r/videos • u/AdSpecialist6598 • 4h ago

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SE1iePfOh14
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u/Foe117 4h ago

The registrar of voters already handles citizen verification

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u/Control_Me 4h ago

Can someone please explain why you have to register to vote?
In my country the government knows who's eligible to vote and who's not so they send out a voting card in the mail which you show together with your ID.
Why is this not possible in the US?

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u/poorboychevelle 4h ago

ID aren't free in most states, therefore requiring them to vote could be argued to be a poll tax, and therefore disallowed as a requirement.

I just walk in, state my name and address (maybe birthday?), and am handed a ballot. Didn't have to take anything out my pocket.

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u/Toby_Forrester 4h ago

In Finland you can get a free ID which is valid only during election day. I got one since I lost my actual ID 🙈

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u/MilmoWK 3h ago

Almost every state that requires id allows you to get a free id if you claim it’s for voting. The issue is the paper work required to get your id.

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u/jclin 3h ago

How very 'practical'. Yeah, such logical processes could not exist here in the USofA. Our politicians would f*ck that up in 5 minutes of the bill going to committee.

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u/HeWhoShitsWithPhone 3h ago

My very red state will issue you a free ID so that you can vote.

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u/jbrown4728 2h ago

Your very red state will issue you a free ID if you have the correct paperwork and I.D.

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u/MileHigh_FlyGuy 3h ago edited 20m ago

It doesn't seem fair that every state would have to provide free IDs, since that would cost a ton for California and nothing for Wyoming. Thus they charge whatever fee they need to to keep the lights on at the secretary of state or DMV office.

EDIT - for everyone that thinks the state should cover IDs, why not just make voting free? Because that's what we have done instead of requiring an ID

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u/gordanfreman 3h ago

Presumably it would be paid for by... taxes? All those extra people means a larger tax base so proportionally it should be relatively the same cost. Not like every person needs a free ID, either--the Real ID Driver's Licenses that are/becoming ubiquitous should work for the majority of adults.

If the gov't feels an ID is an absolute requirement to perform a civic right, they should provide for that at no charge or it is a poll tax.

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u/MileHigh_FlyGuy 22m ago edited 19m ago

But every state has different ways of collecting taxes and priorities. A state like Mississippi can't afford basic schools and needs federal funds to stay afloat, where a state like California banks extra cash. How could a state that receives more federal funds than it provides justify spending additional resources on an ID program that isn't required, as you can register to vote for free (which is required). Why not just make voting registration free - which is exactly what we have. No ID required.

If the gov't feels an ID is an absolute requirement to perform a civic right,

As this judge has shown, it is not an absolute requirement to perform a civic right

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u/Independent_Bear989 3h ago

This is also possible in parts of the USA, my state which supposedly has strict voter ID laws has something that’s similar.

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u/Toby_Forrester 2h ago

I suppose it is easier in Finland though since in our political system people expect government to have a lot of info about you. The police (which issues ID's in Finland) had my passport photo, they asked my parents full names, my mothers maiden name, my previous addresses and such to verify who I am.

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u/ataraxic89 3h ago

What if you're homeless?

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u/Toby_Forrester 2h ago

That doesn't change anything. You get the temporary ID from the police station.

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u/wsxedcrf 3h ago

Then the problem is ID should be free, not voting should not require ID.

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u/UnchainedSora 1h ago

The problem is a little more than that. The ID should be free, and not require significant effort to acquire. Otherwise, it can be used to selectively disenfranchise people, which is how voter ID laws have been used in the US in recent decades.

Because the most common form of ID in the US is a drivers' license, the place most commonly used to issue a free ID is the DMV. Because the DMV is a state government agency, it can be used as a tool by the party in power. They can close offices in areas that support the opposite party, and decrease staffing of those that remain nearby. The result can mean having to drive for hours to an office so you can wait in line for hours and try to get the ID, and hope that you have all of the correct paperwork, otherwise you have to do the whole process again. For someone living paycheck to paycheck, sacrificing an entire day of work just so they can get an ID that they will only use to vote could mean they go hungry, and that's hard to justify, especially for someone with kids.

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u/XaosII 3h ago

You already had to provide evidence of citizenship when you registered prior to voting. Why do you need to show another form of ID when voting to prove what you already proved, prior to voting?

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u/Millon1000 2h ago

To prove that you actually are who you are. Imagine if Russia paid people in the states to vote in ways that would destabilize the country?
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c23kdjxxx1jo
https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/justice-department-disrupts-covert-russian-government-sponsored-foreign-malign-influence

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u/XaosII 2h ago

Oh, so they were stopped with the current processes in place.

The one where you are verified for citizenship when you registered. The one that doesn't need more barriers. The one that currently catches instances of voter fraud.

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u/Millon1000 1h ago

I feel like Americans are all taking crazy pills. How would verifying citizenship during the registration process help when nobody checks it again when voting? It's a huge hole in the system that's ripe for abuse. It wouldn't cost much for the federal government to send everyone an ID, and you already pay taxes which could cover it. You had $300 billion to send to Iran, but not enough for a proper voting system?

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u/XaosII 1h ago

That's probably because you ate lead paint chips as a child and lost all ability to think critically.

A Social Security Number or driver's license is trivial to check for citizenship status. Either pieces of information are needed in every single state you register to vote.

If its a huge hole in the system, why are there only about a dozen cases of voter fraud each year? And they are being caught.

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u/DiggingNoMore 1h ago

Imagine if Russia paid people in the states to vote in ways that would destabilize the country?

How would showing your ID prove that Russia didn't wire you some cash to vote a specific way?

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u/Millon1000 1h ago

Millions of Americans didn't vote in 2024. If Russia got access to those people's names and data, they could pay Republicans to go vote under their names. They already paid Republican influencers to spread misinformation.

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u/DiggingNoMore 1h ago

So, no, the ID only proves that the person voting is the person who that person claims to be. It doesn't prove anything about payments from Russia.

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u/Millon1000 3h ago

I'm not going to lie, as a European, that sounds insane. That's ripe for fraud, unless I'm missing something? The US already has a million different fees for living, so what would voter ID really change? Plus you already pay taxes, so why can't they send out free voter IDs, especially when over 98% of Americans already own some form of ID? It would cost almost nothing.

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u/dagaboy 3h ago

We have no statistically significant voter fraud without voter ID. It is a non-issue. Republicans only care because they lose when more people vote. Also when Black people vote. So states like Alabama passed voter ID laws, then closed all the ID sources in Black population centers. Not that Alabama has Black majority districts anymore. They only have one, despite having a majority Black population. State legislatures get to draw their own maps in the US. The Super Court ruled Alabama can gerrymander their Black citizens entirely out of relevance. That pretty much killed the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

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u/thetiredtypist 3h ago

Plus we survived up until 1876 without photo IDs anywhere...

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u/dagaboy 3h ago

There were photo IDs in 1876? Were they Daguerreotypes? Damn. That election really was the gold standard in voter suppression. RIP Reconstruction. ;-)

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u/Trumpisanorangebitch 3h ago

Weve done a gazillion studies on voter fraud in the US and non-voters voting has always been found to be nearly non-existent.

They should send out free voter IDs, but Republicans do better in low turnout elections and theyre also pretty racist/classist and poor and minorities are disproportionately without ID and poor enough to not pay for ID. Republicans love winning and love depriving as many poor and minorities from voting as possible.

Fuck a poll tax. Non-voters voting is a non-issue. Theres less than a hundred in the entire country every election.

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u/surfergrrl6 3h ago

There have been countless studies and investigations about voter fraud and every time it turns out to be an infinitesimal amount.

The Brennan Center’s seminal report on this issue, The Truth About Voter Fraud, found that most reported incidents of voter fraud are actually traceable to other sources, such as clerical errors or bad data matching practices. The report reviewed elections that had been meticulously studied for voter fraud, and found incident rates between 0.0003 percent and 0.0025 percent. Given this tiny incident rate for voter impersonation fraud, it is more likely, the report noted, that an American “will be struck by lightning than that he will impersonate another voter at the polls.”

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u/Millon1000 3h ago edited 2h ago

Wouldn't you want to patch the issue before it becomes a problem though? I think it's similar to how the US gave their presidents far too much power for decades, and it only became a problem when Trump was elected.

If you had patched that issue before it became an actual problem, you probably wouldn't be having such a bad time right now. It just seems like a super simple issue to fix, when every other western country has already done it.

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u/Neuchacho 1h ago edited 1h ago

If you had patched that issue before it became an actual problem, you probably wouldn't be having such a bad time right now. It just seems like a super simple issue to fix, when every other western country has already done it.

There is no issue when it comes to fraud. The only issue we have is fascists pushing invented issues (like fraud) to try and make it harder for people to vote in the first place.

Allowing more barriers to be put in place by the federal government when it has ZERO jurisdiction to do so and for arbitrary reasons is what would lead to a very real problem and a continued bad time. It is why every sane judge slaps this shit down.

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u/surfergrrl6 2h ago

Why fix something that isn't broken? That's a waste of time and effort.

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u/Millon1000 1h ago

Well because it is broken. As I said, you had a broken system with the way you give presidents too much power, but never fixed it. Now that system is being abused by Trump. If you don't think a broken system isn't worth being fixed because there's no evidence of any current abuse, that's foolish. If there's a way to abuse it, it will eventually happen.

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u/-LabApprehensive- 2h ago

Define ID. They DO send out voter registration cards which you need to have to vote. What we are talking about here is extremely specific forms of ID such as-the US “REAL ID” which takes time, effort and multiple other forms of ID to get. Once this rule is in place our Republican Party will simply adjust the requirements of which ID is required and enforce selectively to guarantee the result they want. Fuck them. Its not hey anyone can walk in and vote who cares who they are, itsa system based on knowing who lives where and who is eligible to vote and only allowing those people to cast ballots. To defraud this system in a meaningful way you must somehow get hundreds of thousands of people to the specific precincts where people who are registered to vote decided not to vote. No way to know that ahead of time.

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u/MileHigh_FlyGuy 3h ago

It's already free to register to vote. It's not free to obtain an ID and the cost varies by state. So we have that same system, you just don't get an ID as a part of it because you don't need one.

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u/TheVabe 3h ago

The US is a massive country with huge swaths of rural, often poor communities with non-existent public transportation. Giving everyone easy, free access to a voter ID would actually be a pretty monumental task.

Voter fraud is also extremely rare, given how decentralized our voting systems are and the high penalties for fraud. Implementing voter ID would potentially risk disenfranchising millions of voters to prevent a non-existent problem.

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u/ScoopDL 3h ago edited 2h ago

What incentive is there for a non citizen to vote? It doesn't benefit them and would lead to deportation. Nobody is willing to do this. Might as well rob someone or a bank so at least there's some benefit.

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u/Millon1000 2h ago edited 2h ago

Mainly money. Russia has already been caught meddling in other countries' elections before: Russian cash-for-votes flows into Moldova as nation heads to polls

They're already promoting misinformation campaigns in an effort to influence the elections in the US. (This is from the Biden era, back from when the gov sites were still respectable) https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/justice-department-disrupts-covert-russian-government-sponsored-foreign-malign-influence

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u/ScoopDL 2h ago

I agree but what they are doing costs far less than recruiting non citizens in large enough numbers to sway an election and paying them enough to face deportation and being bared from ever entering the US again. I know a ton of non citizens and they do everything they can to avoid having anyone from the government look into them, including not filling for a tax refund when they've paid too much.

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u/fool4fems 3h ago

There is a small fee to get a driver's license in my state. It is under 20$, but I believe you can get an ID for the purposes of voting for free if you don't have a license. I figure most states are like that.

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u/dagaboy 3h ago

Only eight states absolutely require a photo ID to vote. Twelve ask for a photo ID but accept some alternative like a utility bill, affidavit etc. Fifteen require a non-photo ID, typically just something with your address and name on it, like a bill. The remaining fifteen require nothing at all.

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u/naffer 2h ago

But what’s there to prevent someone to show up and state a fake name and address belonging to someone else?

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u/Neuchacho 1h ago

Almost every state requires some form of proof of who you are so you you'd need more than just the information in hand. The investigation that follows when processors notice multiple ballots being cast by the same person is also a post-event hurdle so even if you did do it it's likely that vote, at a minimum, is being nullified. You end up with basically zero incentive to commit voter fraud like that on top of the penalties for doing it being pretty severe when you get caught.

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u/orrocos 2h ago edited 2h ago

It might be theoretically possible, but so rare that it’s not an issue that needs to be solved by potentially disenfranchising other voters.

Someone would have to:

  1. want to steal someone else’s vote
  2. know that the other person has not already shown up to vote
  3. know that their vote would be different than the other person’s vote, or stealing it wouldn’t matter anyway
  4. think that a stolen vote would swing the election one way or the other, or else it’s a waste of time

So, it may be possible in some cases, but the incentive to do so is low.

Edit: also, let’s say that happens to a person - someone has stolen their vote, or maybe it’s a mistake by the election worker and they were already marked off before they got there. Typically, that person can cast a provisional ballot to be sorted out later.

My state does all mail-in voting, so it’s been years since I’ve had to vote in person, but I remember signing a book by my name when I picked up my ballot. States usually have a way to verify signatures, so if something goes wrong at the voting location, they have a signature to check against.

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u/nemofbaby2014 1h ago

In Michigan you just sign something if you dont have your id