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Four Democrats Pass Bill Making It Harder for Married Women to Vote
(newrepublic.com)
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this post was submitted on 12 Apr 2025
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You can currently vote in the US without ID?
I don't understand what the controversy is, providing ID along with your voting card seems normal to me.
What am I missing? I scimmed the article.
You can vote in a lot of countries without ID dude.
A birth certificate is a static document. In my case it was issued 47 fckn years ago. Why should i pay to update a half century document to match my current legal ID (passport, license , etc) I shouldn't and it's ridiculous
A friend changed her surname after being adopted by her stepfather. She's fucked by this as well. Anyone who's ever changed a stupid name, broken from a bad parent, been adopted, anglicised, or even had a fat fingered nurse typo is now fucked....because idiots are hysterical over 0.6% of the population.
Oh hey, that's me! Nurse swapped my vowels around. Literally hasn't been an issue for 37 years and now, it just might be.
I live in Canada, I can vote using my free government issued healthcard or I can bring a friend to vouch for me, or i can bring a student id and a bill. While most people probably vote with their drivers license or photo ID this enables people who are homeless, very old, or in my case in 2021, just moved. (Here's what's needed for the curious). You'll notice in that link there are special exemptions for people who live in long term care homes, for whom it is much more common to have no form of id.
People who don't have easy access to id are societies most vulnerable people and I think it is especially important that they have access to voting.
America does not have a free form of id (in most states anyway) and does not allow someone to vouch as a form of identification.
I'm Swedish. Don't know if someone can vouch for me. Never tried. Pretty sure I need an ID.
Everyone (18+) get a voting card in their mail sent to their adress. You bring the voting card and ID, like passport or drivers license. Someone ticks your name off a list and you can vote. (No registrering to vote or anything)
ID isn't free, but a passport costs like $40-50.
You can also get a national ID card. But that's even more expensive and I still don't quite understand why you would want one rather than just getting a passport.
I'm Estonian, we also have ID requirements, and an ID card is cheap. Passports aren't expensive either, but ID cards are more useful in day to day life.
The US is fucked. There's no standardized photo ID that everyone has to have. People only get passports for travel and the country is literally so huge and diverse you can travel more than most people have money to and see many different environments without leaving it. I reckon you could spend a year in NYC alone and not see everything there is to see. In 2006, 20% of Americans had passports, in 2011 it was 37%.
The most common form of photo ID to have is the driver's license. But some people don't get one. People also have social security cards, almost everyone has one, but that's not a photo ID.
Luckily they now have something called a passport card (pretty much just an ID card but allows travel to like Canada and Mexico I think?), that only costs 30 bucks to get. The actual book form of passport is 130 for application, and if you're an adult and it's your first passport, there's a 35 dollar acceptance fee, which all together is actually too much for some people.
They also have free voter ID cards which are nowhere close to free.
There's just a lot of bureaucratic inefficiency in the whole ID system in the US. It's fucked. If you're poor and can't get time off work to get a cheap form of ID, you might be fucked. If you don't have transport, you might be fucked.
Really, they should fix all this first and THEN mandate photo ID for voting. Right now it disproportionately affects people who have a hard time getting a photo ID, i.e poor people. Then there's the whole single voting day for in-person voting. It also disproportionately affects the working class - people who might have a hard time getting time off work. Wait, why is this an issue, your employer is legally mandated to give you time off to vote? Because in red states, in areas that vote blue, they only put one voting station for a whooooole bunch of people so you'd have to drive a long distance AND wait a long time in line. AND it's only 1-4 hours depending on state AND not all states have these laws.
The whole country is rigged to not let poor people to vote as easily as the wealthy, unfortunately.
I've spent quite some time in the US. I'm well aware of their bureaucracy. Maybe I just have a different opinion than others. I understand it causes some issues for some, but you can get a copy, or amend your US birth certificate for $50 using their own Government website. It's really not that difficult.
The fact you need to prove citizenship to register to vote is the least of their election problems.
Is it? Potentially millions of citizens can't vote. There's exactly one party pushing for voter ID laws and it's not the one that young people without driver's licenses would likely vote for.
Yes... the electoral college is a much bigger issue. Senators each represent vastly different amount of people, yet their voting power are equal.
Two senators from California, representing 39 million people. Have no more say than two senators from Idaho representing 2 million people.
So 39 million people get 2 votes in the senate. And 2 million people also get 2 votes in the senate.
Democrats have had total power under Biden for 2 years. Did they make it any easier to vote? So you can say that only Republicans want "voter ID laws" but neither party gives a fuck about creating a functional system.
If they cared at all. They'd make sure every citizen is automatically registered. And there wouldn't even be a need for what they're pushing now.
According to this and this vouching can be a thing for both eu and Riksdag elections.
40 dollars may not seem like a lot to you, but for a homeless person, that's quite a lot and they font have foxed addresses for mailing either. Homeless people deserve to vote.
Cool, never seen someone be vouch for, but as stated, that person vouching for you needs ID.
I understand that it's difficult for someone that is homeless to vote. The way we "solved" that here, is by doing everything we can to ensure that homeless people can be taken care of and have some kind of home, e.g. A room. And if all else fails, you can at least register with the government and they will make sure you have a place to receive mail. Meaning you will still get your voting card. You still need an ID, or have someone vouch for you, which could be difficult for a homeless person. But let's be real. Voting is going to be the least of their problems.
I agree. All citizens of legal age deserve to vote.
Imagine a woman being born a Smith. She marries a Jones and changes her name and license. Her birth certificate is still Smith. She will be required to have the same name on her BC and License. She will have to choose and change one of them at her expense.
I don't quite follow the last part. "She will have to choose and change one of them at her expense"
Obviously you need to update your license if you change your name.
So she can update her BC to match her new name? Or is that impossible, thus making her unable to vote because of it.
The new law requires either a birth certificate or passport to register to vote. A driver's license or state issued ID isn't good enough.
Lots of people don't have passports (and they can take a LONG time to get) and don't have updated birth certificates (mostly women since they're the ones primarily to change their name).
Getting an ID is a barrier to access. Since you have to pay to get that ID and you have to jump through various hoops to prove who you are, and can get stuck in bureaucratic hell.
And given that the United States has record levels of homelessness, this increasingly disenfranchises a larger and larger population of voters every year.
Let's not even talk about the current administration weaponizing bureaucracy to deny rights and access to people who they view unfavorably. Which will further disenfranchise voters even if they are capable and have documentation.
Providing ID to vote is quite normal in most countries. Getting an ID also costs money in most countries. That's not unique to the US.
The bigger issue is how hard it can be for marginalized populations to get an ID if they live 10+ miles from an issuing office and they don’t have a vehicle/public transit system that can get them there. These challenges are by design and the reason why Republicans have been pushing for voter ID requirements for so long
Just because other countries do it doesn't make it ok.
https://cdce.umd.edu/sites/cdce.umd.edu/files/pubs/Voter%20ID%202023%20survey%20Key%20Results%20Jan%202024%20%281%29.pdf
TL;DR: If you want to swing elections to the GOP, an easy way to do that is to disenfranchise the voters who are more likely to vote democrat, which means disenfranchising younger and POC voters. An easy way to do that is to place additional monetary, logistical, and time barriers to entry to vote.
I don't see a problem with having people provide ID to vote. That's how you make sure they are who they say they are.
I don't have the data. But im willing to bet that providing ID to vote is the norm around the world. I know for fact it is in EU at least.
The problem is that every time Republicans get something like this passed, their very next step will be to make it harder to get. Maybe they add new requirements to get the ID, or maybe they close half the administrative offices in "undesirable" districts, or maybe they raise the cost. It's always something. Their goal is not to secure elections, it's to discourage people from voting. The people it discourages most are the ones with the least free time to jump through hoops. A single mother with two jobs is not going to allocate too much time to voting.
Fair point. Something I did not consider.
Though as far as I can recall, Democrats have done little to actually make voting more accessible. From what I can see, neither party seems interested. A simple step such as holding elections on a weekend or non-working day where the majority is free would go a long way. Not to play whatabout here. The idea of having to prove you're a citizen to vote is reasonable. Your fear is they will make that proof unreasonably difficult to attain is understandable.
To be clear, you already have to prove you are a citizen to vote. It's done through the voter registration process which has to be done before you can vote. The new requirement would be that the ID used at the polling place include proof of citizenship, which is completely unnecessary.
There is zero evidence of any significant number of non-citizens on the voter rolls, and zero evidence of a significant number of voters using false identities. The few cases we have seen could never swing an election and are almost entirely done by Republicans.
I just explained it.
No, the current default is voter registration cards.
https://www.usa.gov/voter-id
Basically you go to the election office, or your state's website. Then you fill out everything that proves who you are (current address, SSN, etc), and they give you a registration card to prove you are who you are.
Or you register for a mail in ballot, which is basically the same process, but they just know where you live and therefore where to send your ballot.
This sounds the same, bit the difference is that registration cards are free, and can be done online. Other forms of ID like drivers licenses and passports are not free, require transportation to some office, and take time out of your day during business hours (potentially hours, and potentially requiring time off from work which is an additional barrier).
They are not the same.
Let me rephrase then. My opinion is that having to provide valid ID to vote in an election is reasonable.
My understanding is they are putting in the step that you need to prove citizenship when registering to vote. By Birth Certificate, US Passport, or naturalization documentation.
Most people should have their birth certificate. And if they don't, you can request it from your government, I've seen that costs 50 dollars, it should be free. I'm sorry it's not.
When you file to change your name, now you also have to file to change your birth certificate, that should be done automatically, I'm sorry it's not.
I don't think the idea, of making sure your voters are citizens and who they say they are, is unreasonable. I'm a bit surprised it already wasn't the case. But yes, I agree that the whole procedure of registering to vote is sub-optimal.
I also think it kind of pales in comparison when you think about how the entire system after votes are cast works. If you're a republican in California or a Democrat in Texas, you might as just not vote. After the opposite party "win the state" your vote no longer matters. That shouldn't be the case. Each and every vote should have equal worth.
It is already the case that we verify who people are at the polls. That's what the voter registration card is.
Voter registration card => Free, no travel needed, can be done outside of businesshours, no prerequisites that cost money, just need to know your information
Drivers license => Money, travel, time during business hours
Passport => same as previous
They want to move us off of the system that's already working to verify identity with no barriers to entry, to one that does have barriers to entry.
I agree, it's fucked up and planely apparent that it's a failure even on paper.
However it is still worth voting in every election, aa there are local positions on the ballot every time, and those have a much better chance of being swayed away from the lunatics in the GOP. And that's especially the case if it's a city.
The whole system we have for elections is fucked, the least we can do is not make it more fucked by putting up more barriers to entry.
Well, yes, but I bet you (like me) come from a country where it's legally required and so the norm to have an ID, the fees are moderate and you are able to get one in your local town hall by showing up, presenting your old ID and waiting a few weeks. All of which don't seem to be the case in the Orange Man's Kingdom.
I doubt it's legally required to have an ID here. But you are right in that it's quite simple. A passport is roughly $45, you book a time to show up at the nearest police station to re-new it. And then you get a letter saying you can come pick it up 2-3 weeks later.
Not sure where you're from but since you were talking about Europe: IDs are mandatory throughout most (but not all) of the EU, as well as in most non-EU countries.
In my EU country, you could get a new ID in as little as a couple of days if you are willing to pay the extra fees which are actually not at all that much. You also have to pay if you lose your ID thiugh this sum is also not that much.
I think many states require you already to provide an ID to vote. ID/Drivers license aren’t free.
I believe what they passed now, the SAVE Act, results in additional identification like a Birth Certificate or Passport. You have to prove citizenship in some manner. If you got married your last name won’t match your birth certificate, I’ve read of that being used as an example for reason to deny voting access.
I personally feel this is a waste of time and money to implement and will just be used for voter suppression.
(https://www.npr.org/2024/10/11/nx-s1-5147732/voter-fraud-explainer)
We make people pay to get an ID partially because it's outsourced in many states to private companies.
Privatization doing its best work here...