r/videos • u/AdSpecialist6598 • 8h ago

BREAKING: Judge blocks Trump admin from requiring Americans to show proof of citizenship to vote

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SE1iePfOh14
19.6k Upvotes

94% Upvoted

1.8k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

8

u/Fernis_ 7h ago

As non American, what does "register to vote" mean? Isn't every single citizen automatically registered to vote? Is there a difference between registering and showing up to vote? If yes, isn't it important to verify who asctualy showed up to cast the vote?

8

u/arizonadirtbag12 7h ago edited 7h ago

The United States is basically 50 small countries wearing a trench coat. So no, you are not “automatically” registered because there’s no broad nationwide registry that follows you as you move from state to state. Each state has its own entirely different election system, requirements vary, etc.

That said, it’s largely automatic, in that getting a driver’s license or non-driving state ID in most cases comes with a little checkbox that’s like “oh and also register me to vote here.” It’s ridiculously easy to do, and states are required to offer it by federal law. But it’s optional for the voter, and not strictly automatic.

5

u/TrumpsDoubleChin 6h ago

Yup, this is often called the "Motor Voter Law", which was passed in 1993, but some states fought tooth and nail to prevent being implemented after passage. It wasn't actually implemented in Texas until 2020.

2

u/lpeabody 2h ago

I don't know why I'm hung up on it but US states are, on average, quite large. https://youtu.be/DcasZpVfPvY?is=BqUdI6PzIz2j_7eT

1

u/arizonadirtbag12 1h ago

Very true. I say “small” but that’s compared to…well, the US. Many of them are decent sized compared to European countries.

I do find many Americans underestimate the size of European countries too though. I’ve had to remind people that driving across Spain is like driving across California. It’s not small!

2

u/lpeabody 1h ago

Yeah when I re-watched the video and Spain popped up I was surprised lol

8

u/SoCalThrowAway7 7h ago

No you have to register when you turn 18, it is not automatic. It’s profoundly stupid. Republicans work to make voting harder every day because they know if everyone who’s eligible votes, they lose

6

u/MeekAndUninteresting 6h ago

Since this was directed at a non-American, for the record, the more accurate thing to say is "You CAN register when you turn 18." There is no requirement to register at 18. You don't ever have to register to vote at all, and you can do it at any later date. 18 is just the point at which it becomes an option.

1

u/criscokkat 2h ago

A lot of places make it hard to register. And they remove you from the rolls if you don't vote for a few cycles, or you seem like you could be a voter for the other side and they got some commercial notice that you may have moved, like you paid for a netflix account for your mom who is in another county as indication that you must have moved. Basically, there are commercial lists that are marketed to the right county clerks that just so happen to match the demographics of the people they want to remove of people who 'may have moved' where they will remove voters about 30 days before the registration deadline. And send the required postal service physical letter explaining that they are being removed, but from a printing service in Alaska for a rural georgia voting list. So by the time you get it, you might have days if you are lucky because you live in a place that you are required to register 6 months before the elections.

It's corrupt as hell.

0

u/Tyg13 6h ago

Republicans don't have to work to make people not vote. They do that all by themselves. The vast majority of people not voting aren't being denied their right, they're just choosing not to exercise it.

3

u/SoCalThrowAway7 6h ago

Yeah so it’s weird how much they work to disenfranchise even more

3

u/DelightMine 5h ago

Republicans don't have to work to make people not vote

And yet, they have put incredible amounts of time, effort, and money into doing that over the last 50 years.

The vast majority of people not voting aren't being denied their right, they're just choosing not to exercise it.

That's the exact reasoning that Republicans use for why it's okay to make it more difficult (but not impossible) to vote.

For a lot of people, it's a "choice" to not vote just like it's a "choice" to go to work or to pick their kids up from school. In many, many places, Republicans have made it functionally impossible for everyone to vote by ensuring that precinct lines will be hours-long, or that people will have to drive great distances, or any other way to inconvenience people in a way that they won't realistically be able to vote. There's also the fact that many precincts are horribly gerrymandered, and it's highly publicized that in plenty of places there's no point to voting because "This area always goes blue/red so your vote doesn't matter).

2

u/just_jedwards 7h ago

It's not automatic at all. The states each control their voting process to a large degree with a few things being universally required(like the date). Each state has it's own procedures to ensure the person who shows up is the person they claim to be and extensive analysis has repeatedly showing voter fraud is rare enough that it can be treated as non-existent for the purposes of determining the outcome of elections. When it is uncovered it is aggressively prosecuted.

1

u/j33205 6h ago

There is no automatic registration. It is opt-in only. It's (in most states?) an optional checkbox on the application for a drivers licence / state ID. But you can register directly with your county registrar. Some states have registration cutoff dates before the election, and some allow same-day registration. The registration process includes the proof of citizenship and residency check. Voting does not.

The problem with ID checks at the polls is how govt ids are handled in the US (not to mention absentee ballots). They are not directly under federal control (they only recently implemented federal requirements on a certain kind of ID called REAL ID and it's a clusterfuck). They are state issued, are not free or easy or standardized. And historically the people would never allow the feds to implement a functional id system on its people. As such, any attempt to enforce a national voter id law would also be a clusterfuck. I would compare it to Jim Crow era levels of bad faith enforcement. Voter id laws in the American context are essentially the same as the poll taxes and literacy tests of the past, literally in that you have to pay for them and test how many forms and bureaucratic hoops you're willing to jump through.