Pew Research released some survey results today about voting. The partisan divides were mostly unsurprising, but there were a couple that were unexpected:
It looks like liberals have lost the battle on voter ID: even 69% of Democrats think it's a good idea.
At the same time, conservatives have lost the battle on felon voting. Even 60% of Republicans think felons ought to be able to vote after they've served their time.
Republicans have become bitterly opposed to vote-by-mail, ironically at the very time that mail voting has become more popular among Republicans than Democrats. It's time to suddenly switch gears, folks, and pretend that Democrats have been taking away your right to vote by mail for years and it's time to fight back.
You betcha Republicans want felons to be able to vote, and preferably from their prison cells! The qualications for the Presidency are very few: natural born citizen, 35 or older, a QUALIFIED ELECTOR. (Also not having participated or led an inssurection against the Constitution you swore an oath to uphold, but who's counting?)
Qualified elector means you are at least eligible to vote. If the Defendant gets convicted and is behind bars in the right venue, he loses that right, maybe for life.
Where did you get the qualified elector from? You seem to have replaced resident of USA for 14 years with that phrase, but they are in no way synonymous.
My wife is very educated and a Democrat, and we live in a blue state. Every time there is an election I tell her that nobody can ask for an ID, and she is always surprised.
Yes. "Voter ID" is generally assumed to mean your driver's license. But that's wrong. "Voter identification" means, fundamentally, that you state your name and give some additional identifying information, like your address.
Lots of people don't have driver's licenses: very young, very old, blind or otherrise handicapped, not wealthy enough to own (or garage) a car... Lots of states don't have non-driving IDs, or they can be obscure to obtain. If you're a Native American, you may or may not have a tribal ID or some other crede4ntial, assuming that's accepted.
One would think a student ID would work, but these have been explicitly banned in some places that assume students are all Dermocrats (think Wisconsin)
Please forgive my typing. I've got a bandaid on one fingertip and my new glasses are not working out at all...
Tribal IDs aren't usually accepted by states, for instance.
"It looks like liberals have lost the battle on voter ID: even 69% of Democrats think it's a good idea."
People are so used to showing ID for things that it just seems normal. We Democrats should probably start pushing for free national IDs that everyone has a right to.
I think Trump led the charge against mail voting, which was weird because Republicans mostly used it before 2020.
This. I don’t really understand why (except that it would cost money) Dems don’t just push for a completely free national ID card. Make it voluntary I guess for the “I don’t want anyone tracking me” crowd that somehow doesn’t seem to care about private credit report agencies tracking them. But pass a law that states “anyone who wants a photo ID for elections purposes must be given one for free” and another law that states “any election for federal offices must accept the free photo ID.”
It seems that one's cellphone number is replacing the SSN as the de facto national ID number.
It's also dumb. There's a book right there that contains all the information of the ID.
Requiring someone to show a thing that could be lost, stolen, or destroyed and takes weeks and a wad of cash to replace... just encourages fascists to make it harder to get them replaced. Or to steal them.
All the information? What about the picture of the person in the ID?
Vote by mail used to be reasonably popular among Republicans -- it was a GOP legislature that enacted it in my state -- until Trump poisoned the well.
They used to favor certain immigration controls as well
The number of people who think the response to trying to exercise basic political rights should be "Papers, please" is disheartening.
Maybe but literally every other entity asks for photo ID to do anything substantial. Want to write a check? Show ID. Want to withdraw money from your bank? Show ID or have the PIN associated with your bank card. Want to buy controlled substances? Show ID. Want to get healthcare? Show both your photo ID and health insurance card. Want to check into a hotel, buy or rent a car, sign an apartment lease? Show ID. Want to get a job that issues real IRS-tracked paychecks? Show ID.
It’s unclear why the nation can’t simply issue photo ID versions of Social Security cards or some federal elections photo ID for free, except it would cost taxpayers and Nothing New Can Be Done That Costs Taxpayers Anything.
"It’s unclear why the nation can’t simply issue photo ID versions of Social Security cards or some federal elections photo ID for free"
Because a combination of states' rights lunatics, religious weirdos fearing the "mark of the beast," haters of federal action of all sorts, conspiracy theorists, and those who just plain don't _wan't_ those sorts of people voting will rise up to kill any such proposal.
What else do you do that already has a book there with what's contained on your ID?
Republicans probably think its also fair to have convicted felons become President. They certainly are fine having a a person with over 90 felony charges run for President.
They are also fine having a President who is from a different species than a human, but the constitution may not have been clear on this.
They have flipped on the felon voting issue because since 2020 many of them have become felons or recognize that they're about to -- ain't that right, Donald?
The problem with voter id is if it costs money to get one it's a poll tax which is unconstitutional, but the Constitution doesn't matter anymore with the sleazeballs in the Supreme Court.
Some states provide free IDs, but that's not as good as it sounds.
To get the ID, you need to provide underlying documents, such as a birth certificate. You wouldn't believe how many Americans do not have a copy of their birth certificate. The county that you were born in may well have additional hoops to jump through, and you may need to travel to that county, which could be a thousand miles from where you are living.
Further, even if that state ID is free, you will need to pay for the birth certificate. You may need to visit that office during normal business hours, which may necessitate that you take time off of work. They may want you to show...... a state ID to get the birth certificate!
As always, the devil is in the details.
Do you know how hard it was to find a utility bill with my correct, full name on it?
Medical records don't do the dash. Bank records have it, but only mail me stuff for one half or the other. Some used an initial, others only had my spouse's name.
It was such a pain. I used my voter registration and the garbage service.
I don't understand the reluctance to automatically register eligible voters. If the government knows you can vote, it seems like getting you on the rolls that way makes much more sense. Anything one-off, like random registrations, is often when mistakes occur.
Plus, the more automatic it is, the more likely voters rolls are up-to-date. It's harder to vote twice if all the rolls are updated regularly for license changes, death certificates, etc.