Comment on Goddammit Texas!
Rivalarrival@lemmy.today 2 months agoBut it’s very difficult for a lot of people.
It is, indeed, but the proper solution here is to lift them up to the bar, not lower the bar down to them.
Lack of ID prevents you from getting and keeping a job, attending school, accessing the banking system, getting a PO box, getting licenses. Being unable to vote is the least of your problems.
The proper solution is not to figure out how to make voting accessible to those without an ID. The proper solution is to get them an ID.
Cryophilia@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Nope. Voting is a fundamental right of a citizen. An illiterate dude living in a cave who has never even seen a concrete building should have the right to vote, if he’s a citizen. It is a civic responsibility for us to lower the bar for voting as low as possible to disenfranchise as few people as possible.
All those things you said about IDs are true, and yes we should be helping people get them. But in the mean time we must not disenfranchise them.
skullgiver@popplesburger.hilciferous.nl 2 months ago
Cryophilia@lemmy.world 2 months ago
A huge fraction of people (again, poor people, whom I’m sure you’re too privileged to associate with) do not file taxes and are not required to file taxes. See we’re getting into that thing I mentioned earlier where I give a thousand examples and you individualize each one.
If he knows his date of birth and his social security number, he can register in California. If he doesn’t know his SSN, they can look it up for him. In Texas, he doesn’t get to vote.
Rivalarrival@lemmy.today 2 months ago
There is no recurring manual registration. You only need to register once in your lifetime.
If you move, you have to update your ID within 60 days, and every time you update your ID, they update your voter registration automatically. (unless you decline).
That has been federal law since 1993, and is pretty much equivalent to European standards.
You really have to go out of your way to not be registered to vote.