Senate Democrats block bill to limit lawmakers' stock trades, citing voter ID | Hacker News Reader

Senate Democrats block bill to limit lawmakers' stock trades, citing voter ID

cbsnews.com

8 pointsmc3211 comments

Actual title: Senate Democrats block bill to limit lawmakers' stock trades, citing voter ID provision

Which makes a lot more sense than the submission title (in fairness, the original is too long) but it could have been made to fit without losing that key word at the end.

Yeah, this is bad enough that I flagged the link.

I'm not in the US , but we and everyone else has strong voter I'd. Even banana republics. I see no reason to be against it unless you're attempting fraud.

"Voter ID" in this country is nearly always code for voter disenfranchisement.

Our system works on the principle of preventing the "wrong" people from voting. And "wrong" here means poor and Black people who often have difficulty producing the required documentation and paying the fees for same.

you should probably look into how voter ID laws and other voting restrictions were wielded in the Jim Crow south, and the modern day, to understand why they are controversial in the US

How might you use voter ID laws to prevent people from voting? Well the most common form of ID in the US is the driver's license, so you may divert resources from the department of motor vehicles in areas with minorities. For example, Alabama started enforcing photo ID in 2014 and then shut down 31 licensing offices in 2015, disproportionately affecting black counties.

Additionally, voter fraud is rare in the US, it is a federal crime and the risk-reward on committing voter fraud makes it rare for anyone to actually commit it. Between 2000 - 2014 there were only 31 credible cases according to the Brennan Center (https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/reso...).

Does it make sense to disenfranchise thousands to millions in order to stop 2 people from committing voter fraud per year? Obviously not

Because other countries also make a single, uniform, national ID a right that citizens receive for free or subject to nothing more than a small processing fee (which can be waived according to financial need). The United States, in contrast, has a national standard for ID (RealID and/or the requirements for a passport, depending on how you count), but has not chosen to provide the means to such standardized identification to everyone, as policy.

I would support such a policy, but as implied by the other responses here, some Americans would, out of bad faith, oppose a universal, standard citizen's ID if it meant that ID requirements could serve to divide the worthy from the unworthy.

Realistically, the best solution would be for a law that provided for both Voter ID and this. Unfortunately, it's become such a toxic issue that no one will touch it.

I don't think toxicity around this issue is 1) natural & rational, and 2) it wouldn't be blocking progress, if the calls for voter ID were genuine.

Discussion on this topic is genuinely impossible, but let me explain my rationale that works no matter what side you're on:

1. No matter how genuine you think anti-voter ID-politicians and -arguments are, a large portion of their voter base genuinely believes in them.

2. The pro side could propose legislation to guarantee everyone access to the required ID, guaranteed time off from work to acquire it, and guaranteed support for every eligible voter facing issues acquiring it*. This should pass easily, if it's not stuffed with poison pills.

3. Once this passes and sufficient time has elapsed (~2 years, I'd guess), we'd likely see the disparate impact shrink or go away entirely. At this point, voter ID laws would have enough support to pass without issue.

We've seen that voters opposing these measures are much quicker at dropping problematic leaders. Unless you're convinced that everyone opposing these measures has malicious secret intentions, there's no downside to trying this.

* even if they're e.g. missing documents like birth certificates (which legitimately happens too often to be ignored).

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