Washington election officials announced a preliminary review of a federal list of more than 400 alleged noncitizen voters has already uncovered U.S. citizens, inactive voters and people who are not currently registered. The revelation renews concerns about the accuracy of the Trump administration’s expanding effort to identify supposedly ineligible voters.
Secretary of State Steve Hobbs (D) disclosed the findings Wednesday in a blistering response to the Department of Justice (DOJ), which this week threatened litigation unless Washington stopped processing ballots tied to people on a list supplied by the Department of Homeland Security.
“A preliminary investigation confirms what your letter acknowledges: This list includes United States citizens and is not reliable,” Hobbs wrote. He said refusing to process a registered voter’s ballot without individualized proof of ineligibility would be “both irresponsible and illegal.”
Ohio is voting on an amendment related to voting, and the summary on the ballot is basically “people need to show ID in order to vote”.
I didn’t read up on the amendment before I cast my vote, but upon reading the ballot my first thought was “we already do this… so what is the purpose of this bill”. It went on to explain some other rules for what counts as identification and what not, and I just voted “no” to the amendment.
Later I had a conversation with my wife about it, and the general idea was:
The bigger issue is that voter ID laws have been ruled unconstitutional. It is a simple argument: the 14th Amendment requires that the goverment cannot put any “undue burden” on the right to vote; since voter ID only prevents in-person voter fraud (which is proven to be virtually nonexistent) then any cost or burden to voter ID restrictions are weighed against absolutely zero benefit.
You cannot require U.S. citizens to jump through any additional hoops when the benefit to do so is measurably zero. Voter ID laws are as constitutional as requiring everybody to have a fresh haircut in order to vote.
Why do some states require it then? How is it allowed if it’s unconstitutional?
It has been ruled unconstitutional by several state Supreme Courts and a few federal circuit judges, but never at the national level by the US Supreme Court.
Every attempt to make voting harder is an attempt to restrict and subvert the vote. The claim is securing elections, but raising ID requirements addresses a problem that doesn’t exist on a scale that can make a difference, it only disenfranchises the poor who may not have or be able to obtain a special new ID.
If voting ID is required then they need to be free, easily obtainable, and voting days need to be declared, paid holidays.
I think the interesting part i noted reading my ballot was that mail in ballots would require a photocopy of your id, which i took to mean that if the election worker saw your mail in ballot, saw your photo id, determined you were black/hispanic/a woman, and thus can decide to throw away your ballot.
Im not mailing my photo id.
I dont think it would change anything for in person votes, though
Edit to add: also, not everyone has a printer, so mail in ballots would be more difficult to cast
they’re riding the magat train to enshrine motor-voter into the constitution which is harder to change or repeal than a simple legislated state law… which could also violate some other part of the constitution if it wasn’t in it itself.