The action, which the president has framed as an effort to enhance “election integrity”, directs the Department of Homeland Security to work with the Social Security Administration to create a national voter list and share that with states.
It also directs the postmaster general to require all mail-in and absentee ballots to be placed in “secure ballot envelopes” with official markings, and the postal service to send mail-in ballots only to those on the list, and orders the attorney general to withhold federal funds from “non-compliant” states and cities. Under the order, the attorney general is also supposed to prioritize the investigation and prosecution of election officials and others who distribute federal ballots to ineligible voters.
There’s always the obvious point that those arguing that the vote should be insecure well, why are they?
There’s also that historical point that it’s been the Feds who ensured the validity of the vote – it wasn’t the states and the counties that allowed the darkies to vote now, was it?
On the other hand the idea that a national database is going to be accurate, well, pfffft.
Accurate? Not ever….
It *would*, however, force the Fossils off their arses and upgrade their citizen’s registration from something that already started to leak and creak in the 19th C. and hasn’t really been updated since into something more in line with modern practice.
It’ll be a bloody mess either way…
Can we have the same here?
Perhaps some sort of verification is in order. Let’s call it a Digital ID 🙂
Nothing wrong with a digital ID in and of itself.
Us Cloggies have it , and it works just fine.
Of course, it doesn’t have the sheer scope and per/invasiveness the UKie government, or our EU Overlords seem to aim for.
Wouldn’t work here to begin with. Something about herding cats…
Like any system, it’s all in how you implement and use it.
They’re admitting that requiring proof of citizenship would reduce their vote:
A March 2025 election executive order sought sweeping changes of how elections are run, including adding a documentary proof-of-citizenship requirement to the federal voter registration form and requiring mailed ballots to be received at election offices by election day.
Much of Trump’s effort has been blocked through legal challenges brought by voting rights groups and Democratic state attorneys general who allege it is an unconstitutional power-grab that would disenfranchise large groups of voters.
AIUI from listening to a former political science professor who is one of those rare breeds on the classic liberal end of the spectrum, the Founding Fathers always meant for the states to organise their own election. He reckoned what Trump is doing is grey area but personally thought OK because all he is saying is they have to apply the laws that are in place.
I think originally most of the Electoral College were appointed by their State, not voted on. It was supposed to bring together wise and knowledgeable men who would deliberate and decide on the most suitable candidate.
Ha.
The Democrats are basically claiming that women and black people are too stupid to vote. The GOP should be running ads taking the piss out of the Dems for this.
A Nation State is a formal structure having documentary proof of its existence. Citizenship of that state is a formal condition which also requires documentary proof. It follows that if the State has a democratic government for which Citizens vote, they must prove their citizenship and eligibility with said evidence, or the outcome will be distorted by every non-citizen Tom, Dick, Harry and stiff chipping in.
Which is what happens now, by intention, because favoured outcomes.
The UK pretends it still has a world-spanning Empire and allows anybody with a pulse to step off a ‘plane and immediately walk into a election office and register.
In other areas we don’t need documentary proof. If I allege that I own a table (maybe when I am selling it), it is generaly taken on trust that I am truthful. And cases where people are not truthful are supposed to be dealt with (e.g. theft) under the principle of innocent until proven guilty.
In the case of voting, where there is a register of those eligible to vote, it’s quite practical to take it on trust that someone turning up to vote is who they say they are. If they are lying, they must pretend to be someone who is eleigible and risk that they have already voted, thereby immediately triggering an investigation, or that they will later attempt to vote, also revealing the fraud. Only when there is evidence of sufficient fraud should further action be taken. That does not necessitate requring voters to prove who they are – they could be photographed as they are given ballot papers and the photos checked later if there is reasonable suspicion that many non-eligible people had voted.
It’s like searching customers when they leave a shop to see if they have stolen anythng – a gross overreaction except in very rare circumstances.
Dunno where you do your shopping, Charles, but…… Shop Theft… not so rare…
That’s the point. I don’t get searched when I leave a shop even though theft is far more common than election fraud (and costs more too).
I wondered if on-the-day voters were cross subsidising postal voters in the UK so googled it and “Once you have marked your ballot paper and completed the postal voting statement, put everything in the pre-addressed envelope and post it. The envelope is pre-paid so there’s no need to add a stamp.”
So the answer is yes. I wonder if the USA has this mad scheme.
Joe Biden got 81 million votes in 2020. Allegedly. A statistical impossibility. Wholesale mail in ballots during the scamdemic enabled Democrat cheating to reach record levels.
Voter ID and control of mail in voting are necessary “to save our democracy.”
On the basis of distributed efficiency, I had always thought that elecoral registration was local and you form a national database by copying it *upwards* (that’s how the UK electoral commission gets their data). If Tim is correct I didn’t realise that in the US it was a national responsibility delegated downwards. If they go further and make it a national database copied downwards, it will crash under its own weight and inefficiency.
Yeah, I’m not sure what he’s saying. My voter registration is with the county. The county runs elections. Years with presidential elections, the county puts the candidates names and party on the ballot. Presumably, they get a list from the feds.
Yeah, I think there’s some confusion here. Although the Feds have some oversight over eligibility to vote in Federal elections, they have traditionally devolved everything to do with elibility and registration to the states, as the Constitution seems to direct, and states typically assign these responsibilities to county clerks.
Contrary to popular misbelief, even prior to the Late Unpleasantness, there were very few state laws and no Federal laws that specifically said ‘black men can’t vote’. Most laws that created voter suppression were based on property ownership, poll taxes or arbitrary things like literacy tests. Not so very different to the requirements in many European countries at the time. Free blacks could and did vote throughout the C19.
llater,
llamas
States must have total control of their votes. Except when the Feds tell them otherwise. And only the Feds I approve of!
As is well documented, fraudulent voting is insignificant, because, obviously, almost no one would be willing to commit a felony to increase a candidate’s vote tally by one.
The point of this proposed legislation is to make it harder for poor people to vote, lest they vote for the wrong side. As well you know, Tim.