It would disenfranchise Republican women, right? Furthering Jim Crow 2.0 misogny.
Yes. I'm not sure if the primary target is transgender people, or women, or if it's all just a merry coincidence that they can target both.
It's not clear to me that RealID is going to help, because as near as I can tell Utah didn't ask me anything about citizenship when I got my driver's license. And shiv's license is the same, despite not being a citizen. I didn't change my name and I also have a passport, so maybe this is the secret plan to flip Utah blue.
My wife is making her mom get a passport. She thinks this will pass.
I think the effects on married women are overstated. People who know where their birth certificate is will also know where their marriage certificate is, and obviously they're going to accept that combination of documents (perhaps after a brief lawsuit).
The real target, as always, is people who change addresses.
There may also be a differential effect on states if this results in some states starting to put citizenship info on drivers licenses and other states don't. (As far as I know, now none have that info? But it seems like something red states might start doing.)
This is one of these cases where general US dysfunction causes a disconnect between "common sense" and reality. The law is popular because it's common sense that you should just show id when you vote, but the whole ID system is such a cobbled together hot mess that it's not really workable without changes.
People who know where their birth certificate is will also know where their marriage certificate is, and obviously they're going to accept that combination of documents (perhaps after a brief lawsuit).
So is the idea that everyone needs their birth certificate or equivalent to vote, and then if you changed your name, you need the documentation for that on top?
The idea is you need proof of citizenship, for most people that's a passport or birth certificate. If the birth certificate doesn't match your current name, then you'll need documentation that the name was changed. Apparently the law is poorly written and confusing about exactly what you need to show in the latter case, but of course a valid marriage license will be fine.
I do think it's a decent burden on women. It's double the number of documents for the typical man. And if any of those documents need to be replaced, plus any kind of move, and it's non-trivial.
Its also completely unnecessary. Its amazing to me how far they have taken this voter fraud panic when its not even really a thing.
2: Maybe I'm being too generous, but I don't think this law was drafted with either trans people or women as deliberate targets. I think reality-based governance has deteriorated to the point that Republican leadership absolutely sincerely believes that non-citizen voting is rampant in the United States, and can only be mitigated by rolling out some TSA-grade security theater around identification documents. Anybody who doesn't have a passport and has changed their legal name, or is naturalized or adopted or whatever, simply has to put up with a bit of extra inconvenience as the price of a free and fair election system. No biggie!
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US farmers were "still reeling" from Trump's first trade war and "certainly not thrilled about an extended" second one, Kentucky soyabean farmer Caleb Ragland, a three-time Trump voter, said on Thursday.|>
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But when armed bandits attack and people call the M23 soldiers, they come and ruthlessly shoot everyone they meet in the area, even if it is only eight in the evening.|>
passports are quite expensive in time and money compared to a driver's license. so it acts as a sort of poll tax, as well.
The SAVE act may also effectively disenfranchise Americans living abroad, who would have to register to vote in person...in the US. And if it affects the requirement to request a ballot every single year (the act and the executive order are unclear on some important areas), then voting from abroad could be over for most people. (Votes from abroad covered the margin in Georgia and Arizona in the presidential election in 2020, and the margin that got Warnock and Ossof elected to the senate that year).
6: Tim didn't think it was unreasonable and said it was required in Canada. I said that Canada has a very different history from the US, I.e. slavery and Jim Crow. And that some of these rules really disenfranchise Native Americans. I don't know how it plays out in Canada, but I suspect that there are fewer barriers.
11: I really don't know. I also think that there are often things which you need to be a lawyer to view as intentional which. Like, did that little kid intend to hurt someone when he pulled the chair out from the person? At least for purposes of battery under tort law, the answer is yes.
I think it could be a failure of awareness common to anyone with white male privilege. The hyper-sexualization and barbican of Pam Bondi and Kristi Noem may not be conscious - we don't know what is in their hearts - but it has an effect nonetheless. Same thing with affirmative action for unqualified, sexual predators with untreated alcoholism. The culture and tone change, and the effect is chilling.
Barbican should be Barbie-zation.
15: See also the recent action of the NC Supreme Court, which threw out a bunch of overseas votes (but only ones associated with blue-leaning counties) despite the voters having followed what was then good law and election board rulings.
19: Yeah, that's really frightening.
My wife thinks she knows where are marriage certificate is, but is not sure.. Not home to check. I am thinking maybe not, as the last time it would have been useful was about 20 years ago in proving to health insurance that we were married about and as I recall we ended up using our deed which reflected our marriage and was acceptable for that purpose. (Did we need a marriage license for the deed? Don't recall, but I suspect sometime over 40+ years it got misplaced.) We know where we could get a replacement (NYC which has a mail-in form). When we get back home in June if we cannot locate we should probably preemptively get a new one--although we both do have passports--but then again my wife's expires sometime later this year.
People thrusting their ID at us unnecessarily was the most frequent form of disgruntlement expressed by voters when I worked elections. Mostly Rs, but many Ds (you knew registration during primaries). Voter ID into constitution (already state law) won 62%-37% in the recent Wisconsin election where the progressive judge won with 55% (by my calculation about 1/3 of her voters voted yes on it.)
It is a simple and appealing idea which in practice is an ugly, wasteful and easily manipulated thing in these here United States.
19: Yep. Was just going to follow up with that example. This is more fodder for election fuckery. And an R party comprised of people who not only ate their marshmallow, but all of the other kids' marshmallows too.
21: I know where my birth certificate is. I think the marriage certificate is in our safe deposit box, but Tim is extra careful on account of having g felt with immigration for many years. I never changed my name though.
the recent action of the NC Supreme Court, which threw out a bunch of overseas votes (but only ones associated with blue-leaning counties)
This is truly horrifying. The state, since I left, shows how a concerted effort & $$ can shift power to one party even when the voting is relatively balanced.
My family and I vote overseas in a pretty liberal county in NC. I was surprised to find that none of our votes were challenged.
I just ordered a certified copy of my birth certificate because my passport is expired and I can only find a non-certified copy and I need a real ID. The copy of the birth certificate I have says it costs $2 to get an official one, but it actually cost $50. Which is a lot more than inflation.
I need a RealID. I already have a real ID but it's not real enough. I guess I should get a new passport too
I'm also in the "I need to order a copy of my birth certificate" camp after not finding mine at my parents'. I still believe they have it, somewhere.
Pretty sure this came up in some thread within the last couple months, but I think the big difference between the US and other countries who require ID for various things is that those other countries generally have ID standards and facilitate getting everyone an ID. While in the US, the idea of having an ID gets caught up in a lot of bad faith politics, ranging from "IDs are one step away from the {black helicopters, FEMA, UN} camps" to "I see a way to take advantage of inequality and I'm not about to give that up."
Not that it's relevant now that my name has reverted to birth, but I don't think I had any idea where my marriage certificate was, ever. Lots and lots of women are going to need to order them -- just misplaced because it's not generally useful; or lost control of the copy in the course of a divorce or separation.
Given its popularity, I think Democratic efforts would be better spent on working towards solving the problems in 28 rather than blocking the popular legislation.
Especially as we're moving into an era where Republicans do worse in low turnout elections.
28- When I was supervising a local Special Olympics team, I had to manage volunteer applications for coaches, which involved background checks. The number of people who told me they didn't want to tell the state their social security number was mind boggling.
Maybe they had criminal convictions?
It does seem like there are enough cases where ID is necessary in modern life that "having to carry around your ID is tyranny" is a pretty outdated idea.
As stated above, as long as lots of people aren't entitled to official IDs, or even if it's just difficult, it is voter suppression to require it.
That said, I still think it would be a better society the less danger existed to go without on a daily basis.
33: I do think it's tyranny if I'm expected to have it when I go out to exercise.
I'm not bothering to get a Real ID driver's license, because my passport card and Global entry card both work just fine.
They weren't worried about passing the check, they were worried that Big Brother, in the form of the state government would have their social security number if they filled out the form.
I remember back when grades were posted openly by SSN on the door.
Montana drivers license numbers used to be your ssn but they decided that was unwise. My current drivers license number starts with four 0s because not enough people live in this state to have a number with enough real digits.
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So incredibly angry about the Trump and Bukele press conference. I want a delegation of Senators to go down to the prison where Kilmer Abrego Garcia is being held.
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35: This was in Montana, which according to Google has a state income tax? And they are worried that the state government would get their SS# if they filled out a new form?
Many here seem very accepting of this. Why? What problem does it solve?
We need fewer laws, not more. A new law needs to solve a real problem and this does no such thing and will certainly disenfranchise people. Our democratic process is weak as it is. Adding requirements to voting only makes it worse.
It doesn't solve any problem, but it's very popular, probably constitutional, and we live a democracy. Sometimes the majority wants useless slightly counterproductive things, and this one is less harmful than a lot of other ones.
"Less harmful than the general run of Republican policies" is a pretty low bar, and one that needs to be vocally rejected. Voter ID is designed to shave a small number of votes -- a percent, maybe? -- off of Democratic totals. That's a pretty bad thing -- and worse, when you understand that this allows for all kinds of superficially plausible lies that can further tilt elections.
I don't think anyone in this thread thinks the SAVE Act is a good idea or should become law. Outrage triage is one of the exhaustions of the moment.
I like "outrage triage." I'll have to steal that.
39. I was thinking that they weren't so much concealing your SSN from the Department of Revenue as from bouncers, convenence store clerks, and others whoi might see a DL.
The new numbers have our birthdates mixed in with extra digits, but are, for me at least, too long to memorize.
Uh, holy shit
"On the rooftop patio of the General Services Administration headquarters, an agency staffer recently discovered something strange: a rectangular device attached to a wire that snaked across the roof, over the ledge and into the administrator's window one floor below.
It didn't take long for the employee -- an IT specialist -- to figure out the device was a transceiver that communicates with Elon Musk's vast and private Starlink satellite network. Concerned that the equipment violated federal laws designed to protect public data, staffers reported the discovery to superiors and the agency's internal watchdog."
I'm not usually the one who is too jaded to be shocked by all these individual examples of tyranny, but I think I'm too jaded to be shocked by 46.
I would oppose the SAVE Act hammer and tongs. I think we might make our way around to some kind of standard ID including for voting in my lifetime, and if it doesn't happen in an exclusionary way (e.g. not by Republicans & not without real overhaul to what ID even means), I won't be too sore about that. Extremely hypothetical.
If you want to win elections you need to prioritize what unpopular viewpoints you hold. I just don't think opposing voter ID is a priority, and it's certainly a massively unpopular position.
At the same time one doesn't need to steelman the opposition. Dems don't need to say "No one should have to present ID to vote." They can say "Donald Trump wants to prevent tens of millions of people from voting by BS bureaucratic barrier."
Yes, the argument should be "We don't oppose IDs for voting, we oppose this bill which puts unnecessarily strict conditions on IDs and doesn't make it easier to get ID, and is going to accidentally stop your mom from voting." Maybe that ends up with you voting against the bill the end, but there's lots of amendments that would make this better.
See if there's some Alaska Native angle here that you can use to peel of Murkowski, who is entirely reliant on the Alaska Native vote.
At this stage of crisis I think even clearing one's throat with "I might support this policy if it were better conceived, but..." is unnecessarily friendly and implies a common ground that can't be found. Come out swinging.
You need common ground with voters! That's how you win elections! You're not going to fight your way into getting back those Obama/Trump/Biden/Trump voters.
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There should be a lot more of this. https://open.spotify.com/track/4BS5Shw1Wb0j8VjYGt8dex?si=11673f47335b44e1
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41: Is it constitutional for the Federal Government to require the Commonwealth of MA to require ID for local and state elections. They can require it for entry into a Federal building but not a state one.
Yes, let's focus group what our positions, priorities, and principles should be; voters love that shit.
The SAVE Act imposes requirements on states for allowing people to register to vote in federal elections.
53: I think all the throat-clearing gives less-activated potential voters the impression the differences between the parties are technical and boring!
57: They switched the rule about allowing non-resident Canadians to vote, so Tim is going to vote in Canada for the first time in 20 years. He's eligible to vote in Federal elections but not provincial and local. The beauty of the Canadian system is that Federal elections are managed by Elections Canada. And they do not happen on the same day as provincial and local ones.
Even in the US, it would make sense not to have Federal candidates on the same ballot as State and local ones.
The beauty of the Canadian system is that Federal elections are managed by Elections Canada.
No, I'm actually extremely glad that our elections are governed by a ridiculous mishmash of 5000 localities. I think this is literally the only reason that the 2026 midterms elections will basically happen.
39: that's why it's a funny story!
60: The beauty of the system in Canada for Canadians. I would not recommend that here, given our history and current govt. However, I do think it would make sense if Federal elections were not on the same day as State and local ones.
You're not going to fight your way into getting back those Obama/Trump/Biden/Trump voters.
I don't know that any rational strategy is going to reach voters who followed that pattern.
But Biden 2020 is still the most votes any president has gotten, and I'd say there's more evidence of reflection as to what the candidates actually believe in the Biden/didn't vote pattern, so maybe those people are more reachable? I don't think non-voters who voted before and then decided not to are highly-motivated by mealy-mouthed "I don't agree with the how, but the what is ok" statements. That might be a big part of why they decided not to vote.
Literally anything that isn't talking about illegal immigration will help. Trump is unpopular and getting more unpopular, his one ace card is that most Americans (and especially swing voters) agree with him about immigration. Illegal immigrants not voting is Trump's version of talking about abortion, and doing literally anything other than saying "no, you shouldn't need to prove you're a citizen to vote" is a better strategy. It's our literal worst possible strategy among all strategies.
You already do have to prove you're a citizen to vote. But you don't have to prove twice with different document requirements at different times to different bureaucracies.
I mean, I agree with you overall on voter id. I don't think anyone is debating that saying "you shouldn't have to prove you're a citizen to vote" would be a bad strategy, which is probably why it isn't a strategy anyone is promoting in this thread.
Supposedly Trump's polling on immigration is starting to trend negative. Hope we get swing voters on board with, "I agree that terrorists should be locked up in inhumane conditions, but those prisons should be here in America and inmates should only be locked up without a key after following due process."
67 is indeed a winning argument.
Looking up to Bukele is weird! Normal Americans don't think El Salvador is a country we should be looking to as a model.
Can't believe Van Hollen missed a golden opportunity to ask Garcia what the tariffs will do to the price of eggs.