Summary
A GOP-led procedural vote in the House failed after nine Republicans joined Democrats, halting legislative action for the week.
The vote’s collapse blocked Republican efforts to pass the No Rogue Rulings Act, aimed at limiting federal judges’ power, and the SAVE Act, which would require proof of citizenship to vote.
The failed rule also sought to derail a bipartisan resolution allowing proxy voting for new parents, led by Rep. Anna Paulina Luna.
With the rule defeated, Speaker Mike Johnson canceled all remaining votes until Monday evening, stalling key GOP priorities.
As a non-USian, explain me the controversy of requiring proof of citizenship? Of course I have to show valid, government issued ID to vote. Can anyone just waltz in and vote willy-nilly? This makes no sense to me.
it primarly is a voter suppression tactics, many people dont have a valid passport/expired, and often time minorities poc, lgbtq+ dont have one. you can say, go apply for a passport, its actually less convenient than getting a ID/LICENSE. first you have to “apply online” then make a appointment at specific postal locations and only in person, must call no online appointment scheduling. often times passport appointments are book weeks and months advance.
Basically they are targeting women, and trans people. Newly married women, and trans people would have ID that doesn’t necessarily match either their birth certificate name, or their name recorded by the registrar of voters. Also, and this is the kicker, WE ALREADY HAVE THE LAWS THAT ARE NEEDED. They are fighting a made up issue that they made up.
To add to all of that, ID is getting somewhat prohibitive in costs. Here in CA it costs me $30 to renew my ID, not driver’s license, every 6 or 8 years. That’s not a major issue to me, but I do know people that absolutely could not afford it. It is annoying, since I got my first ID in '96 and that one only cost me $5.
Adjusting for inflation, that same ID should theoretically cost only $10 now.
Not entirely apples to oranges. I got my first ID in Indiana, I dunno what a license costs there at this point, but KY was at $15 back in 2016 when I left there.
I think the bigger issue isn’t even cost. Fuck, most people in CA can deal with $30 if the process was instant. Let’s not pretend that’s what stopping people
The real issue is taking the day off from work to wait your ass in DMV lines when you really rather just stay home in bed if you’re gonna spend a day not grinding down to a mental break
Remember some people are unhoused or literally paycheck to paycheck.
If they are working 2 or 3 jobs and overdrafting weekly, $30 is a problem, plus the lost wages waiting in line at the DMV.
yup getting a passport is harder than a LICENSE, must make an appt for inperson “passport photos” no online service for that.
first time ID users, have to get appointments which takes time.
Also non-american here who lives in America now though. I was also confused about the backlash to voter ID back then (this is a VERY old issue) as in Germany you are required to show your ID when voting.
It has been explained to me that most Americans do not have ANY form of identification other than their drivers license. There is no personal ID you are required to possess like in Germany. The vast majority of Americans does not have, nor will ever have, a passport. Driver’s licenses are cheaper to obtain than in Europe, but you still have to provide a host of documents many poorer people might not be able to provide + you need to pass a driver’s test of course to get it. There are a lot of people who for one reason or another can not do that.
In other words, if you don’t pass a driver’s test in the US, you might as well not exist. There is still the “social security number”, but that one is NOT MEANT to be a form of identification, plus immigrants without citizenship can also obtain them (I should know, I have one). I don’t think a common driver’s license counts for voter ID’s purposes under that proposal, so the way to identifying yourself as a citizen is even more limited. There is a REAL ID program in some states, but not others. You also get that from the DMV, which again is just the motor vehicle office. It’s really fucked up here. All of it. A solution would be to require citizen ID’s like its done in Europe, but the government doesn’t want to pay for that and Americans are usually against something like that (“government overreach wah wah what’s next, chips in my skin???”). So…hm.
I don’t know how it is in other states, but here in Nebraska, you can get an ID card that’s pretty much the same as a DL for identification purposes. No need to fuss about with a driver’s test. Your ability to go anywhere is pretty much nonexistent, but that’s a completely different discussion.
Yeah my understanding of the ID situation in the US is certainly flawed. It seems labyrinthian to me at times due to all the different state ordenances. Although nothing compared to the US health care system. Jesus Christ. One thing I’ve learned here is that freedom certainly isn’t free.
This is not true. You can get an id card that is not a drivers license.
Government doesn’t issue the ID for free, and needs to send it to a valid address. It’s nothing more than an attempt to stop voters from voting. If they actually cared about preserving democracy, they would make the ID’s free and easily accessible before requiring them to vote.
The more important issue is that it’s not an issue. There are no indications that non-citizens or identity thieves have had any impact on federal elections. Voter fraud is simply not a problem, so new laws to stop voter fraud really only exist to stop voters.
yup and republicans primarly win on less people voting, More people voting even in gerrymandering areas, could adversely affect thier chances.
It’s a fair question so idk why people are downvoting you. But in the US you can’t just walk in and vote (ID or not). Before the election you have to register to vote, and that process verifies that you are a citizen. Then once you go into your polling place to actually cast your vote, they check your name/address to see if you’ve been registered, and if you have, then you are allowed to vote.
So requiring ID to vote introduces a second step to check something that’s already been verified (you can’t register to vote if you aren’t a citizen), and Republicans love it because adding extra hoops to the voting process lowers turnout and historically Republicans do better in low voter turnout elections.
That still doesn’t cover the need to verify that you are who you say you are.
If government issued IDs were free for everyone, this wouldn’t be an issue. The issue isn’t showing an ID to vote, it’s that not everyone has one, and those who don’t are usually lower income.
Actually checking the name and address against the voting registration record, without an additional ID check, really is enough to validate someone in like 99.999999% of cases. In order for someone to impersonate someone else while voting, they would need to:
-Know their name
-Know their address
-Know their designated polling place and physically visit it to cast a ballot
-And most importantly, they would need to know that the person they’re impersonating is not going to vote in that election. Because otherwise as soon as they do, it’s going to flag a voter fraud alert when one voter appears to be voting twice. Which is a federal crime that is taken very seriously and easy to track down, because it occurs so infrequently and there’s surveillance at every polling location
So an imposter would be risking federal prison time in order to swing an election by one vote. It’s something that happens like a single digit number of times per election.
Compare that to the hundreds or even thousands of times that people work 8+ hour days (since elections in the US are never on holidays), get to their polling place that closes as early as 6pm, and then find that they’ve forgot to bring or lost their ID, and then won’t or can’t vote in the election. The current system works fine, ID laws are 100% just a voter suppression tactic.
I’ll copy something I wrote up in another thread.
This is one of those things that needs some context. Lots of nations have ID requirements similar to this, and people from outside the United States are often confused as to why it’s a problem. The issue is that it’s a backdoor to voter disenfranchisement.
Not everyone drives, and therefore, doesn’t need a state-issued ID. But now you need one to vote. So you have to go to the DMV to get an ID that’s not a drivers license but functions the same way for ID purposes. Except the DMV is only open during working hours, has long lines, and the nearest one may not have public transportation going to it.
It’s often minorities who don’t have drivers licenses to begin with, and they tend to vote for Democrats.
In practice, there was never significant voter fraud at all. Not enough to change the outcome of any race. Even on the surface, it’s solving a non-problem.
Also, most voting rights advocates will point to the 24th Amendment, (arguably rightly) claiming that requiring ID that you must pay the state to acquire constitutes a poll tax.
To explain: when black men got the right to vote after the 15th Amendment was passed, lots of states tried lots of ways to make sure they couldn’t. One thing that was legal was requiring a fee to be paid in order to vote - this had the knock-on effect of making sure poor white people, who often sympathized with and voted with black people, couldn’t vote either. These fees were known as poll taxes, ostensibly to pay the people running the poll and defray the state’s cost of administering the election. Normally this was a nominal amount, but if you were a sharecropper or subsistence farmer who was literally counting half-pennies to get by month to month, the quarter that the poll tax required was enormous. Many states kept these poll taxes in one form or another for decades, and they were declared unconstitutional in 1966 by the SCOTUS in Harper v Virginia Board.
If I wanted a Real ID like this executive order required, I would be paying about $80 on the low end, assuming I do not need to pay to acquire any of the several documents I need to prove I am who I am.
i mean there is fraud usually by republicans, and always republican.
It’s hard to find the original Daily Show clip, but they show part of it here. It’s the most vile fucking double think imaginable, saying “Hey, I’m not racist, I just want to disenfranchise minority and student voters who HAPPEN to be mostly democrats, and by the way, yeah, I’m actually pretty fucking racist.” I’m just glad that the Daily Show got to interview a guy who was so lacking in self-awareness that he said it all out loud.
They also check your signature and compare it to what’s in your records. Over the course of my young adult years, my signature became more sloppy as I got lazier. I didn’t realize it until I went to vote and the person working there scrutinized my signature because of it.
I think that’s a local state or city requirement, I’m not sure I’ve ever had to sign for a ballot.
Elections in the US are run by the state government, even federal elections, so details like that are going to vary between states
Let’s talk about flying instead of voting.
What happens if you fly somewhere, have your wallet stolen, and have to fly home without an ID? Does your country have a procedure for dealing with this case?
The answer is pretty obviously yes. There are methods of confirming identification by other means, for issuing a new identification card quickly, etc.
With voting, the question isn’t whether government issued IDs can be used to streamline identity verification. Every polling site uses and accepts IDs. The question is what happens when someone doesn’t have their ID on them, or can’t get to the polling place in person: is there a procedure that still allows them to vote somehow? Those are the alternative procedures being banned by legislation like this.
I have an out-of-state ID because it was a hassle to get it updated after I moved, and when I went to vote (in Illinois), they required me to provide proof of residence, I forget exactly but like a copy of my lease or utility bills - pretty much the same documents you’d use to need to show to get an ID in the first place. You still have to prove you are who you say you are.
This problem dramatically affects people who don’t present as white, male, and non-poor, so Republicans say ‘suffer’ and Democrats don’t realize the route forward is no-cost ID. If Estonia figured it out, (cost, not related social issues) so can America.
Nice downvotes. Here I was sure this one would be seen positively. F me.
I think your second point is fine, but your first point comes across as condescending and needlessly pedantic. The meaning was clear enough.