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People try to target demographic groups that are not on their side, and discourage or inhibit their voting. For instance, if poor demographics don't tend to vote for your side, you can push for more stringent documentation being required to vote, like driver's licenses, which poor people don't have. Or you can move to limit poll locations and hours, as poor people can't get off work as easily as wealthier people.

Gerrymandering is another way to game the voting system, which can be used against people rich or poor. For instance, the city of austin might very well elect a democratic member of the House, if district lines were drawn sensibly, but it is cut up into little slices of pie, then each piece slice wraps around a huge rural area that tends to vote GOP.

Thanks for writing that. I sometimes forget that these basic facts are not (sufficiently) common knowledge.

Not everyone may have a drivers license. Some upper middle class members also don’t have driver’s licenses.

What just about everyone over 18 has is a form of government ID. Without a gov ID you cannot get access gov resources: education, SNAP, medicare, Medicaid, purchase controlled groceries like alcohol, cigarettes, marijuana , power, phone plans, credit cards, etc.

It’s a myth that poor people cannot get IDs. You’ll be hard pressed to find someone who doesn’t and cannot get one. I was dirt poor as a youth. I got a non drivers ID card. It was necessary in life.

Since there are no standardised IDs in the US unlike most other countries, can't poll workers just be unnecessarily stringent on identification to deny people the vote?

I believe one of the ideas bandied about is a nationalID. People are against these as well. Non DL IDs are issued by the same state org that issues drivers licenses and they look the same, except it says Identification Card instead of Driver License. They also have no-fee options if you are homeless and reduced fee cards if you are on gov assistance.

National IDs are always a bad idea. To give an example, when India ("world's largest democracy") decided to roll out a national ID, they touted it as a harmless and useful tool. Recently, when New Delhi erupted in violent riots, guess what was used to target and arrest the protesters, predominantly of the minority community?

At this point in technology, IDs and their information are a much smaller threat than the vast information trove collected on line and from cellular devices.

It’s like complaining about plastic straws but ignore the issue of nets from fishing operations. One has a better attack surface for activists but in reality the problem lay elsewhere.

The difference is in the number of obstacles involved. The local police force would have to go through some hoops to track your devices and online activity. On the other hand, a national database would give them every information about you at the clock of a mouse - no expertise required.

Of course, the former will be an issue regardless, especially when it involves state level or national level police forces pursuing some overarching motive. But the latter can be used by the local yokels masquerading in uniform. Imagine if a policeman had some beef with you on a personal level and was able to access all your information, including your name, Date of Birth, Addresses present and past, and your family information. Because that latter bit of information was what was used to pursue most of the activists and protesters in the Indian example.

There is standardization, it just happens at the state level.

Complaints about lack of standardization come from (a) businesses that want cheap, easy and immutable unique identifiers for everyone from a government that isn't maximally accommodating to their use case and (b) the federal government wanting better police record-keeping on the population.

> Since there are no standardised IDs in the US

I mean... they have passports don’t they?

Yes but a minority of people get passports. And they are required otherwise for very few things in ordinary life. State issued IDs are a necessity in life if you are a non-hermit.

You cannot get on with life without a State issued ID.

> like driver's licenses, which poor people don't have.

I did a cursory search and found this link[1] that says ,

> Across all age groups, 84.6% of all Americans have a drivers’ license.

> The lowest percentage of total licensed drivers is among 16- to 19-year-olds, where 51.7% of the population have their driver’s license.

Its even higher if you remove 16-19 age group, who aren't eligible for voting.

Curious if you have a stat for drivers license by income.

1. https://hedgescompany.com/blog/2018/10/number-of-licensed-dr....

On a side note, can we please pass a law to make Election Day a national holiday? It is sad that companies don't help their employees and customers execute their right to vote.

I've wondered about more than one country why they don't make it a weekend. Or just be open for longer, not everyone has the same days off.

Even with national holidays, it's still up to the company to give employees the day off.

It seems to be a tactic not so uncommon as that. It happened here in Canada:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Canadian_federal_election...

To wit: Harper moved on to head the IDU after his last time as PM. I'm not sure if it's crazy or not to draw a line there.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Democrat_Union

> Would the perpetrators just want a really low turnout, hoping one side is just smart enough to not listen? Or is it to just instill more confusion?

Demoralization. Destabilization. Crisis. Normalization.

Crisis Is Time of `great Opportunity'. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSVn3paVwgU

> It also really confuses me on who this would even affect?

You can have very precise targeting with FB, so you can use different tactics for different subgroups to make them vote for you or don't participate at all if they won't vote for you.

If you can get people to disengage from basic politics (voting), then you can sway dozens to hundreds of seats.