Trying to read this article because I honestly want to know about this national database idea. But the very next sentence... OMG.
"It is no coincidence that only Democrats fight voter ID laws, ballot audits in Maricopa County, and investigations in New Hampshire."
No it's not a coincidence. Three separate situations each with their own variables.
Ballot audits in Maricopa County... How many times do we have to do this? How much tax money are we going to continue to spend on recounts. Should we just allocate a budget and keep recounting until somehow, someway the Republicans come out ahead? Are we just stalling for time while Giuliani tries to think of another plan to over turn the 2020 election?
Investigations in New Hampshire... So the recount shows a difference, but not enough to overturn the election or to suggest "massive voter fraud". So what would the point of an investigation be? It's just as possible that the difference results from unintentional errors. It happens. But again, it's not enough to overturn the election. So why pursue it? How much time and effort does the state have to spend on this if there isn't really any point? How much tax money do you want them to spend on this goosechase?
Trump-fans act like voter fraud has never happened before. It happens every single time there's an election. There was voter fraud in 2016 when Trump was elected by the EC, but it wasn't enough to overturn the results and the Democrats conceded because part of being a democracy is accepting the results of an election that doesn't go your way.
Trump seems unable to do this and that's okay - psychopaths tend to obsess and spoiled brats never learn how to concede. But the Republic doesn't have to listen to his crap anymore. So let's move on.
Photo ID: Let's start with the Constitution on this one...
The 24th Amendment says:
The right of citizens of the United States to vote in any primary or other election for President or Vice President, for electors for President or Vice President, or for Senator or Representative in Congress, shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State by reason of failure to pay any poll tax or other tax.This amendment was ratified in 1964 because southern states were using poll tax as a way to limit voting to those only who could afford the poll tax. On average this had the effect of taking black communities, who were less likely to afford it, out of the democratic process.
One of the problem people are having with Photo IDs is that it costs money to get them. Even those photo ID's that issued for free, rarely are, because you still have to pay for copies of birth certificates etc.. so the effect is the same as a poll tax and if history in the obviously racist south is any indication, this is exactly the effect proponents are looking for.
The other point I want to make is that most citizens already have government-issued IDs, so why not use those? Most states will accept a driver's licence or a passport. Why do we need another one?
OK, so - the national database that you guys want so much... The author of the article states the objective quite clearly.
The goal is a crowd-sourced national database, visible to anyone, showing who votes, what their addresses are, cross searched against death records, change-of-address files, UPS mailboxes, and a dozen other available data sources, going back as far as digital records exist.Crowd sourced? That means anyone can enter anything. That is literally what "crowd sourced" means. Did you not know that? Crowd sourced databases might be okay for things like voluntary surveys etc... but for tracking citizens? For sharing our names and addresses to anyone with an iPhone? Are you FKG kidding me?
The golden rule of democracy is one vote per person, not a complete profile of each citizens' private data. A database that exposes the addresses of everyone that votes to anyone with an iPhone is NOT a good idea. Think of something else.
Next!