SOME Democrat PLEASE put forth a LEGIT Voter ID bill.

[Callie1979]

Take this issue away from the MAGA crowd. THEIR Bill is NOT for "voter ID" & we all know it.
Yes, a REAL bill could be put forth by Democrats; make the GOP block the bill from a vote or vote against it. EVERYONE likely already HAS a valid voting ID & if they dont they need to GET one. We drive people to the polls to vote, let's drive them to the election office to get a voter ID or a State ID. You generally have to have an ID to go to the doctor, the bank, to get some prescription meds, etc. I'm tired of hearing the "we dont need a law" complaints . They are going to HAMMER us with ads saying "democrats dont support allowing only citizens vote" because we are against their bullshit anti-voter bill. This IS a big deal to most voters just like the border was a big deal.
We cannot afford to let them have the issue.
DO IT.

[standingtall]

1. Nah bad idea only allows republicans to control the narrative

and gives credibility to their propaganda. The ads would not stop even if we did do that and would only encourage republicans to propose even stricter voter ID laws and they will say see even the Democrats agree there is a bunch of illegals voting which is a lie. Biden proposing a border bill that Trump and republicans blew up didn't move the needle with voters who shared those sentiments and neither will this it would only be playing into their hands.

[Callie1979]

17. The border issue was too far gone before that Bill was brought up

And the disaster at the border was one of the reason we lost.

[Ms. Toad]

2. Problem is that a voter ID bill which requires proof of citizenship (democrats dont support allowing only citizens vote)

will disenfranchise the elderly, poor, housing insecure, minority individuals.

It is much more than "we don't need one." It is that any voter ID law which hinges on proving citizenship is actively harmful.

[standingtall]

3. Exactly now is not the time for Democrats to sellout their constituents

with what would essentially be a poll tax by another name to appease republicans you can't compromise with republicans thinking we could for decades is a big part of the reason we are in this mess in the first place.

[Ms. Toad]

4. A poll tax would be bad enough -

If all citizens could get an ID proving citizenship by paying money, Democrats could sponsor a bill that would pay all necessary costs (including at least minimum wage for time expended) to get the ID.

Unfortunately, there are people who simply don't have access to the documents necessary to prove citizenship = no matter how much time and money they spend. My father was born at home, for example. His birth was registered - either at the time, or was established later. He had relatively educated parents, he was educated, and he was white. I'm not sure whether his birth was attended by a midwife or not - but in the same era and for a few decades after - in the South, especially, midwives to black children were discouraged from registering their births. If the birth was not registered at the time, the documents needed to create a secondary record of birth (baptismal certificates, marriage registries, for example) may have been destroyed when poor black churches were burned in racially motivated attacks.

[Callie1979]

16. My State will Give you a free voter ID. Every state should.

[bigtree]

23. my state just asks me my name

I give them my license anyway for them to read it off of instead of having me repeat it or spell it out.

But abuse is so rare, and that makes Voter id an unnecessary burden on too many voters. A freaking OBSTACLE to voting.

My family has a centuries-old history with obstacles to voting in America. It had a specific purpose. To prevent people with my skin color from voting.

It's the same with ALL of the VID laws on the books right now. There's no purpose other than to place an obstacle to voting for people they believe would vote Democratic. It's a confluence of obstacles, along with the purges and closing of voting locations. We shouldn't get caught up in validating this.

It's also part and parcel of the canard about undocumented immigrants voting in national elections. It's part of the new Jim Crow playbook, and people keep giving them more rope to hang us with.

[MichMan]

5. "(democrats dont support allowing only citizens vote)"

We don't?

Isn't that what Republicans accuse us of doing? Letting non citizens vote?

[Ms. Toad]

6. I was quoting the OP

"They are going to HAMMER us with ads saying "democrats dont support allowing only citizens vote" because we are against their bullshit anti-voter bill.

Democrats proposing a counter voter ID bill doesn't address the issue the OP contends we will be hammered on in advertisements - BECAUSE - any voter ID bill that does require proof of citizenship disenfranchises those citizens who cannot prove their citizenship because documentation which is relatively automatically created now simply does not exist for many older citizens, especially poor, minority, and female.

Democrats should not support a "proof of citizenship" bill, and no other kind of identification will render the potential Republican advertisements moot.

[MichMan]

7. Sorry, I missed that

[Ms. Toad]

10. It's OK. I'd have put in quote marks, but I ran out of characters in the title . . . n/t

[Callie1979]

15. Our current voter records are already well vetted. Illegal voters are very rare

36 States already require some kind of ID to vote. I'm in GA; it's been required for the 50yrs I've voted. And every cycle we break the previous record for turnout. We're doing it again this cycle in early voting

[Ms. Toad]

19. Requiring "some kind of ID" does not counter the advertisements you claim will be used against Democrats

Because requiring "some kind of ID" does not establish citizenship.

The only way a voter ID law crafted by Democrats will counter the advertisements you are worried about is if the voter ID law requires an ID that proves citizenship. Doing so will disenfranchise many citizens who simply cannot prove their citizenship - primarily older individuals, especially minorities and women. Democrats should not, under any circumstance, advocate disenfranchising citizens to appease Republicans.

[Callie1979]

24. Well, if you've got a Dem Senator running & you're in a swing state, you'll see.

I'll admit it if I'm wrong but I know damn well that here in GA I'm going to be inundated with those ads against John Ossoff. He's their #1 target.
Same reason I voted for Geoff Duncan for Gov; I know damn well if Keisha Lance Bottoms is the nominee we'll see "ATL burning" ads nonstop & she'll get beat in Nov. They cant run those ads against Duncan. I dont CARE if he was a republican a year ago; I want to BEAT the MAGA destruction.
But from all the comments I see here I'm afraid we're going to make the same mistakes we made in 2024.
DUers need to realize (and I hate sounding self aggrandizing but it is what it is) MOST people are not like US; they're not plugged in to the weeds of politics & legitimate news. They can be swayed. I saw it with Harris.

[Ms. Toad]

30. Do you understand that requiring an ID - EVEN a RealID - does not prove citizenship

So as long as Democrats are opposed to requiring documentary proof of citizenship (and we should be), no voter ID law we can pass will counter the ads you are worried about claiming that Democrats want non-citizens to vote.

While it might be possible going forward for all citizens to provide proof of citizenship - say for citizens born after the date of the bill - for many people already living and voting for their entire lives, it is not always possible - even with all the money in the world to throw at it. Now, the births of most children are registered immediately, not just for a birth certificate but also for a social security number. That was not always the case. Home births were not always registered. I was 13-ish when I was issued a social security number. Most of my peers were older - since most farm kids weren't paid for working on the farm. So there are many older citizens (when birth registration was not automatic, and social security numbers were obtained when the individual started working who have been voting for years who will be disenfranchised if voter ID which requires proof of citizenship is enacted.

It is not a matter of wanting citizens to vote - it is a matter of acknowledging that many citizens would be disenfranchised by a bill which required documentary proof of citizenship, and refusing to support that disenfranchisement (especially in the name of solving an imaginary problem).

[Melon]

32. Democratic Party believes anyone from any country can vote in the US? I've never heard this

And I don’t support that at all. Citizens should vote. The issue on voter id as I understand it is access to vote for citizens.

[Ms. Toad]

34. First, I was quoting the advertisements the OP was afraid would be run against Democrats,

Everything in the parentheses is a direct quote from the OP. I was not stating the Democratic position, I was restating the portion of the OP I was addressing.

Second, the law already limits voting in federal elections and for federal positions to citizens.

The issue (in the SAVE act) is whether every voter should be required to provide documents to prove their citizenship - not their identity, but their citizenship.

Many older citizens, and some younger ones) cannot do so because their birth was never registered, secondary documents like baptismal registries were destroyed, because they changed their name and do not have access to the legal documents proving the changes, because they are housing insecure and proving citizenship wasn't top on their minds in picking which of their belongings to take with them when they had to move out of their home to someplace much smaller, the car, it the street.

Some, but not all, could prove citizenship if they had money and time to cry certified copies of all the documents needed (making it simply a poll tax). Others couldn't prove it even with all the time and money on the world, because the documents no longer (or never) existed.

This disenfranchisement of citizens who have been voting all their lives will fall most heavily on the elderly, especially women, poor, and elderly.

Limiting citizenship to voters (as we already do for federal elections) is very different from requiring citizens (many of whom have been voting for decades) to prove their citizenship using documents which may not even exist for some - and would be very expensive to obtain, for others.

[Melon]

35. I only questioned what you stated

I also don’t really what you are saying either which is a group of voters that somehow can be tracked to citizenship because??? They are old…but you said young as well. A birth certificate exists. A social security number exists. You can’t go your entire life and somehow you don’t exist in the system. Their entire lives are undocumented in the US to old age? I don’t believe that.

I understand disenfranchised voters due to cost of getting an id etc. we need to get those voters subsidized so they can get out and vote. I highly doubt someone goes to old age and somehow any record of them exists. I was asked for if last night to use my credit card. Yet someone is so old they never needed any of that…

[Ms. Toad]

37. Birth certificates and social security numbers do not always exist.

It was much more common in the past to be born at home. That meant registering the birth wasn't automatic, like it is now for someone born in a hospital. Some were not registered at all. In the South, some midwives serving black communities were actively discouraged from registering births. So there are elderly people who do not have birth certificates. It is possible to create a delayed birth registration, but to do so you have to have affidavits from people who witnessed your birth (inherently many years older, and by now many of them are dead) or secondary documents (like baptismal records). In the 50s and 60s, many black churches were the targets of fire bombing - so some of those secondary records no longer exist.

As for Social Security numbers - those weren't always issued at birth, the way they are now. I got mine around 13 - AND I wasn't required to provide documentary proof of citizenship to get it (I never had a copy of my birth certificate until I was an adult - all we had prior to that was the ceremonial copy from the hospital). So my social security number doesn't actually prove citizenship. And many women didn't work, so they never received a social security number. Until 1989, a social security number was not required to receive benefits based on your spouses or parents income. As of the last number I can find, there were about 11,000 such individuals.

And existing in the system isn't the same as being able to provide a documentary chain proving citizenship. Most people my age or older got driver's licenses on the basis of their parents word that I was who I said I was, and was born on the date I said I was born on, and in the location I said I was born in. (I'm not sure when that changed - but I know it didn't change right after I got my license.) Once I had a driver's license I was in the system, and each new drivers license just piggy-backed of of the one before - again, not based on my birth certificate or any official document, but on my parents word.

Just because the systems have changed over time, and you can't now imagine not having a birth certificate or a social security number doesn't mean that was always the way things worked.

Systematic documentation (and the requirement to have a social security number for more than working - and to prove right to work when you started a new job) is relatively recent. The changes began in the 80s. Many people born before that are still alive and voting. The likelihood they can't prove citizenship with documents increase with age, being female, growing up in a rural area, and being minority.

Democrats should not support anything which disenfranchises those citizen voters.

[Quiet Em]

8. You need ID to register to vote.

Only citizens are allowed to vote.

Republicans are looking for ways to kick voters off the rolls.

This is a non-issue made up by the con artist because he can't accept that he lost the 2020 election and he doesn't want to accept that Republicans are going to lose a lot of seats in 26.

[Ms. Toad]

12. Only 12 states require an ID that proves citizenship - and most of those are very limited or no in effect.

Two of the 12 have not been implemented. One requires proof of citizenship when registering at the DMV (but not elsewhere), and three others require it only when citizenship isn't otherwise established.

Voting by non-citizens It is a non-issue - BUT - requiring proof of citizenship will disenfranchise many citizens who have been voting all their lives but who do not have access to documents to prove it (or such documents have never, or no longer, existed).

[WhiskeyGrinder]

13. Noncitizens can't vote in federal elections, but in some jurisdictions, noncitizens can vote in local elections.

[bigtree]

9. John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act of 2025

https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/119/hr14

This bill has 220 cosponsors — 220 Democrats — plus its sponsor.

[betsuni]

11. Thank you. As always, Democrats have done or are trying to do what they're accused of not doing or wanting to do.

SOME should PLEASE use their computer machines to look things up before becoming overexcited about the imaginary Democratic Party in their heads.

[Callie1979]

14. This has zero to do with Voter ID.

[bigtree]

18. voter id is a canard

...pass the damn bill.

[bigtree]

21. here, Callie (when I got out of the yard and settled down this evening...)

...something to do with it.

Under the Act, certain types of voting changes would be subject to federal preclearance — meaning states or localities with a history of voting discrimination must get approval from the Department of Justice or a federal court before implementing them Brennan Center for Justice.

One of the covered practices is imposing stricter requirements for documentation or proof of identity to vote. This would apply nationwide if certain conditions are met, such as:

The change is in a jurisdiction with a sufficiently large minority population.

The change is likely to disproportionately affect minority voters.

The Act’s “practice-based coverage” framework would make such voter ID or ID‑like requirements subject to preclearance if they meet these criteria

Brennan Center for Justice.

[Karma13612]

20. No

[bigtree]

22. in short

The John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act would make it harder for states to pass new voter ID laws in jurisdictions with a history of discrimination, requiring federal approval before such changes take effect.

Preclearance

Geographic coverage: The John Lewis Act creates a new framework to determine which states and localities will be subject to preclearance. Under the requirement, jurisdictions with a history of voting discrimination must get approval from the Department of Justice or a federal court in Washington, DC, before changing their voting laws or practices to ensure that the changes are not discriminatory. In Shelby County, the Supreme Court struck down the Voting Rights Act’s preclearance formula, saying it was outdated. The bill updates the formula to ensure that state and local coverage is based on recent evidence of discrimination.

Practice-based coverage: The John Lewis Act makes some types of voting changes subject to preclearance nationwide, if certain conditions are met, because those changes are so often discriminatory. The following practices would be covered:

Creating at-large districts in places with sufficiently large minority populations.
Changing jurisdiction boundaries to remove minorities from the jurisdiction in places with sufficiently large minority populations.
Changing the boundaries of a district where a minority group is sufficiently large and has had a large population increase.
Imposing stricter requirements for documentation or proof of identity to vote.
Reducing the availability of or altering multilingual voting materials.
Reducing, consolidating, or relocating polling places, early and Election Day voting opportunities, or absentee voting opportunities in places with sufficiently large minority populations.
Making it easier to remove voters from the rolls in places with sufficiently large minority populations.

https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/john-r-lewis-voting-rights-advancement-act

[Callie1979]

25. So do some states just let ANYONE register?

Because I'm in GA & we've always had an ID requirement. And we've had record turnout every cycle for the past decade. A drivers license or college ID, among other things, is acceptable. I haven't seen stories about how many people here CANT vote because they cant get one of the types of ID required under our current laws.
The fraudulently named "SAVE Act" WOULD require FAR more than what we already need to get registered.
So couldn't every State simply require what GA requires?
I'm promising you whoever is in a swing state is going to see these ads en-masse come Sep-Nov. And they'll WORK.

[LearnedHand]

26. Never try to take a regressive issue away from the pukes

A, it’s accepting their framing of what the issues are, and b, Dems should NEVER put obstacles between voters and voting.

[everyonematters]

27. We need to have a national id.

Put a government agency in charge of helping people get the id. When everyone has one, you put the law in place requiring an id to vote.

[Melon]

33. What is different with a national id?

It’s still a nation of states. The drivers license is in every state already. The real ID starts verifies lawful status and social security number. It would just say national at the top? I don’t see this as any different that current, except it spells out the state that you are a resident in today.

[everyonematters]

36. The states won't be able to use it as means for voter suppression since it is the federal

government making sure that everyone has one.

[Johonny]

28. This is a bull-shit issue that solves an imaginary problem

I'm so tired of the GOP narrative being driven by the press about an imaginary problem Democrats then have to "solve" to appease the low information American voter, who, while suffering from real problems, can't seem to get their head out of their ass long enough to face the fact they've been voting for complete piles of human shit their whole lives and thus are in fact to blame for their own problems. At some point, either the voting public stops trying extra hard to solve imaginary problems, or they're going to die of the real problems being created.

Just saying.

[krawhitham]

29. Unless all states give IDs away for free (9 currently do), it's a poll tax

9 states according to the "National Network of Youth"

[Callie1979]

31. Not sure what that site is showing me but GA gives away a free State ID & voter ID