Icon from a picrew by grgikau. Call me Tir or Julian. 37. He/They. Queer. Twitter: @tirlaeyn. ao3: tirlaeyn. 18+ Only. Star Trek. Sandman. IwtV. OMFD. Definitionless in this Strict Atmosphere.
God @ northern liberals w that “southerners deserve natural disasters for voting for trump” as if there aren’t a ton of poor people and people of color and other vulnerable people.. y'all think it’s the rich republicans that will die if a hurricane hits Florida??? Naw so shut the fuck up
Listen this is why gerrymandering is such a massive, massive problem down here in the south.
Texas has been slowly becoming a Latinx majority state for decades. You wouldn’t know it by the way Texas votes because gerrymandering exists. Rich southern conservatives always win the votes because of this. (Lack of decent education doesn’t help.)
Worst of all, they try to teach us in school that the federal government bullies the state by making the state submit its redistricting plans for approval before redistricting can take place.
In reality, it’s because the gerrymandering would get even worse if the state was allowed to do as it pleased.
Gerrymandering and voter suppression are why the south looks the way it does in elections. The south is poor and more diverse than a significant part of the rest of the country, and all of the marginalized people get thrown under the bus by the whole country and by both parties.
So yeah when you wish bad things on the south, you’re being pretty indescribably shitty because let me tell you, the south already has “bad things” happen in significant amounts.
There’s so many people in the notes that are like ‘yes! So go vote!’ It’s like talking to a fucking wall.
I really wish people really considered what voter suppression actually MEANS. It’s not ‘voters are discouraged a lil’. There are laws and regulations designed to disenfranchise people of color, especially black people, and prevent us from voting at all, and failing that, water down the power of that vote as much as possible.
Changes are also enacted that make it more difficult to vote–DMVs business hours changing, fewer places available to vote with increasing distances between them (but more affluent and whiter areas having less distance to travel, morepolling places and therefore shorter wait times…) offices in predominately pooorer and blacker towns being reduced obtaining a photo ID requiring you to jump through more hoops, it’s a lot.
And that’s just he obvious direct point a to point b shit. That’s not talking about felon voter rights being taken away, while people of color (again, especially black people) are charged for crimes that white defendants walk for, with less evidence and harsher sentencing, including what may be considered a misdemeanor for a white person being charged a felony.
And cops have come forward and admitted they’ve been told not to prosecute drug crimes in white neighborhoods, so it’s foolish to pretend that mandatory minimum sentencing and zero tolerance policies are meant to be anything but another tool to disenfranchise us. This is an especially notable problem in Florida, which plays into why that map looks like that, too.
You cannot tie a people’s hands behind their back, gag them, tie them to a chair, and then tell them that all they gotta do is stand up, and wonder why you’re having no issue doing so while they’re struggling.
You know what changes the Democratic Party could implement if they truly wanted to increase voter rights in these areas? Find and provide free child care while voting is taking place–and feed those children too. Organize and fund car pools to voting areas.
Months before the deadline, have PAID workers from these communities show up in person to recruit voters and discuss any possible difficulty getting to the polls, explain how absentee ballets work and how to access them.
It’s not cheap, but when the dems are happy to fundraiser shocking amounts of money to pay for an already insured building, it ain’t impossible.
Instead of smugly ‘going high’ when they go low, help those of us being hurt by them going low. Instead of fucking funding their voter suppression lol.
Like, voting is not going to save us. It’s just not. At best, it must be seen as a form of harm reduction. But we still cannot practice it as a form of harm reduction when we can’t actually access this shit.
Can somebody explain to me why this is a problem? Why is voter ID bad???
How do you not have ID?? License? Passport?
Also how is that proof that’s it’s rigged. Why do those 300,000 people not have ID? Does that mean they are illigal immigrants(seriously I have no clue) cuz if that’s the case, they have no right to vote. Needing ID vote makes so much sense to me. In Canadian elections, you need ID vote
Please somebody explain to me what the issue is with needing ID to vote
Because most likely if they don’t have a drivers license they probably can’t afford a passport which are the two forms of ID they’d accept so it makes the poor people unable to vote
Fair enough.
Isn’t the purpose of an ID to prevent voter fraud? I think that pretty important
I do agree it is important but it would be better if they made IDs more accessible for people who wouldn’t normally be able to afford it
True I don’t know the prices and how possible it is to reduce prices (what affects, what needs to be taken into account) but something to consider
My original question stemmed from the fact that so many people are against voter ID in general, as if proving who you are is a violation. I’ve seen so much hate for it months prior to the elections. Plus the tweet claims it’s evidence of it being rigged which I found quite dumb. I don’t support either candidate but jeeeez
But idk I’m Canadian I don’t know a whole lote about how things are done and what the process is so…yea
To clear some of this up for those who aren’t familiar with voter ID laws:
Here is an excellent article written a few years ago (by a former Republican!) about how these requirements put a disproportionate burden on certain groups of voters - specifically, those who are likely to be Democrats. A few key points:
“7% of the general voting public doesn’t have an adequate photo ID, but those figures rise precipitously when you hit certain groups: 15% of voting age citizens making less than $35,000 a year, 18% of Americans over 65, and a full quarter of African Americans.”
“…the documents one needs to get a photo ID aren’t (free) and the prices haven’t been reduced. Lost your naturalization certificate? That’ll be $345. Don’t have a birth certificate because you’re black and were born in the segregated south? You have to go to court.”
“One can only hope that would-be voters have access to a car or adequate public transportation, and a boss who won’t mind if they take several hours off work to go get their ID, particularly if they live in, say, the third of Texas counties that have no ID-issuing offices at all.”
“(Republican) Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, to take an example, signed a strict voter ID law and then made a move to start closing DMV offices in areas full of Democrats, while increasing office hours in areas full of Republicans—this in a state in which half of blacks and Hispanics are estimated to lack a driver’s license and a quarter of its DMV offices are open less than one day per month. (Sauk City’s is open a whopping four times a year.)”
So basically, there are a lot - A LOT - of Americans who are legally eligible to vote but lack a DMV-issued I.D. Most of those people are from demographic groups perceived as likely to vote Democratic.
The “rigged” part? Is that Republican state and local officials have actively worked to make it harder for Democratic-skewing demographic groups - especially the poor - to obtain DMV-issued I.D.s, while enacting laws that require them to show those I.D.s in order to vote.
Ensuring no voter fraud is a good thing, it helps uphold the integrity and people’s trust of the voting system. That being said, overly strict regulations end up targeting minority groups. (also a little weird that for USA’s federal elections there isn’t a federal standard? IDK state powers are weird)
So how do other countries decrease fraud and inequality? Since one of the above posters mentioned Canada -> in Canada there are 2 big ways you can prove you’re you without photo ID. (Any combination of 2 pieces out of 48 pieces of listed non-photo ID, or 2 pieces of ID with name and a person who will testify you live where you say you live) http://www.elections.ca/content.aspx?section=vot&dir=ids&document=index&lang=e
Oh, and employers are legally obligated to give you time off to vote, and cannot deduct your pay for going to vote. These measures would go a long way in decreasing bias at the polls. (Oh and a federal standard. Did I mention a federal standard?)
There is also the basic history in the U.S. of disenfranchising PoC, specifically black voters in the South. Voter fraud is almost non-existent in the U.S. It has become and continues to be a talking point of the Republican party because it is based in racism. Legally, they can’t say, “No black person is allowed to vote. No Latinx is allowed to vote,” but states continue to pass laws that make it specifically harder for those groups to vote, whether it is the “literacy tests” of the Jim Crow era (seriously, try taking that test; many of these types of tests had intentionally confusing questions) or a voting places with extreme waiting times in poorer areas. We also see shorter early voter periods in these areas, which makes it harder for the poor working class to vote since Election Day isn’t a holiday in the U.S.
This doesn’t even touch the issue the amount of documentation you need in order to get an ID these days in the US. If you are homeless or a migrant worker of any kind, it’s pretty much impossible.
There is also the major issue that these laws have never been universally applied. A white person going to vote gets a cheery wave and a “just sign next to your name,” while a black person has to have two forms of ID just to prove who they are and if they don’t have the ‘right kind’ of ID–again often determined by people at the polling place– they are turned away. So while folks can say that having ID just makes sense, U.S. history speaks volumes as to why it shouldn’t be implemented.
There’s also the added complication of state residency.
In most states, to be legally eligible to vote you have to have been living in that state for at least six months. You have to have proof of a physical address in that state (so renting out a po box wouldn’t work). This obviously hurts the homeless and migratory workers, but it also hurts anyone that has recently moved.
Most states require a physical address listed on any ID. Again, this is a problem for the homeless.
What do you do if you witness an act of voter suppression take place, or get turned away at the polls yourself? The first step is to call your local election officials, who you can find through the Federal Voting Assistance Program’s Local Election Office search.
Second, be sure to make some noise on Twitter. Provide photographic evidence of your polling place and explain your problem. Then immediately call one of the hotlines below.
ACLU Voter Protection Hotline
1-877-523-2792
Election Protection Hotline
1-866-OUR-VOTE (687-8683)
A coalition run by the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, this hotline is also useful if you have questions on anything from finding your polling place to registering to vote.
You can reach staff members of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division to report complaints related to possible violations of federal voting-rights laws.
If you have to vote where these people are going to be crowding your polling place, I wanna preemptively congratulate you on your bravery.
While chances for voter suppression and fraud are not as high as you might think, I want to take a hot second and say this:
If you are required to attend a polling station where there are assholes trying to turn people away-record and document them. If you feel safe enough, get hard evidence that these people are knowingly attempting to prevent people from voting and contact the authorities. Only the people directly working the polls will ask for your ID so you can receive the correct ballot. If someone asks for your voter registration or drivers license outside of the building they are trying to keep you from voting. If someone touches you to prevent you from entering the polling station call the police or have someone do it for you.
Suppressing your right to vote is a federal offense.
I have seen a lot of people say that if Trump wins then we deserve it.
I disagree.
This is the first presidential election since the Voting Rights Act was weakened by the Supreme Court. In that time fourteen states have either proposed or passed voter suppression laws. This primarily affects people of color, students, and the elderly. Groups that tend to vote for democrats. Let’s not forget that in many states people in prison cannot vote and sometimes lose the right to vote completely even once their sentence is over.
Think of the people who want to vote, but are unable to because of the voter suppression laws championed by their republican senators and representatives. A strategic move to ensure that republicans continue to hold office. So tell me again how “we” deserve a Trump presidency.
And on your right, we have another really excellent reason to VOTE.
“Throughout our nation’s history, we have repeatedly seen that there is simply no good reason – no good reason – to reduce voting access. Indeed, the arc of our nation’s history has until recently been to expand access to the ballot.”
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