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Historic flooding in South Carolina, North Carolina, and Tennessee. Whole towns washed away. People retreating to their attics as water levels rise. People losing everything.
Tragic. Horrific. But this is the Culture War thread so I am going to ask the insensitive question, what does this mean for the election in <40 days?
My first thought is that there is a certain irony that these states are among those that just limited the forms of ID allowed at a voting booth. Someone who has lost their house is less likely to have all their documentation, and getting new copies will take longer than the time before the election.
Rural areas that were wiped out will have a harder time finding their polling location under the mud and timber. Mail-in voting will be difficult without a mailbox.
People are going to watch the Biden-Harris's administration to see how they respond.
Do these factors make it more likely for these swing states to turn Blue or Red? Buncombe County, one of the hardest hit, went 60% for Biden in 2020.
Less likely, on the margins, sure. But realistically, what things would you grab on your way out the door if there was a catastrophic weather event? Personally, I'd be grabbing my phone, which has my driver's license in the case. Even in the event that my home was wiped out by a catastrophic flood, I would still almost certainly be able to provide the required identification to vote. If anything, this makes me even less sympathetic to the idea that it's actually totally normal and reasonable for legitimate voters to lack identification.
Okay I’ll respond here and say: my drivers license or any of my “documents” would be among the last things I would think to grab. I’d want:
Kids/wife/debit card
Hardware authenticators (irreplaceable)
Laptop
Gun
“Survival” stuff like a fishing rod and a water filter and some lighters.
I realize this makes me very stupid, and this event has made me reevaluate my thoughts. For instance if I lost ALL of my “documents”, could I reconstruct them? My intuition says: yes, easily. Just “steal” my own identity. I have my DL# and SSN memorized. I know my full name, DOB, all of my addresses, employment history, etc.
What would it actually take, I wonder?
I'd consider my credit+debit+cash to be urgent and my driver's license to be replaceable ... but in effect that means I'd definitely have ID, since it's all in the same wallet.
I feel like the "I don't know anybody voting for Nixon" lady, but I don't think I know any adult who doesn't carry ID habitually. I guess my wife sometimes leaves her ID and cards at home when I'm driving, but even then it's less often than not.
Things are probably different in cities with good mass transit, but does that describe any of the ones flooding?
I haven’t brought my drivers license with me for any reason other than flying in…years.
My car unlocks with my phone, which also has apply pay. I don’t carry a wallet with me, and I don’t carry house keys with me either. My house uses electronic locks, and I’m very competent with a lock pick (and can improvise one very quickly) in the event that that fails.
Usually when we fly finding IDs is a task on our to do list.
To weigh in somewhat in between you and /u/roystgnr, I have my license with me 100% of the time when I leave the house, but also have repeatedly had a "why in the world do you not have your license?" conversation where my wife has been denied alcohol for lack of ID. So, I am well aware that this is way above lizard man constant levels, but am also absolutely baffled at what the upside is to not just having your ID in your wallet.
A surprising amount of women's clothing does not come with pockets of sufficient size to store anything like a wallet, so they need to pack necessities manually before every trip based on need and available storage. This could be anything ranging from a handbag to the minimally-sized pocket of a tight-fitting piece of pants that might at most fit a few loose cards, which encourages keeping the ID card as a loose item to be tracked and brought explicitly.
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