Washington election officials announced a preliminary review of a federal list of more than 400 alleged noncitizen voters has already uncovered U.S. citizens, inactive voters and people who are not currently registered. The revelation renews concerns about the accuracy of the Trump administration’s expanding effort to identify supposedly ineligible voters.
Secretary of State Steve Hobbs (D) disclosed the findings Wednesday in a blistering response to the Department of Justice (DOJ), which this week threatened litigation unless Washington stopped processing ballots tied to people on a list supplied by the Department of Homeland Security.
“A preliminary investigation confirms what your letter acknowledges: This list includes United States citizens and is not reliable,” Hobbs wrote. He said refusing to process a registered voter’s ballot without individualized proof of ineligibility would be “both irresponsible and illegal.”
Goodness if they put me on the list and try to refuse my vote, they gonna have to deal with me and liberty and justice for all! Don’t tread on me lol.
I was always under the impression that elections were held by the state and the federal government has no jurisdiction there.
The current administration doesn’t care about silly things like law and precedent.
Ohio is voting on an amendment related to voting, and the summary on the ballot is basically “people need to show ID in order to vote”.
I didn’t read up on the amendment before I cast my vote, but upon reading the ballot my first thought was “we already do this… so what is the purpose of this bill”. It went on to explain some other rules for what counts as identification and what not, and I just voted “no” to the amendment.
Later I had a conversation with my wife about it, and the general idea was:
- We already show ID in order to vote
- If we already show ID to vote, then an amendment to require it doesn’t make it required, but changes what is required.
- If it changes what is required, then most likely it is to make it harder for people to vote, and to give an excuse to remove valid votes from the registered voters.
- If the goal is to be able to just “pick who is valid and who isn’t” then it is just an legal platform to remove the votes the people in power don’t want to have counted
The bigger issue is that voter ID laws have been ruled unconstitutional. It is a simple argument: the 14th Amendment requires that the goverment cannot put any “undue burden” on the right to vote; since voter ID only prevents in-person voter fraud (which is proven to be virtually nonexistent) then any cost or burden to voter ID restrictions are weighed against absolutely zero benefit.
You cannot require U.S. citizens to jump through any additional hoops when the benefit to do so is measurably zero. Voter ID laws are as constitutional as requiring everybody to have a fresh haircut in order to vote.
they’re riding the magat train to enshrine motor-voter into the constitution which is harder to change or repeal than a simple legislated state law… which could also violate some other part of the constitution if it wasn’t in it itself.
Every attempt to make voting harder is an attempt to restrict and subvert the vote. The claim is securing elections, but raising ID requirements addresses a problem that doesn’t exist on a scale that can make a difference, it only disenfranchises the poor who may not have or be able to obtain a special new ID.
If voting ID is required then they need to be free, easily obtainable, and voting days need to be declared, paid holidays.
I think this is a better response to trying to do a full breakdown of how many of each category are wrong or missing. If there are citizens on the list at all the DHS didn’t do their job and the list is an unreliable threat to lawful voters. No citizens should ever be on such a list. If you don’t know who’s a citizen you have no business making such a list at all.
Saying “it’s mostly wrong, here’s X citizens, Y people who have never been registered, Z people that don’t live here in the first place” puts the onus on the voting official to investigate every name and gives conservatives ammo to pretend everyone not accounted for is an illegal voter.
I hope obvious political stunt list leads to real problems for the list makers.
I hope obvious political stunt list leads to real problems for the list makers.
I think they’re not actually going for a stunt to win political points. Instead, I think they’re trying to create a legal pretext to challenge the results of the election when the GOP get voted out. They’ll refuse to relinquish power citing some well meaning historical laws regarding election results exceptions as a justification for their autocracy. Even if they finally concede under the rule of the courts, they may be going to just extend their control and influence beyond the established time when they should have been gone.
But are they the right kind of citizens?
