They Are Not Protecting Elections. They Are Controlling Them.

Let’s be clear about what is happening.

Republicans are not arguing about voter ID.

They are arguing about who gets to vote.

Kristi Noem just said the quiet part out loud when she said “we’ve been proactive to make sure we have the right people voting…” HUH?

They keep pushing this idiotic, bad-faith talking point:

“It’s insulting to suggest Black voters and women can’t obtain ID.”
Suddenly they care what Black people and women think.

Then comes the barroom logic:

“I can’t even buy a Coors Light or board a plane without showing ID.”

That is not the argument.

No Democrat is saying people are incapable of getting identification.

What we are saying is this:

When you create unnecessary barriers to solve a problem that barely exists, you are not protecting democracy. You are manipulating it.

And Democrats need a full-throated clapback now, before these false equivalencies calcify through repetition. Because if you repeat a ridiculous lie enough times, people start to treat it like common sense. See trump.

There are multiple layers to the voter ID issue.

First: documented voter fraud is vanishingly rare, generally ranging between 0.0003% and 0.0025%.

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Second: even data compiled by the conservative Heritage Foundation found only 77 instances of noncitizens voting between 1999 and 2023.

Seventy-seven.

Third: most people do not mind showing a driver’s license. But that is not what Republicans are pushing anymore. Under the SAVE Act, many voters would now be required to produce a birth certificate and or passport.

Fourth: married women who changed their last names may face additional hurdles, because their married name will not match the name on their birth certificate.

So the question becomes obvious.

Why?

Why are we erecting all these new obstacles to participate in democracy to guard against a statistical anomaly?

Passports are not free. They are not cheap. And they do not arrive in a few days.