It's now a requirement in Nebraska that you present identification when you vote. It was the subject of a referendum that passed with a majority of votes cast. Nebraskans were swept up in the Republican-led faux-concern about election integrity spurred by the lies told by former president Trump. Proponents claimed that it helped ensure secure elections. But what problem did it actually solve?
Even though we occasionally hear about someone voting twice, or groups turning in fraudulent ballots, and despite the hysterical claims of election interference or the 2020 election being stolen or rigged, there isn't any evidence that our elections are anything but incredibly secure. What isn't secure in many cases is the ability for many people to exercise their right to vote. In early 2021 Democrats in Congress attempted to pass a bill that would have, among other things, made it easier to register to vote. The bill included workarounds for people who did not have a government-issued I.D. and standardized the types of documents that would be acceptable. It passed in the House of Representatives but failed in the Senate. At the time Nebraska Congressional Republicans justified their votes against the bill by claiming that our voting infrastructure in Nebraska was just fine thank you, and didn't require any adjustments. But when the question of voter I.D. was up for a vote by petition initiative, these same Republicans insisted that our elections weren't secure and we needed additional hurdles for voters to leap over. For anyone who lives in a city where there's a handy DMV, who owns a car or is close to reliable public transportation and can afford the fee required to get a license, an I.D. requirement doesn't seem onerous. But in many areas it's not so clear cut. In Nebraska, many DMV offices had to close because they could not staff them. In many states the voter I.D. requirements "coincidently" are most burdensome in areas that tend to vote Democratic.
What problem is being solved by instituting voter I.D.? Why, it's the problem of too many people voting for Democrats!
In a democratic republic, one might be forgiven for assuming that the goal would be to make it as easy as possible for as many people as possible to vote. And some jurisdictions do try to make it easy. Many states loosened restrictions during the Covid pandemic and there are states where voting is completely done by mail (Nebraska's rural counties have gone to all-mail voting). But for many people voting isn't easy. Election Day is on a day when most people work. Many states and cities limit the number of drop boxes. Even mail-in voting can be a Byzantine process of signing, initialing and dating multiple papers and envelopes. Republican groups routinely go to court to get ballots invalidated for failing to cross their "t"s and dot their "i"s. Not because they care about election integrity, but because it's becoming increasingly harder for them to win over a majority of voters.
Until the 2016 presidential election there was no widespread perception that there was any problem with our elections. Trump, with no basis for saying so, started publicly questioning whether it would be a fair election. He won, which one would think would undercut his argument, but he then started claiming that even though Clinton had received more votes than he did, millions of non-citizens had voted, "explaining" her "winning" the popular vote. He created an election integrity commission, which despite being staffed with his sycophants, found no election irregularities and was disbanded after a few months. And we all know what happened after the 2020 election that he lost. In the wake of the failed attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election, Republicans throughout the country put into place many new laws that ostensibly increased election security, but in reality made it harder to vote: shortening early voting windows, restricting mail-in voting, eliminating drop boxes, restricting absentee voting, disallowing some types of I.D.'s, or purging voter rolls with short notice.
In Florida a referendum restoring voting rights to convicted felons who had completed their sentences was neutered by the legislature by throwing up roadblocks that were virtually impossible to clear. In Nebraska the Secretary of State unilaterally decided that a law restoring voting rights to former incarcerated individuals was unconstitutional and refused to accept registrations until the State Supreme Court ruled that he lacked the authority. In Nebraska there have been multiple challenges to referendums: An end run around a successful petition drive to repeal a bill giving public money to private schools involved the Republican-majority legislature repealing the original bill and substituting a similar one (a second petition received enough signatures to get on the ballot tomorrow); two medical marijuana petitions are being challenged in court because a notary failed to follow procedure involving a small percentage of signatures; what could have been a simple yes/no vote on abortion rights has been confused as a second referendum claiming to protect women and children is also on the ballot. In Ohio, the legislature attempted to increase the threshold for passing a constitutional amendment for 50%+ to 60% (they failed).
Given enough time I could point to numerous other examples.
In a nation where there is no credible evidence of "cheating" or "rigging", where the elections are free, fair and secure, what is the purpose of making it more difficult to vote?
I think I'll be voting for the party that wants me to vote.
