Oregon governor signs sweeping automatic voter registration into law

[The Brain]

How do I tell Berkut from CdM?

Employment?

[Berkut]

Ok, if one of the major problems with voter ID laws is that minorities are less likely to have a driver's license or other approved form of ID, doesn't it stand to reason that automatically registering anyone with a driver's license to vote isn't going to increase minority participation in voting?

What makes you think the purpose is to increase minority participation in voting?

Just because YOUR goals are to *decrease* minority participation in voting, that doesn't mean that any voting law enacted outside of your own "Let's stop minorities from voting!" efforts are the anti-thesis of that idea.

This is pretty obviously just a generic, take away an obstacle to voting law.

[grumbler]

Ok, if one of the major problems with voter ID laws is that minorities are less likely to have a driver's license or other approved form of ID, doesn't it stand to reason that automatically registering anyone with a driver's license to vote isn't going to increase minority participation in voting?

This story is about registration, not identification.

[alfred russel]

The fact the the people the Republicans are setting out to disenfranchise in this case are not black doesn't make it any better. It is still despicable, and supporting it shows that you have at best a passing actual interest in liberty, rather than in just making sure your side wins at whatever cost.

You used the word racist. Which is what I was taking issue with.

And "people" don't accuse me of being seedy lite, that is just you. It is a kind of funny dig though, given that I just broke Seedy on his histrionics about racism, I will give you taht.

I've never accused you or anyone else of being seedy lite--I've never used the word until the post you quoted. Derspeiss did in this very thread, so it certainly isn't just me.

[dps]

Ok, if one of the major problems with voter ID laws is that minorities are less likely to have a driver's license or other approved form of ID, doesn't it stand to reason that automatically registering anyone with a driver's license to vote isn't going to increase minority participation in voting?

What makes you think the purpose is to increase minority participation in voting?

Just because YOUR goals are to *decrease* minority participation in voting, that doesn't mean that any voting law enacted outside of your own "Let's stop minorities from voting!" efforts are the anti-thesis of that idea.

This is pretty obviously just a generic, take away an obstacle to voting law.

First of all, did I ever say I want to decrease minority voting?  Second of all, I don't see how it makes it easier to register to vote at all.  Anywhere I've ever lived, it's been far easier to register to vote than to get your driver's license.

[Berkut]

Ok, if one of the major problems with voter ID laws is that minorities are less likely to have a driver's license or other approved form of ID, doesn't it stand to reason that automatically registering anyone with a driver's license to vote isn't going to increase minority participation in voting?

What makes you think the purpose is to increase minority participation in voting?

Just because YOUR goals are to *decrease* minority participation in voting, that doesn't mean that any voting law enacted outside of your own "Let's stop minorities from voting!" efforts are the anti-thesis of that idea.

This is pretty obviously just a generic, take away an obstacle to voting law.

First of all, did I ever say I want to decrease minority voting?

Of course not, nobody who wants to decrease minority voting SAYS that is what they want to do.

Yet, when you support laws that have no practical effect other than to do exactly that, your desires are pretty clear.

Second of all, I don't see how it makes it easier to register to vote at all.

What could be easier than doing nothing?

  Anywhere I've ever lived, it's been far easier to register to vote than to get your driver's license.

You aren't seriously making this argument, are you?

[Martinus]

In Poland (and, I believe most European countries), you are automatically registered for voting in the place of your residence (if you want to vote elsewhere, e.g. due to travelling on the voting day, you have to take a paper from your place of residence) and you have to show your ID at the polling station in order to vote.

The controversies you Yanks have about any of the above are absolutely puzzling to me.

[Monoriu]

In HK, people need to register in order to vote.  Registration is open all year, and any adult with an ID card can fill in one simple form to do so.  Before each election, cards are sent to the registered addresses.  Voters bring their ID and the card to the polling stations to vote.  If you have moved, it is your responsibility to notify the government of your new address in order to change your electoral district, otherwise the card will be sent to the old address.  Registration is not automatic because otherwise another government department (say, the tax authorities) will need to notify the electroal office of people's addresses, and that's a privacy violation.  The voters need to give their addresses to the electroal office themselves.  That's not really hard to do. 

[Berkut]

In Poland (and, I believe most European countries), you are automatically registered for voting in the place of your residence (if you want to vote elsewhere, e.g. due to travelling on the voting day, you have to take a paper from your place of residence) and you have to show your ID at the polling station in order to vote.

The controversies you Yanks have about any of the above are absolutely puzzling to me.

If someone just sat down and wrote up simple and straighforward voter registration and restrictions rules in a non-partisan manner where the attempt was to make it easy, simple, and secure, the US system would be non-puzzling as well.

Unfortunately, the current system is a mish-mash of individual areas coming up with their own rules over time, throw in a healthy dose of various states and municipalities outright attempting to create rules to deny voting rights to some, and a partisan establishment that looks at voting rules like they look at redistricting and gerrymandering - an opportunity to skew the system in their favor.

[alfred russel]

Unfortunately, the current system is a mish-mash of individual areas coming up with their own rules over time, throw in a healthy dose of various states and municipalities outright attempting to create rules to deny voting rights to some,

It is important to keep things in perspective.

I live in Georgia. For several election cycles, we have had the draconian requirement that has been rejected by the courts in many states of having to present a state ID when voting. I personally can't imagine living without a state issued ID. You need one to drive a car, buy a beer, sometimes at the bank, when writing a check, when flying on a plane, and other periods.

I don't know an adult that does not have one. But if you don't have one, you can get one for free at a state office--and they are all over the place.

It is undeniably true that subset of the population that does not have an ID is disproportionately black and poor and democratic leaning. In much of Europe they would be required to go get an ID. But here since they don't have to get an ID, but still need one to vote: that is what Berkut means when they are denied the right to vote.

For additional perspective, Georgia recently passed a requirement that to get a CPA license renewed you have to submit a copy of a state issued ID (or immigration documents, if applicable) and a notarized affidavit asserting that you are legally entitled to work in the US. I think this is stupid and a real pain in the ass--it requires a bit of effort to go get a affidavit notarized. But it definitely isn't an attempt to keep black people from being CPAs. In a state with a lot of illegal immigration, it is an attempt to control that. Which is also stupid, because I don't think there are hordes of Mexican CPAs streaming into Georgia and stealing our jobs.

[viper37]

I don't want to register as a voter.  I don't understand why there is a need to force me to register.  It is not like I will vote even if I am registered. 

are there elections in Hong-Kong?  I mean, free, multi-party elections where a vote would theoritically matter?

[Berkut]

Unfortunately, the current system is a mish-mash of individual areas coming up with their own rules over time, throw in a healthy dose of various states and municipalities outright attempting to create rules to deny voting rights to some,

It is important to keep things in perspective.

I live in Georgia. For several election cycles, we have had the draconian requirement that has been rejected by the courts in many states of having to present a state ID when voting. I personally can't imagine living without a state issued ID. You need one to drive a car, buy a beer, sometimes at the bank, when writing a check, when flying on a plane, and other periods.

I don't know an adult that does not have one. But if you don't have one, you can get one for free at a state office--and they are all over the place.

It is undeniably true that subset of the population that does not have an ID is disproportionately black and poor and democratic leaning. In much of Europe they would be required to go get an ID. But here since they don't have to get an ID, but still need one to vote: that is what Berkut means when they are denied the right to vote.

For additional perspective, Georgia recently passed a requirement that to get a CPA license renewed you have to submit a copy of a state issued ID (or immigration documents, if applicable) and a notarized affidavit asserting that you are legally entitled to work in the US. I think this is stupid and a real pain in the ass--it requires a bit of effort to go get a affidavit notarized. But it definitely isn't an attempt to keep black people from being CPAs. In a state with a lot of illegal immigration, it is an attempt to control that. Which is also stupid, because I don't think there are hordes of Mexican CPAs streaming into Georgia and stealing our jobs.

There is no question that on the face of it a ID card is no big deal. It is a perfectly reasonable requirement.

However, given the reality that

1. Right now it isn't or wasn't required, and
2. Most people lacking such cards are black, poor, and likely to vote Democratic, and
3. There is no evidence that a lack of such requirement is in fact resulting in any significant problem, and
4. The entire push to create this requirement is completely driven not by a desire to deal with a legitimate problem (see #3), but rather as a way for Republicans to game the system

Supporting such requirements is, in the case of areas where the goal is to deny voting opporunities to minorities, racist in effect if not in intent.

Even if it is not racist in effect, it is still completely despicable to try to deny anyone the opportunity to vote based on your evaluation of their likelihood to vote for your party. It is anti-democratic, which is just as bad as being racist, as far as I am concerned.

[dps]

Ok, if one of the major problems with voter ID laws is that minorities are less likely to have a driver's license or other approved form of ID, doesn't it stand to reason that automatically registering anyone with a driver's license to vote isn't going to increase minority participation in voting?

What makes you think the purpose is to increase minority participation in voting?

Just because YOUR goals are to *decrease* minority participation in voting, that doesn't mean that any voting law enacted outside of your own "Let's stop minorities from voting!" efforts are the anti-thesis of that idea.

This is pretty obviously just a generic, take away an obstacle to voting law.

First of all, did I ever say I want to decrease minority voting?

Of course not, nobody who wants to decrease minority voting SAYS that is what they want to do.

Yet, when you support laws that have no practical effect other than to do exactly that, your desires are pretty clear.

I don't think I've ever exactly said that I do support voter ID laws.  What I've said is basically that I support them in theory, but I have reservations about the idea on a practical level.

Second of all, I don't see how it makes it easier to register to vote at all.

What could be easier than doing nothing?

Unless I've misunderstood something, the new Oregon law doesn't register you to vote if you do nothing;  it registers you to vote if you get a driver's license.

  Anywhere I've ever lived, it's been far easier to register to vote than to get your driver's license.

You aren't seriously making this argument, are you?

Heck yes.  Back when I first became old enough to vote, they sent someone to the high schools early in each year to register the students who had just turned 18 or who would turn 18 by the next primary.  IIRC, they didn't even ask for proof of our ages--they just took our word on whether we were old enough.  And they came right into the classrooms to register us, so we didn't even have to miss a class to get registered.  In contrast, at the time, you had to go to a state police detachment to get your driver's license, and each detachment only did licenses 2 days each month (the detachment in my home county did them on the 1st and 3rd Tuesday of each month IIIRC).  Of course, coming to the schools only got students who were becoming eligible to vote for the first time registered, but all anyone else had to do was go to the county courthouse, and unlike the state police detachments that only issued driver's licenses on 2 days a month, the vote registrar's offices register voters 5 days a week.  So yeah, it was a lot easier to register to vote.  And I haven't even mentioned the fact that you have to pass a test to get your driver's license but not to register to vote (granted that not too many people fail their driver's test, but a few do).  And oh, yeah, registering to vote is free;  driver's licenses aren't.

Going forward in time, when I moved to NC, it took me 1 trip to the courthouse to register to vote, and there were no lines or anything, so I was only in the building for about 5 minutes.  To get my WV driver's license switched out to a NC license, it took about half a dozen trips to the DMV, and on most of those, I had to wait in line--a long line a couple of times.  In fact, I think that I still had my WV driver's license when I registered to vote here.

Not going into detail about the other times I've moved, but I've never had any problem registering to vote at all, whereas there were usually some problems with getting my driver's license (and in the couple of cases in which I didn't have any problems as such with getting my license, I had a long wait in line--in one case it was about 3 hours).

[Berkut]

Given that people get drivers licenses because they want to drive, registering those people to vote at the same time is not more difficult, it is literally "doing nothing" on their part, since the marginal effort is zero.

If you don't want to get a driver's license, you can still register to vote the normal way.

This is an incredibly stupid argument, and I feel more stupid myself for even engaging in it.

[derspiess]

Poor Berkut