> If my country had no mandatory voter ID, I wouldn't trust our elections either.
In terms of conspiracy thinking you have to always be very careful with such statements, ask yourself why liberals oppose voter id laws? Assume no ill intent for the sake of it. Do research for yourself into the subject. Try for example to answer these questions in your research: What is the evidence and magnitude of election fraud? Who benefits from voter id laws and why?
It's one thing to be convinced of something that sounds like common sense, but you should at least try to understand the other side of the arguments.
I like how this thread turned into such a perfect meta demonstration of the article. At the end of the day you can't force people to be curious, they won't research for themselves, they likely lack the media literacy to do so anyway. They are just never exposed to the counter arguments from someone they aren't already biased against. A chatbot that can be perceived as impartial arbiters of truth in all other aspects of their lives, could indeed be helpful to combat all the nonsense people believe to be true. My calculator was always right, let's ask it about this new 2+2=5 conspiracy.
> In terms of conspiracy thinking you have to always be very careful with such statements, ask yourself why liberals oppose voter id laws? Assume no ill intent for the sake of it. Do research for yourself into the subject. Try for example to answer these questions in your research: What is the evidence and magnitude of election fraud? Who benefits from voter id laws and why?
Oh, I'm well aware about both sides opposing arguments. But IMO both of them are whacky. Even in poor countries like mine it was never a problem to get a damn ID. ID card is super cheap and opening the office issuing it on saturdays is not rocket science.
If people in US put huuuuge money into politicians campaigns and go extra mile for gerry mandaring... And voter ID requirement could be used to prevent some people from voting... Abusing no-voter-id seems like no brainer to me.
> It's one thing to be convinced of something that sounds like common sense, but you should at least try to understand the other side of the arguments.
I've spent plenty of time on this topic. And yet I can't find any convincing argument.
> They are just never exposed to the counter arguments from someone they aren't already biased against.
I think you're way underestimating people who don't agree with you.
> I think you're way underestimating people who don't agree with you.
No I have enough experience to know that I usually over estimating people, everyone is the product of their environment and material conditions, saying that I don't have much expectation of people doesn't mean I don't empathize with them.
Your thinking is scattered, disorganized, surface level and not well thought-through. You are missing crucial information and you are looking for a simple argument to a complex problem you erroneously believe to be simple and common sense.
> I've spent plenty of time on this topic.
And yet you don't understand why democrats oppose voter ID laws and neither do you understand why republicans support it. You don't know how many people don't have an ID and why. You don't understand how election fraud happens and how much of a problem it is. You don't know how elections work in the US and how abusing no-voter-id would look like.
> And yet I can't find any convincing argument.
Because you first have to understand what the argument is about.
> Your thinking is scattered, disorganized, surface level and not well thought-through. You are missing crucial information and you are looking for a simple argument to a complex problem you erroneously believe to be simple and common sense.
Complex problem? Most of the world, even very backwards places, figured out voter IDs ages ago. It is pretty simple.
My thinking is biased, due to my experiences and context. Just like yours. But if you guys are stuck in your kindergarten battles, maybe it's worth to consider hearing outsiders' perspective?
> And yet you don't understand why democrats oppose voter ID laws and neither do you understand why republicans support it.
TBH I bumped into more republicans against voter ID than for it.
I know why democrats are against. But their arguments didn't convince me. All of the problems listed are easy to solve. And if there's a will to not solve them... You have bigger problems and will to do election fraud elsewhere.
> Because you first have to understand what the argument is about.
I know both sides whys both pro- and against- voter ids.
This goes nowhere, but here is the last things I want say:
Both have the same motivation. It makes them win more elections. Republicans want voter ID laws because it makes it harder for people without an ID to vote, and those people tend to not vote for republicans. Democrats are against voter ID laws because it makes it easier for people without an ID to vote, and those people tend to vote for democrats.
There is no feasible way to increase access to photo IDs, in red states that introduce(d) voter ID laws its republicans who make it harder for people. There is no national ID in the US and its again republicans who make it impossible to change that.
Election fraud is not a real issue, there is no evidence of any wide-spread voter fraud. There are many other ways identity is established at polling places and it is almost impossible to do without anyone noticing. There are lists of voters, if you go and it shows you already voted, it would be immediately obvious.
These are all things you could easily research for yourself
Making it easier to vote without ID in a country with a lot of non-citizen-residents is pretty damn close to election fraud in my books. At least in my country that could cause very sad political landscape changes.
> ID card is super cheap and opening the office issuing it on saturdays is not rocket science.
Right, okay, but when the voter ID laws were creating for the explicit purpose of suppressing voters, why would you do this? Surely, you would want to make sure the office is closed on Saturday then.
Which, in the US, this was the explicit purpose of voter ID laws in the past. And, when proponents of Voter ID are confronted with this, they do absolutely nothing to soothe our concerns. They deny, deny, deny, but they don't say what they're gonna do to make sure everyone who should vote is able to.
That makes me, and other liberals, very nervous. We understand these laws had bad intentions in the past and when that's all just... hand-waved away... one begins to wonder what the intention of the laws are now.
If you're going such lengths to abuse voter ID laws, then no-voter-ID is probably abused too :)
At worst, one abuse is replaced by another abuse. And once voter ID law is in, it's much easier to make tiny changes on prices, offices work hours and so on.
On the other hand. Somehow I don't hear people complaining that driver licenses in US are too expensive and too hard to get, thus fuck it, people can just drive without one...?
The unfortunate reality is that access to drivers licenses is correlated with race and poverty (which is, in turn, correlated with race).
The US is still largely segregated. If you just require voter id, then you will disproportionately affect black people. Not might, not may, will.
Our politicians aren't stupid, they know this. In fact, this is the sole reason these laws exist. This is the goal. If it wasn't, they would at least admit the risk of this. But they don't even do that.
Maybe if both sides of the aisle are pissed about recent elections, this is a good time to both introduce voter ID and improve national ID issuing in a way to make it accessible? E.g. fair price ($10-20?) for processing and offices open on saturdays.
Right, what I'm telling you is that the right explicitly does not want to make it more accessible.
They won't even admit there is an accessibility problem, let alone propose any solutions.
Why? Probably because the lack of accessibility is not a side-effect of the law, but rather the sole goal of it, as it has been every single time it's been implemented in the past. But, your guess is as good as mine.
In terms of conspiracy thinking you have to always be very careful with such statements, ask yourself why liberals oppose voter id laws? Assume no ill intent for the sake of it. Do research for yourself into the subject. Try for example to answer these questions in your research: What is the evidence and magnitude of election fraud? Who benefits from voter id laws and why?
It's one thing to be convinced of something that sounds like common sense, but you should at least try to understand the other side of the arguments.
I like how this thread turned into such a perfect meta demonstration of the article. At the end of the day you can't force people to be curious, they won't research for themselves, they likely lack the media literacy to do so anyway. They are just never exposed to the counter arguments from someone they aren't already biased against. A chatbot that can be perceived as impartial arbiters of truth in all other aspects of their lives, could indeed be helpful to combat all the nonsense people believe to be true. My calculator was always right, let's ask it about this new 2+2=5 conspiracy.