You don't even need to save 22 bucks. Every state in the union has _at least_ a free "needs based" ID option and for the Voter ID states they all provide a free IDs (for the purposes of voting, not necessarily drivers licenses).
The money is part of it, but the time is another, and the (intentional) roadblocks put into place to hinder citizens are never being argued for in good faith.
You're missing the point. Why should you need an ID to vote? It doesn't make sense.
> $22 is not hard for anyone to save, especially with all the generous welfare programs we have.
Please. It is a barrier that exists. Not everyone has $22.00. They still deserve access to their human rights. Welfare doesn't fix this.
> hell, if it's that big of a deal, then start some charity program to pay for people to get legal ID!
Charities are subject to laws and attack. This is a common voter suppression tactic. It should not require a charity to exercise fundamental human rights.
Voting is a fundamental right. It should be as easy as possible to vote. You do not need ID cards to prevent voter fraud. That is as simple as cross referencing registration with votes and then investigating differences.
Voting systems need to be anonymous and accessible. Accessible both in terms of literally voting and understanding how the system works so it is trusted. We already invented systems for this, they work. Voter fraud is a made up problem and voter IDs wouldn't stop it even if it existed.
Voter ID is a red herring. It's a convenient way to suppress votes.
> In the 2002 New Hampshire Senate election phone jamming scandal, Republican officials attempted to reduce the number of Democratic voters by paying professional telemarketers in Idaho to make repeated hang-up calls to the telephone numbers used by the Democratic Party's ride-to-the-polls phone lines on election day. By tying up the lines, voters seeking rides from the Democratic Party would have more difficulty reaching the party to ask for transportation to and from their polling places.
To your "start a charity" argument above, good luck if the phone lines are jammed.
> Michigan Republican state legislator John Pappageorge was quoted as saying, "If we do not suppress the Detroit vote, we're going to have a tough time in this election."
Well there's a smoking gun.
> In 2006, four employees of candidate John Kerry's campaign were convicted of slashing the tires of 25 vans rented by the Wisconsin state Republican Party which were to be used for driving Republican voters and monitors to the polls on Election Day 2004. They received jail terms of four to six months.
Again, good luck to a charity countering literal vandalism.
> Democratic voters receiving calls incorrectly informing them voting will lead to arrest.
> Widespread calls fraudulently claiming to be "[Democratic Senate candidate Jim] Webb Volunteers," falsely telling voters their voting location had changed.
> Fliers paid for by the Republican Party, stating "SKIP THIS ELECTION" that allegedly attempted to suppress African-American turnout.
> On October 30, 2008, a federal appeals court ordered the reinstatement of 5,500 voters wrongly purged from the voter rolls by the state, in response to an ACLU of Michigan lawsuit which questioned the legality of a Michigan state law requiring local clerks to nullify the registrations of newly registered voters whenever their voter identification cards are returned by the post office as undeliverable.
Ever have trouble getting mail to a new address? Can you imagine it happening? Hope the USPS is well funded in your area.
> In Louisville, Georgia, in October 2018, Black senior citizens were told to get off a bus that was to have taken them to a polling place for early voting. The bus trip was supposed to have been part of the "South Rising" bus tour sponsored by the advocacy group Black Voters Matter. A clerk of the local Jefferson County Commission allegedly called the intended voters' senior center to claim that the bus tour constituted "political activity," which is barred at events sponsored by the county.
Really hard not to use the "R" word here.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_suppression_in_the_Unite....
so that only citizens can vote in elections?
> Please. It is a barrier that exists. Not everyone has $22.00.
yes they do. I know one person who does not have a driver's license or state ID, because she doesn't have a birth certificate (lost it). she was almost unable to take her newborn children home because of her lack of birth certificate. she had ample time to save money to acquire these things leading up to her twin sons' birth, but she squandered it weekly on weed. I have worked minimum-wage jobs while living in shitty housing with zero welfare and saving $22 was not difficult. while living in Section 8 housing, receiving WIC and EBT benefits, as well as other forms of welfare, like this ID-less person I know, it would be a cinch. she simply cared more about spending all of her money on weed every paycheck. if she had any desire to vote at all (she doesn't), I would not have any pity for her.
hell, at least around here, if you don't want to work yet still somehow feel like you're contributing to society and therefore want to vote for some reason, it is very easy to panhandle $22 in a single day, as long as you don't spend it on meth or whatever. you're not going to be able to use vague emotional claims that some vague swath of poor downtrodden people (all undoubtedly "minorities" in one way or another, because everywhere in the US is just oh so racist that every time a white person sees someone with a different skin color voting at the booth next to them, their nose visibly wrinkles in disgust, before returning home to recount their experience to their Klansmen buddies, or whatever hallucination you choose to inhabit) who live paycheck to paycheck or are homeless or whatever yet feel that participating in an election is somehow more important than getting a couple dozen bucks together in order to obtain a state ID necessary to participate in society. if you actually cared, again, you would be interested in finding solutions to this problem, instead of throwing your hands up, saying "the mere concept of voter ID in the US is discriminatory and racist and evil and bad and morally wrong, and there's just nothing we can do to change that so the only possible solution is to throw the vote-integrity baby out with the voter-ID bathwater!" if you genuinely cared about this topic then you would be more willing to find compromise in any way, but you're not, so there's not really much further discussion that could be had. and anyway,
> blah blah partisan blah blah blah
here's where I'm done engaging—have a good day.
This isn't a problem voter ID solves. It is even addressed in the wiki!
> hell, at least around here, if you don't want to work yet still somehow want to vote for some reason
Why should voting be predicated on employment?
> it is very easy to panhandle $22 in a single day,
Wait whaaaat? Why should I have to panhandle to exercise my rights?
> as long as you don't spend it on meth or whatever.
Ah yes "poor people are drug addicts". Nice. Why would people with problems want to vote on ways to solve them?
> and here's where I'm done engaging, have a good day.
I mean these are just things that actually happened. I'm not sure how pointing at reality is partisan.
here in SD it just cost me somewhere around $22 to get my driver's license renewed. when I lived in WA I went to the DMV with a friend who had to get her license renewed one day and I said screw it I might as well get a WA license while I'm here. my jaw fell to the floor when, at the end of the process, they said it would cost me $80.
$22 is not hard for anyone to save, especially with all the generous welfare programs we have. if you're impoverished, you can easily get EBT to buy food, WIC to buy baby formula, and, here at least, Section 8 housing and other programs to get a place to live. no amount of "think of the poor people whom I've never met but assume exist somewhere despite me never interacting with them directly" will ever convince me that someone who really wants to vote can't save $22 to acquire a legal ID.
hell, if it's that big of a deal, then start some charity program to pay for people to get legal ID!