If you support Voter ID laws, come in here and explain why.

[Pull Up the Roots]

If we're going to keep talking about this seriously, then let's see the evidence, because vibes-based arguments don't cut it.

If there is widespread voter impersonation fraud happening, post credible evidence showing it exists at scale.

If there is widespread voting by undocumented immigrants or non-citizens in federal elections, post credible evidence showing that.

If voter ID laws are neutral and not discriminatory in either intent or effect, post the evidence, including why courts, civil rights groups, and election scholars repeatedly find otherwise.

Let's also reckon with why the same political actors pushing voter ID laws are also part of the same legal ecosystem that has spent decades attacking the Voting Rights Act.

Ask yourself why those efforts focused on gutting Section 5 and killing preclearance, weakening Section 2 to make discrimination claims harder to prove, and constraining Section 3 so states can't be easily brought back under oversight?

Let's ask why this all traces back to the same legal strategy and the same people?

Why is Edward Blum a central figure, not just in voting cases, but in the coordinated attack on our civil rights protections more broadly? Why is his framework based on using the same "race-neutral," "colorblind," "anti-discrimination" framing that somehow always results in less protection for Black people? And why is it now being deployed in coordination with Stephen Miller and his America First legal apparatus to dismantle our civil rights protections, and to claim that remedies for discrimination are themselves discriminatory against white people?

Surely, at some point, you have to stop and say, "maybe this isn't really about fairness or election integrity like they claim, but about excluding the *right* people."

Like, how can you ignore the pattern that shows voter fraud is vanishingly rare, barriers to voting are very real, how access is restricted wrt obtaining an ID, how oversight is being dismantled, and how the burden always falls on us.

If you really believe these laws are designed to protect the integrity of our elections, then explain what you are using to inform that opinion. Because I just don't see it.

Preclearance Under the Voting Rights Act

For decades, the law blocked racially discriminatory election rules and voting districts — and it could do so again, if Congress acts.

www.brennancenter.org

 

[Pull Up the Roots]

Various voter ID laws have already been struck down by the courts because they are racist:

Texas Voter ID Law Violates Voting Rights Act, Court Rules - The Texas Tribune

Texas’ voter identification law violates the U.S. law prohibiting racial discrimination in elections, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday.

www.texastribune.org

Texas voting law builds on long legacy of racism from GOP leaders

For much of the country’s history, the Republican Party was the party of Lincoln and racial equality, and the Democratic Party backed Jim Crow laws and white supremacy. The two parties switched.

theconversation.com

N.C. Judges Strike Down A Voter ID Law They Say Discriminates Against Black Voters

The state's latest photo voter identification law "was motivated at least in part by an unconstitutional intent to target African American voters," two judges wrote in their opinion.

www.npr.org

https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/08/03/courts-are-finally-pointing-out-the-racism-behind-voter-id-laws/

Why Voter ID Laws Aren’t Really about Fraud | FRONTLINE | PBS | Official Site | Documentary Series

Proponents say these laws ensure election integrity, but a FRONTLINE analysis found that ID requirements aren't applied equally to all voters.

www.pbs.org

Who Is Impacted by Voter ID Laws?

Laws that require photo ID at the polls vary, but the strictest laws limit the forms of acceptable documentation to only a handful of cards. For example, in Texas, voters must show one of seven forms of state or federal-issue photo ID, with a valid expiration date: a driver’s license, a personal ID card issued by the state, a concealed handgun license, a military ID, citizenship certificate or a passport. The name on the ID must exactly match the one on the voter rolls.

African-Americans and Latinos are more likely to lack one of these qualifying IDs, according to several estimates. Even when the state offers a free photo ID, these voters, who are disproportionately low-income, may not be able to procure the underlying documents, such as a birth certificate, to obtain one.
In Texas, for example, challengers to the law cited an African-American grandmother who could not afford the $25 to purchase her birth certificate to get an ID, and an elderly African-American veteran and longtime voter who was turned away at the polls in 2013 despite having three types of ID, because none qualified under the new law.

And new research from the Government Accountability Office, an independent agency that prepares reports for members of Congress, suggests that voter ID laws are having an impact at the polls. Turnout dropped among both young people and African-Americans in Kansas and Tennessee after new voter ID requirements took effect in 2012, the study found.

Six of the 16 states that have passed voter ID laws since 2010 have a documented history of discriminating against minority voters. All but one of those states’ laws were put in place after the Supreme Court overturned a key provision of the Voting Rights Act that required them to seek approval from the Justice Department for any voting-law changes.

Courts have so far blocked three ID laws. A state judge struck down Pennsylvania’s law earlier this year, determining that it discriminated against low-income and minority voters. Two weeks ago, the U.S. Supreme Court blocked Wisconsin’s from taking effect for this election, and last week, a state court declared Arkansas’ voter ID law unconstitutional. Lawsuits are currently pending against similar laws in North Carolina and Alabama, though they won’t be decided before the November elections.

Voter ID laws have all been sponsored by Republicans and passed overwhelmingly by Republican legislatures. A conservative U.S. circuit judge, Richard Posner, in a recent scathing critique of these laws, calling the expressed concern about fraud a “a mere fig leaf” and that they instead “appear to be aimed at limiting voting by minorities, particularly blacks.”

“There is only one motivation for imposing burdens on voting that are ostensibly designed to discourage voter-impersonation fraud,” Posner wrote, “…and that is to discourage voting by persons likely to vote against the party responsible for imposing the burdens.”
Obenshain, the Virginia senator, said his law wasn’t about keeping voters from the polls. “There’s only one class of people who are going to be discouraged from voting, and that’s fraudulent voters.”

Republicans institute strict voter id laws and then close dmv offices in Black areas as part of their disenfranchising efforts:

Rebekah Mason suggested closure of DMV offices in majority black counties, report shows

Gov. Robert Bentley's former top advisor, Rebekah Mason, led a politically-motivated effort in 2015 to close 31 driver's license offices. The move sparked national outrage by civil rights groups, and a federal investigation that revealed the closures disproportionately affected black residents.

www.al.com

Alabama, Where ID Is Required to Vote, Closes DMVs in Most “Black Belt” Counties

On Wednesday, the state of Alabama announced that it was shutting 31 driver's license offices because of budget cuts. Two columns on Al.com...

slate.com

Alabama’s DMV Shutdown Has Everything to Do With Race | ACLU

www.aclu.org

DMV Roadblocks Could Disenfranchise Voters, Report Finds • Stateline

A state’s department of motor vehicles is not just a portal to a driver’s license for millions of Americans, but also to the ballot. In a year when many Republican lawmakers have fought to pass new voting restrictions, including voter ID laws, voting rights advocates are shedding light on the...

stateline.org

Some Republicans Acknowledge Leveraging Voter ID Laws for Political Gain (Published 2016)

A trove of documents reveal Republican politicians drawing on fears of election fraud to prevent voters — usually Democratic — from casting ballots.

www.nytimes.com

This leads to a disproportionate amount of Black people lacking the necessary ID:

Why Do Many Minorities Not Have Valid ID To Show at the Polls?

The Justice Department notified the commonwealth of Virginia on Monday night that it would not object to its new voter ID law. The Virginia requirement...

slate.com

Report shows young people, people of color less likely to have valid photo identification

Millions of voting-age Americans lack a current government-issued photo ID, even as a growing number of states enact new or stricter voter ID requirements, according to an analysis released today by University of Maryland researchers and a leading voting rights organization.

phys.org

 

[Pull Up the Roots]

The Challenge of Obtaining Voter Identification

Ten states now have unprecedented restrictive voter ID laws, which require citizens to produce specific types of government-issued photo identification before they can vote.

www.brennancenter.org

How ID Requirements Harm Marginalized Communities and Their Right to Vote

A report from last fall highlights how ID requirements, often which are unnecessary, create serious burdens in everyday life — especially for minority communities.

www.democracydocket.com

How Barriers to ID Impact Different Communities and Restrict Democracy

IDs are common and vital parts of everyday life and civic engagement, yet it's far too difficult for people to get and maintain accurate IDs.

www.voteriders.org

 

[Elim Garak]

There is no need for it unless you want to suppress voting which has always benefited Republicans.

 

[Pull Up the Roots]

Voter ID

Overly burdensome photo ID requirements block millions of eligible American citizens from voting. We can improve the security of elections without compromising citizens’ right to participate in elections.

www.brennancenter.org

Debunking the Voter Fraud Myth

The president has continued to claim voter fraud was a problem in the 2016 election. A look at the facts makes clear fraud is rare, and does not happen on a scale even close to necessary to “rig” an election.

www.brennancenter.org

The Myth of Voter Fraud

Extensive research reveals that fraud is very rare. Yet repeated, false allegations of fraud can make it harder for millions of eligible Americans to participate in elections.

www.brennancenter.org

States Have Added Nearly 100 Restrictive Laws Since SCOTUS Gutted the Voting Rights Act 10 Years Ago

Many of the new laws are in states with a history of racial voting discrimination.

www.brennancenter.org

State Voting Laws Roundup: October 2025

The number of new restrictive voting laws has increased this year, while legislation aimed at expanding voting access has lagged.

www.brennancenter.org

 

[Pull Up the Roots]

Getting a photo ID so you can vote is easy. Unless you’re poor, black, Latino or elderly.

What Effect Will Shuttering Alabama DMV Offices Have on Black Voters? The state has a strict voter ID law, yet more than 30 offices, many of them across the “Black Belt,” are set to close.

A comprehensive investigation of voter impersonation finds 31 credible incidents out of one billion ballots cast.

Why Do Nonwhite Georgia Voters Have To Wait In Line For Hours? Too Few Polling Places.

Why Voter ID Laws Aren’t Really about Fraud | FRONTLINE | PBS | Official Site | Documentary Series

Proponents say these laws ensure election integrity, but a FRONTLINE analysis found that ID requirements aren't applied equally to all voters.

www.pbs.org

Who Is Impacted by Voter ID Laws?

Laws that require photo ID at the polls vary, but the strictest laws limit the forms of acceptable documentation to only a handful of cards. For example, in Texas, voters must show one of seven forms of state or federal-issue photo ID, with a valid expiration date: a driver’s license, a personal ID card issued by the state, a concealed handgun license, a military ID, citizenship certificate or a passport. The name on the ID must exactly match the one on the voter rolls.

African-Americans and Latinos are more likely to lack one of these qualifying IDs, according to several estimates. Even when the state offers a free photo ID, these voters, who are disproportionately low-income, may not be able to procure the underlying documents, such as a birth certificate, to obtain one.

In Texas, for example, challengers to the law cited an African-American grandmother who could not afford the $25 to purchase her birth certificate to get an ID, and an elderly African-American veteran and longtime voter who was turned away at the polls in 2013 despite having three types of ID, because none qualified under the new law.

And new research from the Government Accountability Office, an independent agency that prepares reports for members of Congress, suggests that voter ID laws are having an impact at the polls. Turnout dropped among both young people and African-Americans in Kansas and Tennessee after new voter ID requirements took effect in 2012, the study found.

Six of the 16 states that have passed voter ID laws since 2010 have a documented history of discriminating against minority voters. All but one of those states’ laws were put in place after the Supreme Court overturned a key provision of the Voting Rights Act that required them to seek approval from the Justice Department for any voting-law changes.

Courts have so far blocked three ID laws. A state judge struck down Pennsylvania’s law earlier this year, determining that it discriminated against low-income and minority voters. Two weeks ago, the U.S. Supreme Court blocked Wisconsin’s from taking effect for this election, and last week, a state court declared Arkansas’ voter ID law unconstitutional. Lawsuits are currently pending against similar laws in North Carolina and Alabama, though they won’t be decided before the November elections.

Voter ID laws have all been sponsored by Republicans and passed overwhelmingly by Republican legislatures. A conservative U.S. circuit judge, Richard Posner, in a recent scathing critique of these laws, calling the expressed concern about fraud a “a mere fig leaf” and that they instead “appear to be aimed at limiting voting by minorities, particularly blacks.”

“There is only one motivation for imposing burdens on voting that are ostensibly designed to discourage voter-impersonation fraud,” Posner wrote, “…and that is to discourage voting by persons likely to vote against the party responsible for imposing the burdens.”

Obenshain, the Virginia senator, said his law wasn’t about keeping voters from the polls. “There’s only one class of people who are going to be discouraged from voting, and that’s fraudulent voters.”

 

[Pull Up the Roots]

These laws are designed to overburden the system, bringing it to a halt, all to target something that's not even happening.

New SAVE Act Bills Would Still Block Millions of Americans From Voting

The “show your papers” requirement is an attack on the freedom to vote.

www.brennancenter.org

Last week, Republican lawmakers in both the House and Senate launched a renewed push to pass the SAVE Act, introducing two new bills that advance its “show your papers” requirement for voter registration. The first effort to pass the SAVE Act last year failed in the face of nationwide public opposition. These new bills are yet another effort to undermine Americans’ freedom to vote and make this unpopular policy the law of the land.

In every form, the SAVE Act would require American citizens to show documents like a passport or birth certificate to register to vote. Our research shows that more than 21 million Americans lack ready access to those documents. Roughly half of Americans don’t even have a passport. Millions lack access to a paper copy of their birth certificate. The SAVE Act would disenfranchise Americans of all ages and races, but younger voters and voters of color would suffer disproportionately. Likewise, millions of women whose married names aren’t on their birth certificates or passports would face extra steps just to make their voices heard.

Just like the SAVE Act of 2025, the new SAVE Act proposals would inject chaos into election administration. They would place a massive unfunded burden on state and local election officials. And they would expose those officials to significant legal risk. The bills would leave it up to local officials to decide whether a voter who lacks one of the specified documents has done enough to prove citizenship. Officials who make an honest mistake could face civil and criminal penalties. An election official could even be punished for registering an eligible American citizen, just for failing to collect all the right paperwork at the right time.

The three versions of the SAVE Act would go into effect either immediately after enactment, or within the next year or two, depending on the specific provision. Such a rushed implementation of massive policy changes would wreak havoc on election administration, unleashing confusion that will itself undoubtedly prevent some American citizens from voting.

• The bill not only requires proof of citizenship, but also proof of residence in order to register. This could block even more Americans from voting. Roughly nine percent of the population has moved within a state in the past year, but many will not update their driver’s licenses until they expire.
• The bill would require photo ID to vote, providing a narrow list of acceptable IDs more restrictive than the voter ID laws in every state but Ohio. For example, the bill prohibits the use of student IDs (even those issued by state universities), and accepts tribal IDs only with an expiration date, even though many tribal IDs do not contain them.
• The legislation would mandate voter roll purges every 30 days, placing enormous burdens on election officials and ending the 90-day quiet period that protects voters from being mistakenly thrown off the rolls right before Election Day.
• The bill would prohibit universal mail voting, requiring all mail voters to submit an application in order to receive a mail ballot. This would end the longstanding principal method of voting in eight states and Washington, DC.

The SAVE Act solves nothing. All available evidence, including from the Trump administration itself, indicates that only American citizens vote and the exceptions are vanishingly rare. States that have combed through their voter rolls looking for illegally cast votes — like Louisiana and Utah did recently — have repeatedly confirmed that fact.

These bills are part of a broader federal agenda to sow distrust in our elections, undermine election administration, and discourage Americans from making their voices heard. The SAVE Act, in any form, would block millions of American citizens from voting. Congress should stand firm once again and reject the SAVE Act.

The SAVE Act Could Disenfranchise Millions of American Citizens: Passport Data Shows How - NRF

The SAVE Act Makes Registering or Re-Registering to Vote Needlessly Challenging In January 2024, Rep. Chip Roy (TX-21) re-introduced the SAVE Act in the U.S. House of Representatives, a bill that would create new, onerous requirements for voter registration, effectively eliminate voter...

redistrictingfoundation.org

The SAVE Act Makes Registering or Re-Registering to Vote Needlessly Challenging​

In January 2024, Rep. Chip Roy (TX-21) re-introduced the SAVE Act in the U.S. House of Representatives, a bill that would create new, onerous requirements for voter registration, effectively eliminate voter registration by mail, and upend online voter registration. The bill would undermine the National Voter Registration Act, a decades-old statute designed to ensure access to voter registration for those legally entitled to vote. The SAVE Act would instead force every voter to provide proof of citizenship, such as a passport or birth certificate, every time they register or update their voter registration – and to do so in person. Its provisions would cripple online and mail-in voter registration processes.


The SAVE Act provides a solution in search of a problem. There is no widespread voter fraud and non-citizens are already prohibited from voting. Worse still, the legislation would actually cause significant harm to American citizens’ right to vote. These new, difficult requirements would affect Americans across the country, potentially disenfranchising millions.

 

[the artist known az]

When I see an article of someone getting caught for voter fraud it's always a registered Republican

 

[Sir Richard Spirit]

@Pull Up the Roots


The Justice Department notified the commonwealth of Virginia on Monday night that it would not object to its new voter ID law. The Virginia requirement is just the latest such law at the center of a heated debate leading up to the 2012 election, with Republicans generally supporting the laws as a means to prevent voter fraud, while Democrats allege that the laws will disenfranchise minorities, who less often have valid IDs. Why do minorities have fewer IDs?

Because a lot of minorities don’t have much use for them. The most common voter ID is a driver’s license, and minorities are less likely to drive. A 2007 study found that in California, New Mexico, and Washington, whites were more likely to have driver’s licenses than nonwhites. In Orange County, Calif., about 92 percent of white voters had driver’s licenses, compared with only 84 percent of Latino voters and 81 percent of “other” voters. A 2005 study of Wisconsin similarly found that while about 80 percent of white residents had licenses, only about half of African-American and Hispanic residents had licenses.



A lot of minorities don’t have use for ids? Stop posting this garbage. The entire argument on both sides is bullshyt.

 

[Sir Richard Spirit]

@Pull Up the Roots i thought you wanted to have this conco? Now you want to neg me?

Come on breh. Let me tell you why your argument is just as stupid as the conservative argument.

 

[Roger king]

The tariq charlatans and trump supporters are absent from this thread, you have a user with facts in hand that you cant obfuscate and patterns showing republicans intent on trying to reduce black voting numbers, yet nothing is said from any of them, its shameful

 

[Pull Up the Roots]

@Pull Up the Roots


The Justice Department notified the commonwealth of Virginia on Monday night that it would not object to its new voter ID law. The Virginia requirement is just the latest such law at the center of a heated debate leading up to the 2012 election, with Republicans generally supporting the laws as a means to prevent voter fraud, while Democrats allege that the laws will disenfranchise minorities, who less often have valid IDs. Why do minorities have fewer IDs?

Because a lot of minorities don’t have much use for them. The most common voter ID is a driver’s license, and minorities are less likely to drive. A 2007 study found that in California, New Mexico, and Washington, whites were more likely to have driver’s licenses than nonwhites. In Orange County, Calif., about 92 percent of white voters had driver’s licenses, compared with only 84 percent of Latino voters and 81 percent of “other” voters. A 2005 study of Wisconsin similarly found that while about 80 percent of white residents had licenses, only about half of African-American and Hispanic residents had licenses.



A lot of minorities don’t have use for ids? Stop posting this garbage. The entire argument on both sides is bullshyt.

Quoting one paragraph from the article while ignoring the rest of the piece, and the mountains of evidence posted alongside it, is a choice. The article explicitly explains *why* ID possession differs by race and income. That sentence just means people who don't drive because they live in cities, can't afford cars, or rely on public transit, not that they're unserious adults. You would have understood that if you took the time to read the entire thing, instead of rushing in here with some cherry-picked excerpt, just so you could push some lazy "both sides" claim.

More importantly, this article isn't the argument. It's one data point among decades of research, court rulings, and findings from voting rights groups and academic institutions showing that voter ID laws reduce turnout and disproportionately burden Black communities while pretending to address a type of fraud that doesn't exist in any meaningful way. If that evidence is wrong, then the burden is on you to show otherwise.

 

[Pull Up the Roots]

@Pull Up the Roots i thought you wanted to have this conco? Now you want to neg me?

Come on breh. Let me tell you why your argument is just as stupid as the conservative argument.

You're not interested in having this convo, you're looking to push a false narrative. And I am tired of you people ignoring outcomes to push that "both sides" bullshyt. I'm only interested in evidence-based claims.

 

[DonB90]

I've had an id since I was 16. The only people who don't are illegals and maybe the most insane homeless people you encounter on the streets, but if they're from here they probably have one too.




But then again us poor Black folk are to infantile to understand the process of getting such things, I mean we don't even know how to work computers



This topic is a gigantic nothing burger. You and the rest of the DNC need to devote precious energy on shyt that actually matters

 

[Sir Richard Spirit]

Quoting one paragraph from the article while ignoring the rest of the piece, and the mountains of evidence posted alongside it, is a choice. The article explicitly explains *why* ID possession differs by race and income. That sentence just means people who don't drive because they live in cities, can't afford cars, or rely on public transit, not that they're unserious adults. You would have understood that if you took the time to read the entire thing, instead of rushing in here with some cherry-picked excerpt, just so you could push some lazy "both sides" claim.

More importantly, this article isn't the argument. It's one data point among decades of research, court rulings, and findings from voting rights groups and academic institutions showing that voter ID laws reduce turnout and disproportionately burden Black communities while pretending to address a type of fraud that doesn't exist in any meaningful way. If that evidence is wrong, then the burden is on you to show otherwise.

You're not interested in having this convo, you're looking to push a false narrative. And I am tired of you people ignoring outcomes to push that "both sides" bullshyt.

Your articles all rely on the same principles: the black man is to dumb and poor. I don’t respect that.