I’m a conservative. I don’t mind the liberal stuff here. It’s good to learn the other side, but I don’t want a liberal echo chamber. I’d like to be more politically balanced in the fediverse. Is there any way I can do that?
I’m a conservative. I don’t mind the liberal stuff here. It’s good to learn the other side, but I don’t want a liberal echo chamber. I’d like to be more politically balanced in the fediverse. Is there any way I can do that?
I’m thinking specifically of gerrymandering but this article covers the many voter disenfranchisement methods used by Republicans in the US in the past decades:
https://news.berkeley.edu/2020/09/29/stacking-the-deck-how-the-gop-works-to-suppress-minority-voting/
ETA: I see you wrote that you “live in a country where identification is required for voting” so you might not understand the American history of voter suppression. This article should give a good introduction. There are many more methods being used today, including requiring IDs. Many, many more methods.
Maybe it’s just me but I’m ok with convicted felons not being able to vote.
Registering to vote using and then presenting a federally issued government ID is a good thing. It stops voter fraud dead in its tracks. Why are people against this? Because it supposedly disadvantages minorities? It doesn’t. They can get a federally issued ID just as easily as anyone else.
Felony disenfranchisement is a relic of the Jim Crow era. It’s an incentive to arrest and convict POC on false charges of a felony so that their rights are permanently stripped away. Restoring the right to vote lessens this incentive.
https://www.vox.com/voting-rights/21440014/prisoner-felon-voting-rights-2020-election
If you’re interested in learning more, please check out this book:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_Jim_Crow
Re voter ID laws, this is from the ACLU’s fact sheet on voter IDs:
-Minority voters disproportionately lack ID. Nationally, up to 25% of African-American citizens of voting age lack government-issued photo ID, compared to only 8% of whites.
-States exclude forms of ID in a discriminatory manner. Texas allows concealed weapons permits for voting, but does not accept student ID cards. Until its voter ID law was struck down, North Carolina prohibited public assistance IDs and state employee ID cards, which are disproportionately held by Black voters. And until recently, Wisconsin permitted active duty military ID cards, but prohibited Veterans Affairs ID cards for voting.
-Voter ID laws are enforced in a discriminatory manner. A Caltech/MIT study found that minority voters are more frequently questioned about ID than are white voters.
-Voter ID laws reduce turnout among minority voters. Several studies, including a 2014 GAO study, have found that photo ID laws have a particularly depressive effect on turnout among racial minorities and other vulnerable groups, worsening the participation gap