Voter ID laws have underlying racial biases and prevent minorities from engaging in active democratic participation. These requirements compel an individual to present his or her ID in order to cast a ballot on Election Day.
>>So, there are rules and regulations, and every American should have a legal form of ID. How is this discrimination?
Obtaining an ID can be costly and requires an individual’s birth certificate, which may be burdensome.
>>It's the rules for everyone. If you want to get financial aid, get a SS card, DL, EBT card, passport, put your children in public schools, you need all of these things anyway.
Proponents advocate for the law under the guise of preventing voter fraud and ensuring that only voter-eligible citizens partake in elections; however, individuals who lack government-issued identification are more likely to be younger, less educated, and impoverished, and—most notably—nonwhite.
>>Well that should be a mandatory thing in life, get an ID. How is this about discrimination? It's about being an American and being self sufficient.
An example of the inherent discrimination of voter ID laws can be found in the implementation of Georgia’s “exact match” system. This program requires an individual’s voting status to be suspended if the name on their driver’s license or Social Security records does not exactly match the name they inputted on their voter registration form.
>> As it should. Being a Notary Public, we know how important an "exact" match is. You have a lot of Jrs and Sr. and other names on IDs or missing, not matching, left off, spelled wrong...if needs to match with your voter registration. I don't understand why that is hard. Doesn't match, fix it before you vote. Everyone knows when election time is to get it done if they plan on voting.
Of the 51,000 individuals that this law affected in 2018, 80 percent of them were African American. There is evidence that the “exact match” law played a role in the 2018 Georgia gubernatorial election, as African American candidate Stacey Abrams lost by approximately 55,000 votes.
>>Maybe wherever they enrolled to get their voter registration, someone could help them? It's merely copying what is on their ID and putting it the same on the form. Pretty straightforward stuff here.
It is also far more difficult for members of minority communities to be able to locate polling places on Election Day. Only 5 percent of white survey respondents reported that they had trouble finding polling locations, compared to 15 percent of African American and 14 percent of Hispanic respondents.
>> Why is that? Is it a language barrier? Are they new to the area?
When deciding where to place a polling station, election officials are required to assign each precinct a designated station based on factors such as population, accessibility, and location recognizability; locations may be changed at the officials’ discretion. Minorities have a lower voter turnout compared to whites and, in many cases, this has resulted in discriminatory polling place distributions.
>>So maybe the answer is keeping them in churches, libraries, post offices, and neutral locations. Here they do not change locations and you know in your neighborhood (precinct) where to go.
Another major issue is the access to translated voting materials, which greatly decreases minority voter turnout.
>> A concept is known as “voter fall-off” incentivizes people who are at the polls to vote on more legislation and to answer more questions if the ballot is available in their native language. Often, ballot proposition measures are reading-intensive, making it difficult for minority language groups to fully comprehend and form an opinion on the proposed legislation. Current law (including Section 203 of the Voting Rights Act) requires all written voting materials to be made available in the language of the relevant minority group.
...It's straightforward, it should be the same for everyone no matter what your race is or what state you live in. I am all for unification in all states to have the same criteria. We all need ID's we all need documentation in life...if people know they want to vote and be good stewards of our system, that is also a part of it. They need to put in the prep work too. If you sneak into the country illegally, you should have no right to vote.
Maybe all this time and effort trying to call this discrimination would be better spent towards helping these minorities and individuals be legal and get their paperwork in order BEFORE an election instead of trying to change a system to allow the flaws and amke room for voter fraud to sneak in.
It's a necessity anyway, not just for voting but everything in life, right down to getting something notarized. jmo
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