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On July 11 2024 14:00 Acrofales wrote: Ok, so your path to revolution is to ensure the elections which definitely won't lead to revolution work better. It's a good thing you're not committed to revolution, because that sounds positively anti-revolutionary. Kudos for taking your anti-revolutionary civic responsibility, though!
Open your eyes, comrade. Kwark is helping to ensure a genocide enabler remains in the Oval Office to sow discontent among the masses that will trigger the revolution. He is doing more than any of us.
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In Germany we have Personalausweisgesetz.
Simply everyone has to carry a valid, federal picture ID starting at 16.
Australia even has mandatory voting.
I know that would basicly f*ck up conservatives in the US for a while..but how the heck do you defend "keep people excluded from voting" as being democratic?
GOP literally says "Our voters are motivated by fear on singular topics, and we demotivate all other voters by telling them their voice doesn't count anyway..or that no side cares for them.
Not even talking about the voting system in general and how votes of different areas wildly are worth "less" than others.
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On July 11 2024 17:39 KT_Elwood wrote: In Germany we have Personalausweisgesetz.
Simply everyone has to carry a valid, federal picture ID starting at 16.
Australia even has mandatory voting.
I know that would basicly f*ck up conservatives in the US for a while..but how the heck do you defend "keep people excluded from voting" as being democratic?
GOP literally says "Our voters are motivated by fear on singular topics, and we demotivate all other voters by telling them their voice doesn't count anyway..or that no side cares for them.
Not even talking about the voting system in general and how votes of different areas wildly are worth "less" than others.
Actually, everyone has to own an ID, but you do not have to carry it. That is, you are not required to carry your Personalausweis with you all the time.
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The problem in the US has never been an ID requirement itself, its often however an ID requirement instituted shortly before an election and while closing places where you can get in ID in neighbourhoods where they don't want people to vote.
There is no problem with ensuring every citizen has a valid ID and then requiring them to vote.
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There’s plenty of people that oppose requiring ID to vote, full stop.
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On July 11 2024 19:16 BlackJack wrote: There’s plenty of people that oppose requiring ID to vote, full stop.
True, but on the other hand there are also plenty of unnecessary hoops. Voting in the US is much more inconvenient for black people than for white people. By "inconvenient" I mean it takes them 60% longer on average. That may not sound like much at first, but if I had to guess this higher average likely stems from some percentage of cases where people have to wait many hours, basically spending an entire day from early morning to evening just waiting and not being able to do anything. This can result in a meaningful percentage of black voters simply abstaining altogether for entirely valid, practical reasons. That is a serious problem that needs to be addressed by both parties.
https://www.bbc.com/news/election-us-2020-54240651
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And the whole thing would be fixed if the ID requirement came with an ID for it for free. However, the people really pushing for the requirement doesn't want to provide that.
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On July 11 2024 19:16 BlackJack wrote: There’s plenty of people that oppose requiring ID to vote, full stop.
But i think that would change pretty quickly once it is easy, free and mandatory for everyone to have ID.
If you really want voter ID, don't talk about that before an election. Talk about ID after an election. Make sure that everyone has ID. Then, if you still care about it, you can talk about requiring ID to vote, maybe 1-2 elections later, and no one has a problem with it.
But once you are there, you probably won't care about it anymore, either.
Here in Germany, where everyone has mandatory ID and no one would really win by supressing voters without ID, no one talks about requiring ID to vote. And for almost all elections, your election notification which you get in the mail if you can vote is all you need. You only really need to show your ID in edge cases. I didn't need ID to vote at all so far.
This is another of these situations where talking to US conservatives is kinda hard, because they clearly are not discussing honestly. They don't give a flying fuck about voter ID. If they cared about voter ID, they would implement it like i described above. But they don't. They want to win, and they think that suppressing some voters increases their chances.
This is obvious to the people they are talking to, and it is obvious to them. So the whole discussion about voter ID is shitty theater.
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United States41469 Posts
On July 11 2024 14:00 Acrofales wrote: Ok, so your path to revolution is to ensure the elections which definitely won't lead to revolution work better. It's a good thing you're not committed to revolution, because that sounds positively anti-revolutionary. Kudos for taking your anti-revolutionary civic responsibility, though! It gives us more time to wait for the meteor.
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Maybe I am naive. But is a photo id really that rare in the United States? Feels weird to actually go through the process of voting without being asked for one. Wonder what countries 3rd world or not that doesn't use photo id in a national voting process.
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On July 11 2024 21:38 Byo wrote: Maybe I am naive. But is a photo id really that rare in the United States? Feels weird to actually go through the process of voting without being asked for one. Wonder what countries 3rd world or not that doesn't use photo id in a national voting process.
Germany, as i mentioned above. At least you don't generally and always need ID.
You get your voting registration mail about a month before the election. You then take that mail to go to the polling station, where you are crossed off the list. ID is only required if the poll workers think you are not who you claim to be, which happens only rarely.
There do not seem to be widespread suspicions of voter fraud.
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United States41469 Posts
On July 11 2024 21:38 Byo wrote: Maybe I am naive. But is a photo id really that rare in the United States? Feels weird to actually go through the process of voting without being asked for one. Wonder what countries 3rd world or not that doesn't use photo id in a national voting process. No, but nor are they free (which introduces pay to vote) and they’re not easy to get for some people.
Also this
On July 01 2014 00:15 KwarK wrote: Just had an argument with the DMV about whether or not I needed an official translation of my English driving license into English for her to read. There were no foreign words on it, we speak English in England. A low point of the argument was her claiming she couldn't read the expiration date, which was written in numbers, while I tried to explain that while the entire license was on her native language numbers were even more so and that the digits could not be translated because digits don't work that way.
On July 01 2014 01:54 KwarK wrote: "You need a civil translator to provide a translation of your driving license" "It's in English" "I can't read it" "It's in English, we speak English in England, it's an English driving license" "Well I can't read the expiration date" "That's those numbers there, where it says expiry" "I need a translation of them" "They're digits, you can't translate digits, that's not how they work, they're just numbers" "Okay, let me check with my supervisor"
*some time later* "I need your birth certificate" "No you don't, a marriage certificate is also listed on your guidelines of acceptable proofs of ID, here is my marriage certificate" "No it's not" "Yes it is" "Here is our list, check" *she passes me the list* "Look, it says marriage certificate there" "Oh" *time passes* "I need the full paper form with all your details on it" "You mean my marriage license?" "Yes" "I didn't bring that, it says marriage certificate here" "I'm not sure we accept marriage certificates, I need to check with my supervisor"
*some time later* "This is the wrong type of bank statement" "What do you mean?" "You can't use this as proof of residency, it's the wrong type" "It has my name, address and so forth on it and is on bank paperwork with their letterhead etc, I got it from the bank when I went in and asked for a statement of my account to use as proof of residency for this purpose" "Well I need to check with my supervisor"
*some time later* "Your lease can't be from the last 30 days (it was 29 days old)" "That's not what it says on your guidelines, see here" "The guidelines aren't specific about the times but you can't use a lease from the last 30 days" "The guidelines say you can use a lease but it must be from the last 90 days, that seems pretty specific, it looks like it's fine" "Well I need to check with my supervisor"
At this point we go to a MVD Express which is a private business where you pay more to not deal with this bullshit. They looked at my passport, looked at my UK driving license, took my money and gave me a New Mexico driving license. No appointment, ten minutes. I'm reasonably sure that the government service takes money from the MVD Express to be as useless as possible to create them business, it's the Glazier's Fallacy.
Back in 2014 I considered myself somewhat of an expert at bureaucracy as I’d been navigating the US immigration system. I had money, time, experience, fluency, and a high level of problem solving skills. I knew how to find the official checklist the NM DMV used online, had a printer, and could follow the “bring something from list A and two things from list B etc.” directions. I knew that to deal with a bureaucrat you need to come prepared, you bring a copy of their own rulebook to use against them.
I’d managed to get a green card but I couldn’t get the government to give me a drivers license, I had to go to MVD Express (a private business licensed to issue government IDs) and pay there. If you’re already in the system then getting an ID is probably trivial. If you’re not then it’s surprisingly hard.
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On July 11 2024 21:51 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On July 11 2024 21:38 Byo wrote: Maybe I am naive. But is a photo id really that rare in the United States? Feels weird to actually go through the process of voting without being asked for one. Wonder what countries 3rd world or not that doesn't use photo id in a national voting process. No, but nor are they free (which introduces pay to vote) and they’re not easy to get for some people. Also this Show nested quote +On July 01 2014 00:15 KwarK wrote: Just had an argument with the DMV about whether or not I needed an official translation of my English driving license into English for her to read. There were no foreign words on it, we speak English in England. A low point of the argument was her claiming she couldn't read the expiration date, which was written in numbers, while I tried to explain that while the entire license was on her native language numbers were even more so and that the digits could not be translated because digits don't work that way. Look, d/m/y format is imba and hurts our brains to translate.
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On July 11 2024 18:21 Xophy wrote:Show nested quote +On July 11 2024 17:39 KT_Elwood wrote: In Germany we have Personalausweisgesetz.
Simply everyone has to carry a valid, federal picture ID starting at 16.
Australia even has mandatory voting.
I know that would basicly f*ck up conservatives in the US for a while..but how the heck do you defend "keep people excluded from voting" as being democratic?
GOP literally says "Our voters are motivated by fear on singular topics, and we demotivate all other voters by telling them their voice doesn't count anyway..or that no side cares for them.
Not even talking about the voting system in general and how votes of different areas wildly are worth "less" than others.
Actually, everyone has to own an ID, but you do not have to carry it. That is, you are not required to carry your Personalausweis with you all the time.
Correct, but if you happend to get into any kind of situation the Police is allowed to check your ID, and you do not bring Personalausweis, you could end up at a police station for ID-check.
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When it comes to Voter ID laws in the United States, my issue isn't the principle of the matter - in theory, it could be fine, if every legal voter was able to easily obtain and keep a Voter ID. My actual, pragmatic issues with it are two-fold:
1. It's a completely unnecessary "solution" to a non-existent problem - we don't have widespread voter fraud, where masses of people are casting fake votes or double-votes that are affecting our elections. Republicans are lying about this because they're sore losers, even with the deck disproportionately stacked in their favor (e.g., the electoral college).
2. The push from Republicans to mandate Voter ID laws is so, so, so transparently bad-faith - it's just fake virtue-signaling that perpetuates their lies about the lack of safety and sanctity of our elections. They supposedly want to "protect" voting rights... yet they aggressively make it harder for certain (pro-Dem) demographics and certain (pro-Dem) areas to vote on Election Day by closing polling stations and increasing wait times, they make it more difficult to vote early or via an absentee ballot or through the mail, they gerrymander districts, they try to overthrow the results of fair elections with ridiculous lawsuits and insurrections, etc. We know that Republicans would be trying to actively prevent some pro-Dem legal voters from obtaining their Voter IDs, essentially removing their right to vote, because even without Voter ID laws, Republicans are already trying to prevent their opponents from voting.
Republican leaders are currently priming and gaslighting their conservative base with more "the November 2024 election will have widespread voter fraud if we lose again" rhetoric - like how, in May, House Speaker Mike Johnson falsely claimed, "we all know, intuitively, that a lot of illegals are voting in federal elections." https://thehill.com/homenews/house/4764972-house-approves-voter-eligibility-bill/ And then just the other day, House Republicans started pushing through the stupidly redundant "SAVE Act", which declared that certain non-citizen/illegal groups can't vote federally... except that's already the case. Those groups already can't vote federally. (It would be like Republicans suddenly pushing a new bill to criminalize murder, as if it weren't already criminalized.) They keep pretending that it's important, though, because the more that they talk about this narrative, the more likely it is for a few more swing voters to incorrectly think that there's a legitimate reason to believe the Republicans and their false claims of widespread voter fraud and their fearmongering about the absolute necessity for new, sweeping Voter ID laws. And, again, we know that it's all just a Republican scheme to continue disenfranchising voters who oppose them, because that's what they've been doing for decades.
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I did also have a bunch of people last election ask me how I planned to stop voter fraud. I explained that each registered voter can only get one “pink” (I forget the official name, we called them pinks) from the system, it won’t allow anyone to print another, and that you can’t vote without it. Non registered individuals can’t get a pink at all, the system doesn’t just print them out. So you’d really want to have the name and info of another registered voter who you knew wasn’t going to vote and then impersonate them, that’s probably the best way to do it. But even then you’d still need to get a time machine to go back to 2000 Florida so you could actually change something with a handful of votes. Impersonation voting can’t be scaled up to the number of votes you’d need to accomplish much, to steal an election you’re not trying to get more votes, you’re going to need to control the election and throw out thousands of legitimate votes etc. That’s how you’d do it.
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I gave it a shot, but at first glance, and even upon perusing, the incompetence of government bureaucracy doesn't sound like a strong argument against election security measures.
On July 11 2024 17:39 KT_Elwood wrote: In Germany we have Personalausweisgesetz.
Simply everyone has to carry a valid, federal picture ID starting at 16. You also don't have a first or second amendment and your history with "papers please" is checkered. The US has direct voting for direct representation. You have had two elections overturned and redone recently. It's extraordinary that one thriving democracy can have such secure elections, whereas one has such apparent issues? Remember, to do that in the US if god forbid there was an election problem, once certain things are in motion it's not clear that even the Supreme Court has jurisdiction. The only sure way is a constitutional amendment.
On July 11 2024 17:39 KT_Elwood wrote: Australia even has mandatory voting.
I know that would basicly f*ck up conservatives in the US for a while..but how the heck do you defend "keep people excluded from voting" as being democratic?
On July 11 2024 17:39 KT_Elwood wrote: Not even talking about the voting system in general and how votes of different areas wildly are worth "less" than others.
If you're voting for representatives directly, any vote in a close race will be "worth" more than a vote in a landslide race. It is not the fault of the system that one candidate kicked another's ass in one area.
On July 11 2024 19:32 Magic Powers wrote:Show nested quote +On July 11 2024 19:16 BlackJack wrote: There’s plenty of people that oppose requiring ID to vote, full stop. True, but on the other hand there are also plenty of unnecessary hoops. Voting in the US is much more inconvenient for black people than for white people. By "inconvenient" I mean it takes them 60% longer on average. That may not sound like much at first, but if I had to guess this higher average likely stems from some percentage of cases where people have to wait many hours, basically spending an entire day from early morning to evening just waiting and not being able to do anything. This can result in a meaningful percentage of black voters simply abstaining altogether for entirely valid, practical reasons. That is a serious problem that needs to be addressed by both parties. https://www.bbc.com/news/election-us-2020-54240651 The single racial data in that entire article is that black people waited 16 minutes and white people waited 10 minutes according to a study. Your vast conclusions drawn from a single dimension of data aside (hiding all other factors), that doesn't sound like a serious problem to me. What if black people are all simply working on Election Day because it's not a national holiday because Biden's administration didn't make it one when he controlled the whole government, and therefore end up going at the same crowded peak times, whereas white people on the other side of wealth disparity can vote whenever they like? You can also look up that black people distrust mail-in voting. Let's make it more secure.
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If you want to easily see if there is a difference in voting wait time for black vs white you check how many polling locations there are in neighbourhoods, is there a difference in number of polling locations per X voters? how far away is it to the nearest polling location ect.
There are other countries where elections are not a national holiday, in the Netherlands they aren't for example. But wait times are not an issue, according to research at the latest election at the busiest moments only about 2% of voters had to wait around 15 minutes, 7% had to wait 10 minutes and the remaining 91% waited 5 minutes or less.
The long waiting times at lines like you sometimes see out of the US are utterly unheard off.
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On July 11 2024 04:43 Mohdoo wrote: Its pretty interesting seeing this fracturing in the dems right now. I was totally blown away by AOC saying Biden is firmly the nominee and the conversation is over or whatever. Felt very boot licky. Pelosi being a revolution chad is a funny plot twist. I think it's funny that it's not the progressives that are refusing to fall in line behind Biden, it's the people that demanded progressives shut up and get behind Biden in the first place.
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On July 11 2024 22:54 oBlade wrote: I gave it a shot, but at first glance, and even upon perusing, the incompetence of government bureaucracy doesn't sound like a strong argument against election security measures. The argument against election security measures is coming solely from the right. We know how an election would be stolen, the 2020 conspirators documented how they were going to do it in an email. They would do a concerted effort in their media to delegitimize the election, they would use the allegations of fraud to pressure partisan officials to change the results, they would send fake electors to DC, and then they’d muddy the waters so much that they could claim the states would have to decide.
Then they implemented that conspiracy. We all saw it happen. That’s how an election is stolen. So why aren’t they being punished? Why isn’t anything being done to stop them doing it again? Why are you so opposed to common sense election security? And why are you now playing your role in undermining our elections by continuing to parrot this bullshit about voter fraud which exists only as a right wing talking point as part of their attempt to steal elections?
All this is documented, so why don’t you care?
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