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PaperclipPerfector  9mo ago (text post)   38347 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 8, 2024

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Continuing my theme of thinking American election processes remain sketchy, the House just passed the SAVE act, ostensibly to prevent non-citizen voting. We all know how the battlelines are going to be drawn on that with the usual wailing and gnashing of teeth about how all of the totally legitimate citizens wouldn't actually be able to show that they're citizens and would be unfairly disenfranchised, and honestly, I suppose that's right to some extent. What's way more annoying is the drumbeat of people that say this is already illegal and doesn't happen. In a piqued fit of curiosity, I thought I'd take a look at what exactly California's process is for making sure only citizens are able to vote. Here's their registration application. It includes something a bit odd, checkboxes to simply indicate that you don't have a driver's license or social security number.

Well, if you check those boxes, there isn't really going to be sufficient unique identifiers to be crosschecked with a database to verify citizenship. Surely that disclaimer means you'd need to bring proof when you vote though, right? Well, here's what they say you need:

However, if you are voting for the first time after registering to vote by mail and did not provide your driver license number, California identification number or the last four digits of your social security number on your registration form, you may be asked to show a form of identification when you go to the polls. In this case, be sure to bring identification with you to your polling place or include a copy of it with your vote-by-mail ballot. A copy of a recent utility bill, the sample ballot booklet you received from your county elections office or another document sent to you by a government agency are examples of acceptable forms of identification [emphasis mine]. Other acceptable forms of identification include your passport, driver license, official state identification card, or student identification card showing your name and photograph.

Really? You can register with nothing that would identify you as a citizen, then show up to vote and identify yourself with the mailer you got when you signed up to vote. I have no idea how this process would stop a non-citizen from voting even in theory. Am I missing something? This seems like you can just straightforwardly vote in California as a non-citizen and the only thing that would stop you is a fit of conscience about checking the box that says you're a citizen. Are other states doing better at actually verifying the citizenship of voters? I would guess that some are and some aren't, but the claim that verifying citizenship would prevent quite a few people from voting kind of suggests that there isn't currently much of a process to do so.

Yeah, I provisionally voted this way although I am a citizen. It’s not just a problem for citizenship, but also identity in general. You can show up and claim to be anyone with no proof beyond a signature. I believe they only count those ballots for runoffs, but still it’s absurd.

Ca has implemented a system that is structurally incapable of catching voter fraud. It does not catch voter fraud. Ca claims the lack of convictions for fraud means none exists!

It is willfully bad epistemology.

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