Gavin Newsom Bans California from Requiring ID to Vote
newsweek.com
newsweek.com
I'm willing to bet that if this move did not favor Democrats, like for example if millions of Taiwanese people migrated to CA, and they happen to be more conservative leaning, that this kind of law would have never passed.
Voting may be a right, but securing elections is arguably more important, because without secure elections your vote does not matter! CA is looking more and more like China, in that there is a one party rule, and you cannot speak against it.
You don't think the state can figure out if you exist? Just making up a name won't get your vote counted. And if you vote twice, that is also easily detected. Or if you vote in someone else's name.
It's popular to claim how easy election fraud is, but the checks and balances aren't nearly that easy to overcome. Maybe what we need is better education about how the voting system actually functions.
Of course the people who feel represented by the current party in power are likely to trust how the state government handles this process, but I would argue that the process should be something that everyone, even those who don't trust the current party in power, can trust and feel like the process is transparent. Instead challenging the process has been frowned upon as somehow anti-democratic, when that's exactly how you get authoritarianism and corruption.
Aside from someone who lost a major election making wild claims, what is not trustworthy? Every step of the election process has checks and requirements for strict observation (by opposing party representatives). The effort required to challenge should be proportional in significance to the interruption being requested. AFAIK that's basically how it is now. Want to challenge a vote? Easy. Want to challenge a lot of votes or put a hold on the results until you've had a chance to go digging? That needs to take enough effort that only those with more than a conspiracy theory will attempt it.
> Of course the people who feel represented by the current party in power are likely to trust how the state government handles this process
Eh, I think this is actually pretty peculiar to just one of the parties. I've never worried about the elections tally when our county clerk was Republican (which has been most of my life). Messing with the votes is a daunting task. Go look at the actual process in your locality, I bet it's the same.
> challenging the process has been frowned upon as somehow anti-democratic
Not true. Conspiracy theories, "I think it's fraudulent because my guy lost", these absolutely ARE anti-democratic. They are intended to tear down the system, not strengthen it. Come with evidence, then you can strengthen the process.
Why is presenting an ID somehow singularly responsible for the process not being opaque?
To be fair, this isn’t difficult. Voter rolls are public. We usually think of likely voters, but it’s also possible to identify likely non-voters.
But if someone is motivated enough by the scant risk-reward balance of fraudulently voting, they’re not going to be deterred by having to buy a fake ID.
Buying a fake ID is orders of magnitude more difficult than looking up a name and using it when voting, isn't it?
And it's only a scant risk-reward balance if voting individually. If something organized and can send 10k-20k votes, that can tip plenty of elections IIRC.
I never bought a fake ID. But I knew people who did. It was an entirely on-the-phone transaction. Buying a fake ID in America is orders of magnitude easier than false voting.
> If something organized and can send 10k-20k votes
This is a legitimate concern. It is entirely unaddressed by voter ID requirements.
I agree, this is fairly easy to do. Signature checking will catch some of it, but the bar is a bit lower. The real problem making this work is detectability. Once someone legitimately tries to vote and gets told they already did, it's going to get noticed quickly.
And as you say, the value at an individual vote level is close to zero, which makes the risk/reward ratio pretty terrible.
Sure. Paper ballots and optical-scan tabulation. Voter ID laws are as secure as the $20 fake IDs sold on every college campus.
It’s voter Xanax.
In New York, I had to show ID to register. In Wyoming, the clerk accepted just a bank statement for proof of address—I used my voter registration to get my driver’s license after moving. (They’re supposed to demand ID. But the entire process is done live.)
In my experience, red states’ election officials are less funded and thus more lenient than blue states’. We didn’t have photo ID for most of our republic’s history.
Note: I know HN is not political, but this is crossing a line
Here’s the rules for provisional voting. You’ll note that it has to do with whether or not you appear on the voting roll in the location you show up to.
https://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/voting-resources/provisiona...
It’s “provisional” because it’s only counted once they verify you’re registered to vote and haven’t already voted.
It’s already the case that you usually don’t need to show voter ID at the polls in CA. This law would prevent every dipshit city council from enacting their own rules, i.e. it keeps things sane. I thought guys like you preferred smaller government and fewer rules?
No idea what you’re going on about with China
My question would be who exactly is verifying the process of verifying the votes after they are casted, and do people need to go through lengthy legal processes through courts in order to challenge it?
If you want to have secure elections, allowing anyone to vote and checking afterward is at best ineffiicient and at worst allows for mistakes and potential fraud that then takes a lengthy legal process in order double check the results... and by that time it could be too late as it would be seen as anti-democratic to question the results. Basically this is all making it a lot harder to trust results in a timely fashion.
The real disenfranchisement happens before a vote is even cast. Parties gerrymandering their districts to hell and back, big purges of “inactive” voters from rolls, candidates colluding to box out opposition from outsiders, massive dark money PACs essentially bribing politicians in broad daylight or serving as effectively personal slush funds, the first-past-the-post system ensuring effective duopoly of political parties, the entire structure being profoundly anti-democratic (why is there an electoral college and not just popular vote? why should someone from Wyoming’s vote count for 10+x my vote thanks to how senators are apportioned? Etc).
This shit is just red meat for both sides. BUT, that said, it is overall a good thing to not let local municipalities set up their own bullshit rules on top of all this.
That said, I'm all for fixing most, if not all, of the things you mentioned. I'm just adding one more to that list. Additionally, considering the context of this thread, it's not so much about advocating for voter ID, as much as questioning why it was banned completely from the state.
I'm not in the US, I don't care for US politics, however ..
Wasn't it the case that one side (Trump's Republicans) bought more than a hundred voter fraud allegations before the courts?
Wasn't it the case that not a single one of these cases found in favour of the plaintiffs? That many, if not most, were rejected for lack of any evidence of any real substance?
Was it not the case that a number of high profile not-Trump Repuublicans were on record stating this was large a giant waste of time and total BS?
Is there any actual solid evidence of actual significant voter fraud that actually took place (aside from a handful of Republicans making single additinal votes in names of their relatives to "prove" it possible) that was accepted by a Court? (ie. none of that 2000 Mules batshit conspiracy fiction)
Dismissing that concern is equivalent to dismissing the concerns of many voters, and that further creates political turmoil around elections.
Why hate on the other side for asking for transparency, when instead both sides could work together to make sure there is absolutely zero doubt on election day? "wasting resources" on this is proof the system is inefficient, which is also a problem. Verifying election results should be instant and transparent, such that literally anyone can look up any record at any time.
Yeah, but that all ignores the fact that those "concerns of many voters" are whipped up by one side of US politics who is, for all anyone can tell, doing that precisely in order to create political turmoil around elections.
Puts it in a bit of a different light, doesn't it...? So why did you ignore that bit?
Is that correct or not?
> There is a lot of concern over voter fraud
It appeared from outside to be "concern" that only came from poor losers who were unable to provide any evidence for their concern. Was that true or not? Was there any evidence of the fraud claimed by Trump, Giuliani, Sidney Powell that passed muster?
Were they engaged in anything more than maliciuous "concern trolling" to cast shade over results? Did they not get their many days in Court?
> Verifying election results should be instant and transparent
Transparent, yes - instant no; rechecking physical ballots takes time and there's as yet no robust digital voting methods that can trusted.
My understanding is that it's more complicated and in a lot of cases the evidence wasn't even allowed to be presented. The cases were thrown out without being heard, and the media called this line of questioning anti-democratic from the start.
> Were they engaged in anything more than maliciuous "concern trolling" to cast shade over results? Did they not get their many days in Court?
I believe this was never taken seriously to begin with, and was also flagged as undemocratic and fascistic to even question the results. That doesn't help instill confidence from the opposition. Regardless, talking about this is extremely complicated with tons of details to go over on why there might or might not have been any kind of fraud. Honestly it's beyond my understanding and time to research, which is part of my point. Elections should have a process that is simple enough to verify with relatively less effort such that it raises the confidence of ALL the voters.
Saying this concern is manufactured by the media is itself a kind of conspiracy theory, because I remember clearly that mail-in ballots were a huge concern even before 2020 elections. Granted, there were a lot of cases thrown out, and it's hard to find evidence, but that doesn't invalidate the concerns. My point is that we need elections that do not allow for these kinds of doubts in the first place.
>Immediately handwaves the point away and changes topics
You are the anti-discussion.
1. I pointed out that the original concern r.e. provisional ballots is unrelated to this law.
2. I also pointed out that the law codifies existing practice and prevents local municipalities from setting arbitrary rules. This does not loosen any existing practices.
3. And finally I commented on how much larger structural issues than individuals committing voter fraud contribute more towards legitimate mistrust of electoral processes.
Feel free to actually comment on any of that if you get bored of scolding and snipping at me.
I understand why this has become a partisan issue, and I understand that by now, any move anyone makes on this point has actual political ramifications. Add ID requirements, you are in practice depressing turnout, etc.
Still, requiring IDs to vote just seems to make prima facie sense. Of course you want to (visibly) make sure that people are voting legally! That's a pretty important part of democracy. I understand that in practice, few cases of voter fraud are detected, and that in practice there are all sorts of mechanisms in place to make sure people aren't taking advantage.
This just seems like something that both parties should be able to join together on and fix in a way that makes everyone happy, something that requires a technical solution. Not more handwaving at the problem and partisan bickering.
In a vacuum absolutely. But in this country we have a rich history of voter suppression. And requiring IDs is a way to do that in practice (as you mention). So it becomes a matter of balancing what would be the ideal (everyone has an id easily, and we can thus require it for voting) to the reality (requiring it will lead to a magnitude more people wrongly disenfranchised than fraud prevented).
The groups that want voter ID laws also tend to oppose national IDs or free ID renewal.
Since the topic of discussion is pretty important and fundamental, that just seems nuts to me.
(Though I'm not an expert on the current system or any proposal for fixing it. I'm mostly working off the rhetoric I tend to hear.)
Yup. Which will make how these groups’ positions change amid the racial depolarisation of American partisan politics [1] super interesting.
[1] https://www.natesilver.net/p/the-128-paths-to-the-white-hous...
Ex: a party buying millions of votes from the undocumented
Voter rolls are public. Undocumented voters being added to the rolls is trivially detectable.
Hell, a separate-the-dumb-from-their-money non-profit idea may be in raising money to repeatedly do this. Because voter fraud conspiracies are like string theory: it can’t be falsified.
The campaigns, usually. More recently, rando non-profits that milk the conspiratorially minded to run bogus audits.
We had no photo ID when the U.S. was founded. This is a problem of mental health, education and educational mistrust (partly legitimate, a result of our elites mismanaging the economy). Voter ID won’t fix the problem.
Am I straw-manning with this made-up quote ? Who exactly is this law trying to protect. The liberal knee-jerk response regarding election security is "when has that ever happened before?". Do they seriously not know security doesn't work that way.
Enough already! Hand conservatives an olive-branch and unite on election security. Or be complicit in making Jan 6th the new normal.
We have evidence voter ID laws suppress minority turnout [1]. Plenty of people are disorganised or poor enough that they don’t consistently have unexpired ID.
There are arguments for voter ID laws. But dismissing the evidence against them isn’t honest.
> making Jan 6th the new normal
Agree that we need stronger stomachs when prosecuting and punishing treason—our Constitution is unambiguous about its consequences. (As is history about the normalisation of violence as a political tool. Ironically, it never ends well for anyone except the rich and powerful.)
[1] http://ippsr.msu.edu/research/voter-identification-laws-and-...
Why don't conservatives try it the other way around? They could alleviate the concerns of the other side by first making sure everyone gets access to free, fast and easy ID. Once everyone has one, voter ID laws can be introduced.
But it's the same story as with the ACA repeal and other initiatives - the first step must always be the one that coincidentally aligns with their goals, while any further steps must happen only after the first step was taken (and it just so happens they can completely block anything else due to legislative gridlock). Repeal first, bring a replacement later. Voter ID now, broad equal access to ID later.
One, it’s an identity politic issue. Two, these laws don’t prevent voter fraud. And three, we know they suppress turnout among certain populations—plenty of people have expired driver’s licenses and IDs. Collecting the paperwork and paying the fees can be prohibitive. Our Constitution guarantees the vote to every adult citizen, not just those who are organised or can pay the fee.
> You need ID to get a darn library card or to drive a car, get a loan, buy a home … but not to vote?
I never had to show ID to buy my home or get my mortgage.
> we know they suppress turnout among certain populations
The constitution also guarantees the right to bear arms, wouldn't requiring ID in that case also suppress certain populations exercise of that right?
One, the meaning of that phrase is much more ambiguous than the right to vote. Two, you can buy a gun without ID at a gun show.
Please elaborate on this ambiguous standard. How "ambiguous" must a right be for it to be gated via ID and fees?
> Two, you can buy a gun without ID at a gun show.
A common misconception, please stop spreading misinformation.
> Generally, all firearms purchases and transfers, including private party transactions and sales at gun shows, must be made through a California licensed dealer under the Dealer’s Record of Sale (DROS) process
> As part of the DROS process, the purchaser must present "clear evidence of identity and age" which is defined as a valid, non-expired California Driver's License or Identification Card issued by the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV).
It’s been debated at our highest court since the 1970s.
> common misconception, please stop spreading misinformation
It was true in August where my friend bought a gun with cash at a gun show! (It was in Wyoming.)
Sacramento has made it clear it doesn’t believe in an individual right to arms. It’s internally consistent in the same way Wyoming’s (and most red states’) voter ID + free-for-all gun show rules are.
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/54213/54213-h/54213-h.htm
https://www.ar15.com/media/mediafiles/346339/838C8AF0-140E-4...
https://archive.org/details/catalogno12400sear/page/904/mode...
Your example is a good one because Thompson sub machine guns was a frequently cited impetus for the NFA.
Please don’t spam the comments.