Donald Trump has said he will issue an executive order to mandate identification for all US elections, a move likely to be challenged in court as unconstitutional.
"Voter I.D. Must Be Part of Every Single Vote. NO EXCEPTIONS! I Will Be Doing An Executive Order To That End!!!,” the US president said on Truth Social late on Saturday.
Trump also claimed he wants to ban all voting by mail except for those who are very ill or in military service.
The US constitution grants primary authority to regulate elections to the US states, while empowering Congress to enact election laws or regulations. It gives no explicit authority to the president to regulate voting.
Fucking hell I hate to even say this, but this might be the first thing he has ever done that I might agree with. But hear me out before you crucify me.
There isn’t rampant voter fraud near to the level MAGA claims. They imply it’s 50% fraudulent. It’s really like 1% or less, and most of that gets caught anyway already.
I do think it is important to validate that the person casting the vote is registered and is the correct person casting the vote. But I would balance that requirement with common sense and I’d make getting any/all valid IDs easy and free (fully tax funded). From DL to Real ID to Military or whatever else. All free. All simple to get. All accessible to do. And I’d also make all elections a national holiday and expand mail in and online voting and early voting. Give people as much margin to get their vote in as possible.
Elections do need security, hell, I’m still not entirely convinced that Elon didn’t do SOMETHING nefarious in this last one. He at very least was paying people which is illegal. But we need better encryptions and processes and forms of certifying that the ballots cast were indeed the correct intended vote and ways to go back and validate your own vote in a secure way. Make a portal where you can log in like your bank and see your vote history or something.
While we’re at it. Abolish the damn college. Just make it all RCV and be done with all this shit with gerrymandering and arguing over the "least worst’ candidate every cycle.
Much less than 1%. Voter Fraud is so rare that it has no impact on elections. However the Republicans have been trying to pass a federal voter ID law (the SAVE act) which creates substantial barriers for married women who changed their last name from voting. The additional barriers will destroy democracy.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/why-voting-rights-groups-warn-the-save-act-may-make-it-harder-for-married-women-to-vote
Republicans would never win if they did all that, and Democrats would immediately be seriously challenged by Progressive candidates, so they aren’t interested either.
They would never lose again if they did roll out a federal voter ID law:
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/why-voting-rights-groups-warn-the-save-act-may-make-it-harder-for-married-women-to-vote
They could at will pass federal laws that disenfranchise anyone who votes against their agenda.
Of course, if the legislation they passed only incorporated voter ID and not any of the other stuff the person I was replying to spoke of, including ranked choice
Thats the scam: they know most Americans support basic voter id requirements and dont read the news. So Americans would tacitly support a national voter ID requirement (which itself violates the constitution) without realizing that it would prevent many women from voting. Voter ID laws are a Trojan horse for rolling back democratic controls on fascism.
I was typing up a comment to say this but when I really started thinking about it it’s not feasible to use IDs. The whole reason it’s unconstitutional is it directly targets poor people and prevents them from voting. ID centers would have to be open 7 days a week. All other forms of IDs needed to obtain a voter ID would also have to be free, and those places would have to be open 7 days also.
There’s just too much that would have to go into making it fair for every citizen.