Thank you for scare quotes around something I never said. What will you accuse me of next?
I don't think any of this is "worth it," I just don't agree with coming up with sob stories as a counterexample. It's not that hard to hold onto important government documents like your birth certificate, social security card, etc. The argument against disenfranchisement shouldn't look like such a clear edge case.
If anything, I think there's a case to be made that the government shouldn't be using paper documents handed to potentially irresponsible parents to verify identity, and then holding someone responsible for their parents' fuck-ups. But the jump from such an argument to saying we shouldn't verify voter identity at all is an absurd one.
It’s also really easy for someone to steal your documents. It’s not unheard of for an abusive partner to steal documents in order to trap their victim.
I know your pattern now, you’ll call this another edge case sob story and set it aside because it isn’t convenient for your argument.
As for your paper document argument… what is your proposed alternative? You must have one, else you wouldn’t have floated it.
Abusive partners exerting control by restricting access to important documents is a very real problem for many women, and men for that matter. Also this is something abusive parents and human traffickers do. It should not be minimized and trivialized as “my dog ate my voter id”.
I’m trivializing the use of the victim of an event as justification to say we can’t have voter id. It’s a strange argument, coming off as if voter id laws and protecting people from spousal abuse must be at odds, so anyone who supports voter id must support spousal abuse as well.
Is the next argument that Hitler wanted voter id? At what point do we get to actually discuss the merits of validating a person is who they say they are so they get exactly one vote?
If you want to champion a law that impacts someone's fundamental rights as a citizen, rights protected by the US Constitution, it's your duty as a fellow citizen to consider the impact of that law on everyone, and to show that you've taken appropriate consideration as to the first and second order impact of your proposal.
Implementing a voter ID law in the way being pushed right now will disenfranchise people, and it seems like every time an example of an impacted group is brought it, they are summarily dismissed and their existence minimized as "edge cases" or mocked. e.g. "What, are minorities so dumb they can't get an ID?" or in this case "What, did the dog eat your voter ID?"
But it doesn't change the fact that this law you are pushing will take away their rights. What are you going to propose to make them whole, or did you not think it through that far? It would just be nice if you would demonstrate you are as concerned with disenfranchising your fellow citizens as you are cracking down on suspected and heretofore yet unproven massive voter fraud.
> At what point do we get to actually discuss the merits of validating a person is who they say they are so they get exactly one vote?
Well, it would be nice if the side claiming massive systemic voter fraud would prove their claims. That would be a good starting point. Then we could have actionable fixes that address a specific problem to minimize collateral damage. I just don't understand why we have to engage in a massive civic project that will strip rights from citizens under literally no burden of proof for those making these claims.
Why do you think I'm obligated to defend the position that "massive systemic voter fraud" is the only valid reason for asking people to identify themselves when voting? It's interesting considering I never brought up massive systemic voter fraud, I only brought up that a $250 fee to resolve a one-off problem with someone's identity, that his mother ultimately caused, isn't a "poll tax."
I don't think any of this is "worth it," I just don't agree with coming up with sob stories as a counterexample. It's not that hard to hold onto important government documents like your birth certificate, social security card, etc. The argument against disenfranchisement shouldn't look like such a clear edge case.
If anything, I think there's a case to be made that the government shouldn't be using paper documents handed to potentially irresponsible parents to verify identity, and then holding someone responsible for their parents' fuck-ups. But the jump from such an argument to saying we shouldn't verify voter identity at all is an absurd one.