Calling it “unserious and unacceptable,” House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries rejected on Monday a proposal from Speaker Mike Johnson that links continued government funding for six months with a measure to require proof of citizenship when registering to vote.
The response frames the spending battle to come over the next weeks as lawmakers work to reach consensus on a short-term spending bill that would prevent a partial government shutdown when the new fiscal year begins Oct. 1. Lawmakers hope to avoid a shutdown just weeks before voters go to the polls.
Johnson is punting the final decisions on full-year spending into next year when a new president and Congress take over. He’s doing so at the urging of members within his conference who believe that Republicans will be in a better position next year to secure the funding and policy priorities they want.
I dont get it. What is the down side of implementing this policy?
sound reasonable to me that you only want to allow legal citizens to vote as per law
Edit:
@banshee@lemmy.world had shared a good article covering all points in the comments and more
https://www.npr.org/2024/06/11/nx-s1-4991903/voter-registration-proof-of-citizenship-requirement.
I also want seize the opportunity to thank everyone who took the time to downvote my question
In case you’re asking in good faith… The downside is that non-citizens voting is simply not a problem. The number of cases is extremely low, there’s nothing to “fix” here. The biggest impact of this policy would be that actual American citizens who do not have, or lost, or forgot to bring their proof of citizenship will not be able to vote. It will predominantly affect poor and marginal populations. People that don’t have a passport, don’t have easy access to their birth certificate, or aren’t aware of the new regulation. Fewer people voting is 100% the goal with this policy.
We also have real world examples like Alabama passing a voter ID law and then almost immediately turning around and closing DMV offices in poor, black counties, making getting an ID even more difficult for at-risk communities:
Voter ID laws are very much about cloaking intentional disenfranchisement of legal citizens in a veil of preventing virtually non-existent voter fraud.
To get a non-drivers license ID in Wisconsin requires you to go to the DMV on the 5th Wednesday of the month.
I have 3 siblings, for a grand total of 6 in my family. Only my mom and I have passports. At present, despite all of us being born in the states and naturalized, only two of us have passports. So only two of us have standardized federal IDs that prove our citizenship. RealIDs are becoming more common, but nowhere near as common as a standard state driving license which does not prove citizenship.
So the requirement is going to require people to grab their birth certificates and social security cards which are not always available to every family member.
For example, my parents live out of state and have all the important family documents so 2 of siblings are screwed unless they make sure to grab those relatively sensitive documents and be prepared to carry them out and about then hang on to them for several hours.
It’s impractical, and it wasn’t a problem for the years leading up to my birth (96), wasn’t a problem in '00 for bush, or '04 for bush, or '08 and '12 for Obama. It’s suddenly become a problem because the GOP is getting called out for election shenanigans and they generally know unless they can make voting more difficult or less representative (through gerrymandering and goofy election maps) they will lose.
It does sound reasonable, but the existing mechanisms of enforcement and fraud detection have been, and continue to be, robust enough to keep voter fraud from having any meaningful statistically significant impact.
It only stands to make voting more difficult for most people.
The implementation is usually the issue. If white people/wealthy don’t need to show documentation, for instance. Or they only check areas that are known democrat (or known Republican). And, at the end of the day, many people can’t necessarily prove it, and the government does not guarantee free/quick access to citizenship documents, so it disproportionately affects poorer people.
Imagine if they changed this law 2 weeks before an election, and your birth certificate is in Clark county Texas while you live in Florida. It is a very easy way to disenfranchise voters and skew election results.
Eta: there’s also no robust evidence that there is almost any voter fraud, much less wide spread. Especially around citizenship. Why risk deportation/prison to vote? So this probably won’t solve a problem that doesn’t exist, and will create “unintended” consequences for legitimate voters.
Because it’s easy at the local level to selectivity apply the rules and only allow the people you want to vote. Here is an actual literacy test that was used. Hint if you were white you passed if not you failed.
I’m a college educated person. Based on this test, I don’t think the racists would have let me vote in Louisiana.
Why are we talking about literacy test? The article says requiring proof ofbcitizenship. as I understand it, uts as simple as presenting national ID or passport
What national ID?
The US doesn’t have a national ID card. I have a federally-issued ID card as a lawful permanent resident, but the typical US citizen has what? Their main proof of citizenship is their birth certificate, issued by their state, and doesn’t have a photo (and if it did, would probably be a baby photo). The people with passports tend to have enough money to travel internationally, which is a pretty small proportion of the population (as it’s a big country, so even a lot of people who can afford vacations will vacation in the next state over at most).
Most people don’t have a passport. It is expensive and a pain to get one. If you don’t ever leave the country, most see no reason to. We don’t have national IDs, but we do have state. Technically, they rolled out this new RealID crap that is probably closer to a national id, but you have to pay extra and it is still done through the state. Neither of these are required. If you drive, your drivers license is your ID. Otherwise, you can get a state id so you can get alcohol, weed, cigarettes, and other dumb shit. When you get your ID, you can register to vote right there if you qualify and I think you can get a paper card. There is no reason to go through any extra hoops once you register to vote. You are in the system as a registered voter.
We’re talking about the history of racist voter disenfranchisement and this literacy test was a prime example of that from our recent past. Although national IDs exist they are VERY far from common and they are often relatively difficult, time consuming, and expensive to get.
How many forms of ID do I need to prove I’m a citizen. Is a State issued ID enough, or will I need to bring my Passport, Social Security Card and Birth Certificate? How long will each one of these forms of ID take to be verified and by what authority?
The point is you’re creating artificial barriers to real citizens voting while claiming its stopping the non-citizens voting. Especially in a country where voter registration is up to the individual and managed at the county level. It’s not like genuine citizens are being enrolled in childhood and never have to update it and so they never have to worry about presenting their ID.
Has anyone ever explained to you how Digital Rights Management only harms paying customers and pirates get a superior media experience? This is something like that.
This really only harms real US citizens and the number of people trying to vote illegally are probably already savvy enough to have falsified but realistic documentation, so like pirates, they’re getting a superior experience while you harm the experience of real citizens.
Others have given good explanations, so let me just follow them and say voter ID laws are a fix to a non-issue that has the convenient effect of making certain demographics unable to vote where they could and did before without a problem, legally.
It’s classism and racism all wrapped up in a made up problem to solve, designed to maintain power that would be lost if everyone eligible to vote could vote.
Noncitizens are already not voting. There are more Repubs’ deceased grandmothers voting than noncitizens voting.
I’m fairly certain most rich people cast ballots in multiple states. A federal voter ID system would prevent this by being able to track poll location, but obviously the republican solution wouldn’t stop illegal acts by rich people.
The other crazy part is a law requiring states to establish citizenship… which is solely the responsibility of the feds.
Here’s an excellent article explaining how this would affect underrepresented groups more than others: https://www.npr.org/2024/06/11/nx-s1-4991903/voter-registration-proof-of-citizenship-requirement.
