In Texas, there used to be DPS offices in most mid-sized towns and everyone just had to wait in line to get their driver’s license (principal ID for most Texans) or non-driver ID card.

Now, they’ve concentrated them into a few larger service centers that are often miles away from the cities they serve and require appointments, sometimes not available for several weeks… but with a few that spontaneously crop up at short notice.

Guess what does not work for people reliant on the meager public transportation infrastructure or getting rides from also time-strapped friends and family?

Germany, by contrast, requires every resident to register in the city or town they live in for an ID, whether they intend to vote or not, but even small towns have such an office, and as someone else pointed out, every citizen receives a letter 30 days before each election telling them exactly who/what is being voted on, where they are to go on Election Day (always a Sunday), and how to vote absentee if they’re not going to be in town that day.

>In Texas, there used to be DPS offices in most mid-sized towns and everyone just had to wait in line to get their driver’s license (principal ID for most Texans) or non-driver ID card.

They're still there, most mid-sized towns still have them.

>Now, they’ve concentrated them into a few larger service centers that are often miles away from the cities they serve and require appointments, sometimes not available for several weeks… but with a few that spontaneously crop up at short notice.

Yes they opened the big licensing centers and made them appointment only which is an improvement, you waste zero time. "Miles away" means nothing in Texas, the state is bigger than France.

>Guess what does not work for people reliant on the meager public transportation infrastructure

There is no public transportation infrastructure in most mid-sized Texas towns.

>or getting rides from also time-strapped friends and family?

Now with appointments you can plan ahead with family or friends that are time strapped.

Like many such policies it's not explicitly racist .. as a procedure it simply disenfranchises some demographics more than others; lower income brackets, people that have had difficult housing and record keepng pasts, indigenous voters on reservation lands lacking mailbox addresses, etc.

It's a mystery how that appears to proportionally exclude along racial and ethnic lines but it's assuredly not that by delibrate intent.

Just a happy accident really?

A fun fact is that this is specifically the question the academic framework of critical race theory was formed to address. How can systems that are not explicitly racist, that may actually have racial equity as explicit goals, still create racially disparate outcomes. It's an interesting area of study! No wonder people hate it.

It absolutely is. Go look at the racial demographics of the neighborhoods where DMVs are being opened and closed. And then ask yourself which racial groups, at large, are more likely to have time in their day to sit at an inconveniently located DMV and what party they most often vote for.

>It absolutely is.

It absolutely isn't.

>Go look at the racial demographics of the neighborhoods where DMVs are being opened and closed.

In Texas (which happens to be the state people are concentration on ITT), it's rural areas and smaller towns, which are mostly White.

>And then ask yourself which racial groups, at large, are more likely to have time in their day to sit at an inconveniently located DMV and what party they most often vote for.

Texas is all appointment driven, you can schedule weeks out so you don't have to wait, and can plan accordingly like everyone else on your day off. Soft bigotry of low expectations.

It certainly is, because the laws are passed with the intent that they won't be applied equally.

Incidentally, this is one of the things critical race theory actually talked about: how laws can be non-discriminatory on the surface, but deliberately created and applied in a discriminatory manner.

To trot out Wilhoit's Law again: "Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect."

>It certainly is, because the laws are passed with the intent that they won't be applied equally.

It certainly isn't, because the laws are passed with the intent that they will be applied equally.

>Incidentally, this is one of the things critical race theory actually talked about: how laws can be non-discriminatory on the surface, but deliberately created and applied in a discriminatory manner.

Talked about, but failed to prove, and often proved the opposite. Critical race theory taught society effectively nothing, only made things worse.

>Wilhoit's Law...

Reddit moment quote that's misattributed [0].

To trot out Theodore Dalrymple's Law again: "... When people are forced to remain silent when they are being told the most obvious lies, or even worse when they are forced to repeat the lies themselves, they lose once and for all their sense of probity. To assent to obvious lies is in some small way to become evil oneself. One's standing to resist anything is thus eroded, and even destroyed. A society of emasculated liars is easy to control..."

[0] https://slate.com/business/2022/06/wilhoits-law-conservative...

“You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin. And then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities,” Ehrlichman said. “We could arrest their leaders. raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.”

John Ehrlichman, White House counsel and assistant to Richard Nixon

Hilarious, your quote is also fabricated, he never said it: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Ehrlichman

"If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension the truth becomes the greatest enemy of the State."

Not Joseph Goebbels, chief propagandist for the Nazi Party and Reich Minister of Propaganda

"It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations." - Winston Churchill

"I no longer listen to what people say, I just watch what they do. Behavior never lies." - Not Winston Churchill

Sadly fraudulent

https://checkyourfact.com/2019/07/29/fact-check-winston-chur...

You were so agog to reply that you missed my "not" in front of Winston Churchill. Swing and a miss.

Wow, just spat out my drink at this. You have won the internets today, good sir. An updoot for you

Thank you kind stranger!

gas and ban

Fair. It disenfranchises the poor across racial boundaries.

Poverty is not equal across racial boundaries and geography is also not equal across racial boundaries. Where you put the DPS matters, and the South is still very much segregated to some degree today. Naturally, the state government knows this and takes full advantage of it.

See also: Gerrymandering. Same concept.

Totally. I’m being sarcastic. :)

I’ve worked in the ID space and know how the parts work together. When I found myself widowed and having to get a passport for my son, the process of getting a replacement social security card for him was incredibly onerous. 3 different visits! Mind you this was to get a replacement cardboard card - getting survivors benefits is a simple phone call.

Multiple visits is a barrier for folks without paid time off. Physical documents is a barrier for folks without unstable housing or noncustodial parents.

It’s interesting that all of this bullshit is required to exercise your right to vote. But we have the minimal possible controls on the right to bear arms in those states.

Trust me, 2A will be thrown in the trash the moment poor people or minorities start arming themselves again.

Yeah, people forget Ronald Reagan passed some of the nationa's earliest gun control laws as governor of California partly as a response to groups like the Black Panthers arming themselves.

Voter IDs are free, they do not disenfranchise the poor.

Then maybe they should issue them at voting centers come election day.

Different organization with a different scope. Would be nice to have, but you must plan accordingly.

Why not merge them? Voter IDs can be driver’s licenses, passports, etc. So much bureaucracy. For the sake of efficiency, simply have sign ups for a voter ID card (similar to state IDs) at voting centers. Two birds, one stone. Easy.

I'm with you, it's sadly the nature of the beast. Think about the federal government alone: DoD military ID, veteran's ID, passport, social security card, etc. are all separate organizations with different scopes. It's madness.

So what’s one more, for voting? Or better yet, allow a way to quickly issue people state ID cards at DMV voting centers and other similar facilities. That way you get an ID for voting, and for other state identification purposes. Easy-peasy.

Texas does just that! When you apply for a driver's license or other state ID, you can elect to register to vote at the same time. Two birds, one stone.

Texas is hardly unique in this, since every state except those which continuously since 1994 have either not required registration or offered election day registration is required to do this under the federal National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (the “motor voter” law.)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Voter_Registration_...

Figured it was something federal, I've lived in multiple states and they've all been the same/similar.

Yeah and what would be even better is when you go to vote you can get an ID.

Would be nice, but most states do not allow same day registration (New York does not as an example), or same day registration is extremely limited (in California you need your ID to vote and register on the same day).

The aforementioned problem persists, different organizations with different scopes.

Stronger voter ID laws are nice too, until the political will was expended into making it happen. By the same token, smarter ID laws can also be enacted if appropriate effort is undertaken.

Stronger voter ID laws are not nice to haves, they are the law in many states like Texas. Just like anything else surrounding government and laws, you must plan accordingly, appropriate effort is required by the voter.

Right, and the same can be said of providing the service of issuing a voter ID at the voting center on Election Day, once it is passed as legislation.

Since many states don't allow registration on the same day as voting, I'd say the government has planned accordingly after passing the aforementioned voter ID laws. Just found out this is a a standard federally: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41921184

Great! So then when they change it to allow for the issuing of voter IDs on election day, it can be done at the federal level in one fell swoop. And who knows, maybe this voter ID can be a national one so no need to deal with state bureaucracies.

I wouldn't hold my breath.

And that’s fine. As Bismarck said, politics is the art of the possible, and what becomes possible ebbs and flows with the shifting of the Overton window. Stronger voter ID laws one decade, smarter voter ID laws the next.