a privilege.

And if voter fraud is such big business, again, why is it that the current administration's investigation into the matter turned up only a dozen or so cases which often involved convicted felons voting without having their rights restored rather than some massive voting of dead individuals or any widespread push to sway an election?

These laws aren't preventing illegal immigrants from voting. They're preventing citizens entitled to a vote from voting. We see it, it's been proven, at least one conservative pundit acknowledges that this is the strategy so that we don't inadvertently allow "socialism" to be voted in. So if the "voter fraud" crowd is so adamant then I would think they would be insisting on full voter participation from among all eligible voters rather than trying to encourage low voter turnouts and rather than relying on heavy gerrymandered districts.

If you represent the majority of people then why not let the majority of people vote?

 

Several problems showed up here in New Mexico when we began to implement RealID. There is a long history here of home births attended by midwives not all of whom are licensed. This is less of an issue now but over the last eighty years, there are thousands of New Mexicans who were undoubtedly born here and are therefore U.S. citizens but for whom there is no registration of birth. They often have drivers licenses and social security cards because in the Old Days no one checked or needed to check. The standard way to test the citizenship otherwise undocumented citizens is by applying for a passport. Possession of a valid U.S. passport is dispositive proof of U.S. citizenship (or sometimes nationality). But the process is long and involved and can get expensive. Eventually the state simplified the requirements for a non RealID license/ID card to the point where it's essentially just a renewal of an existing document.

Anyway, the problem of disenfranchisement is very real.

 

You know, speaking more generally...I don't quite understand the posture of the whole ID issue. RealID does some things that Americans have traditionally rejected. It more or less requires an individual to prove that he has a single name and a mailing and physical address and that he has the legal right to be present in the country. But we have rejected the idea of a national identification card. And where in the constitution does it say that (absent intent to defraud) you have to be known by a single "legal" name or possess a fixed residence? Finally, how did the burden shift to the individual to prove his right to be here when it really should be the burden of the government to prove the opposite? This is a very big shift in the relationship between the citizen and his government folks.

 

Sometimes it is necessary to abandon what one claims is a cherished value in order to bring about what one really wants. /s

 

Sometimes. And sometimes societies lose their long-term vision when dealing with the exigencies of the moment. This is one of those times, I think.

As an aside, not only did I present the necessary documents to get a RealID compliant driver license, I voluntarily allowed myself to be fingerprinted, photographed, and interviewed in person to obtain a Global Entry membership and card. For all my expressed reservations about personal privacy and the Right to be Left Alone, I threw caution to the winds the minute it meant I could skip the long lines at the airport!