Cartoon: How Could It Be Hard To Get Voter I.D.?


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I think my first official government ID was a passport at age fourteen or so, when my family took a trip to Italy. I didn’t arrange my own passport, of course – probably my mom took care of that.

At age fifteen I took driving lessons and got a learner’s permit, and I had parents and school to pay for and handhold me through that process.

Since then I’ve almost always had a passport and either a driver’s license or a state non-driver ID. And even when they lapsed, I’ve always been in a position to renew them when I needed to. Renewing is always easier than getting new.

(Although there was one time when I was broke and couldn’t renew without a copy of my birth certificate which I couldn’t afford at first and when I finally could it took months for New York to mail it to me.)

For someone like me, it can be hard to imagine why some people find it hard to get a government photo ID. It’s (almost) always been easy for me, right?

There are two ways to go from there. First is to actually do some research. Listen to the stories of people who have had trouble getting ID.

Alternatively, one could just assume that anyone who doesn’t have a photo ID is stupid and lazy. Which seems to be the favorite response on the right.


Warning: This post is going to be really long, because I want to paste in some of the quotes I found.

The big problem writing this cartoon, for me, was that real stories are messy and nuanced and don’t fit into a word balloon with room for 35 words at most. (And it’s better to use less words, since when readers see a big block of text many of them skim or skip).

For instance, I really wanted to include this story, from Samantha Adams, who has married twice and divorced once. When she moved to Indiana she found out she couldn’t get an ID without legal documentation, not just for her current name, but for each name change she’d been through.

I would have to provide a copy of my 1st marriage license, divorce papers and copy of my 2nd marriage license. Really? We just moved! Had no idea where to find the first two docs. She told me I’d have to request copies from the courts who have them. That’s not free or fast. […]

I worked with seniors. Think about little old ladies who don’t have drivers licenses. How could they possibly jump through all these hoops and get all these documents? What about poor folks? Copies of legal documents aren’t free.   Voter ID laws do suppress votes. I get it now.

Researching this cartoon, I found a legal ruling, Veasey v. Perry, which documented stories from many Americans who had trouble getting ID in Texas.

One thing that you find, when you research this, is that a surprising number of people (especially older people) were never issued birth certificates. Quoting Texas Representative Martinez Fischer:

In our subcommittee, gosh, we went down to Brownsville and we took testimony on the very issue that you heard from Mr. Lara earlier, which was people—a lot of people, especially in rural areas or along the border who were birthed by midwives or were born on farms, didn’t have the requisite birth certificates and were in limbo.

A transgender woman named Stephanie Lynn Dees was in the process of legally changing her name – a process that can be opaque, expensive and slow. She worried about being turned away from the polls because “I don’t really match my photograph and you always get people who just don’t like transgender people….”

Transportation is a big issue:

Some of the Plaintiffs without SB 14 ID do not have the ability or the means to drive. Four of them—Ms. Clark, Mr. Gandy, Mr. Benjamin, and Mr. Taylor—rely almost exclusively on public transportation. The lack of personal transportation adds to both the time and the cost of collecting the underlying documents. Mr. Taylor, who was recently homeless, declared that he sometimes cannot afford a bus pass.

And for those who can afford the fare, like Mr. Gandy, it can take an hour to reach the nearest DPS office. Others, like Mr. Estrada and Mrs. Espinoza are forced to rely on the kindness of family and friends to move about town, much less for a 60–mile roundtrip ride to the nearest DPS station. Mr. Lara, who is nearing his eightieth birthday, testified that he has to ride his bicycle when he is unable to find a car ride.

As is cost. (Unsurprisingly, all of these barriers are more likely to come up for Black and Latin Americans – one reason the GOP is so eager to have voter ID required.)

Kristina Mora worked for a non-profit organization in Dallas, Texas, The Stew Pot, which assists the homeless who are trying to get a photo ID to obtain jobs or housing. She testified that her indigent clients regularly number 50 to 70 per day….

According to Ms. Mora, these clients confront four general barriers to getting necessary ID: (1) understanding and navigating the process; (2) financial hardship; (3) investment of time; and (4) facing DPS or any type of law enforcement The Stew Pot and CAM, exist in part, to help with the first barrier and to an extent, the second barrier. These two witnesses testified that it costs on average, $45.00 to $100.00 per person in document and transportation costs to get a photo ID.

It generally takes an individual two trips to obtain the necessary documents to get an ID. Many homeless individuals do not have a birth certificate or other underlying documents because they have nowhere to secure them and they get lost, stolen, or confiscated by police. Furthermore, most are not in communication with their families and cannot get assistance with any part of this process. Ms. Mora testified that it generally takes about one hour to get to DPS or the necessary office, one hour to stand in line and be served, and one hour to return to the shelter. This generally has to be done in the morning because homeless shelters have early afternoon curfews.

The $45.00 cost to obtain a Texas ID card is equivalent to what these clients would pay for a two-week stay in a shelter.

From a story reported by Sari Horwitz for The Washington Post:

In his wallet, Anthony Settles carries an expired Texas identification card, his Social Security card and an old student ID from the University of Houston, where he studied math and physics decades ago. What he does not have is the one thing that he needs to vote this presidential election: a current Texas photo ID.

For Settles to get one of those, his name has to match his birth certificate — and it doesn’t. In 1964, when he was 14, his mother married and changed his last name. After Texas passed a new voter-ID law, officials told Settles he had to show them his name-change certificate from 1964 to qualify for a new identification card to vote.

So with the help of several lawyers, Settles tried to find it, searching records in courthouses in the D.C. area, where he grew up. But they could not find it. To obtain a new document changing his name to the one he has used for 51 years, Settles has to go to court, a process that would cost him more than $250 — more than he is willing to pay….

After Texas implemented its new law, Randall went to the Department of Public Safety (the Texas agency that handles driver’s licenses and identification cards) three times to try to get a photo ID to vote. Each time Randall was told he needed different items. First, he was told he needed three forms of identification. He came back and brought his Medicaid card, bills and a current voter registration card from voting in past elections.

“I thought that because I was on record for voting, I could vote again,” Randall said.

But he was told he still needed more documentation, such as a certified copy of his birth certificate.

Records of births before 1950, such as Randall’s, are not on a central computer and are located only in the county clerk’s office where the person was born.

For Randall, that meant an hour-long drive to Huntsville, where his lawyers found a copy of his birth certificate.

But that wasn’t enough. With his birth certificate in hand, Randall went to the DPS office in Houston with all the necessary documents. But, DPS officials still would not issue him a photo ID because of a clerical mistake on his birth certificate. One letter was off in his last name — “Randell” instead of “Randall” — so his last name was spelled slightly different than on all his other documents.

And Voter ID laws, harmful as they are, are far from the only or even the worst anti-Democracy measures the GOP is pursuing.


Update: I changed panel 3. Here’s the original panel 3.

Someone pointed out to me that deliver drivers pretty much have to have a drivers license in order to get that job.  D’oh!

And apparently I messed up when I wrote that a birth certificate costs $80 – in the more expensive states, it’s more like $30. Depending on the state, a driver’s license can cost up to $89. (I googled these costs in May 2022, of course they’ll change over time).


TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON

This cartoon has four panels, each showing a different scene. In addition, there’s a small “kicker” panel under the fourth panel.

PANEL 1

The panel shows a counter at a fast food restaurant. We can see a couple of customers, and a couple of workers. The workers are wearing hats that very vaguely resemble hamburger buns. A sign on the wall shows a smiling hamburger with eyes, below the caption “Soilent Green YUM.” A smaller sign says “SAFETY” in larger letters followed by tiny print, which says “is a word we use a lot so you can’t sue us.”

The worker at the cash register is turning to speak directly to the reader.

WORKER: To get an official photo I.D., I have to go to the nearest government office, which is 90 miles away, and I don’t have a car, and even if I did my boss won’t give me a weekday off.

PANEL 2

We’re in what looks like someone’s back yard. In the foreground is a garden, with some sort of plant being grown in tidy rows. An elderly woman is kneeling on the ground in front of the garden, wearing a floppy straw hat, an apron with a floral patter, and holding a trowel. She speaks directly to the reader.

WOMAN: I can’t get I.D. without a birth certificate. But when I was born home births didn’t get birth certificates.

PANEL 3

A mover wearing jeans and a black tank top is carrying a sofa as he’s talking to the reader. (Presumably someone else is carrying the other end of the sofa, but that person is outside the panel border). It’s a little dark out, and this appears to be a residential area – he’s on a sidewalk, and there’s some grass and trees and an outdoor wall in the background.

MOVER: The state charges $60 for a driver’s license…. but first I’d need a copy of my birth certificate, which is $30. I can’t afford 90 dollars to vote!

PANEL 4

This panel shows the interior of a coffee shop. There are round tables, a big window showing some houses across the street, and a mural of a smiling coffee mug on the wall. A man and a woman sit together at a table, with mugs of coffee on the table. He is reading from a tablet he’s holding and looking annoyed as he talks. She is looking at a laptop, and doesn’t look up as she responds.

MAN: Why wouldn’t anyone be able to get an I.D.? Idiots!

WOMAN: People like that don’t deserve to vote.

SMALL KICKER PANEL UNDER THE BOTTOM OF THE CARTOON

The man from panel 4 is yelling a bit at a drawing of Barry (the cartoonist).

MAN: If it’s easy for me it must be easy for everybody! That’s just science!


This cartoon on Patreon

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60 Responses to Cartoon: How Could It Be Hard To Get Voter I.D.?

  1. 1
    saucy turtles says:

    My son not only has a different name – and gender! – than on his birth certificate, but my name was entered incorrectly, and the fix for that, in the mid-90s, was done using a typewriter to strike through the incorrect name and type in my correct name. Someone then initialled and dated that correction. It’s been fodder for inside jokes for us over the years, but what do you think is the likelihood that the coming fascist regime will accept this as documentation for anything?

  2. 2
    Görkem says:

    I’m sure we can all agree that we’re eagerly awaiting RonF’s insightful comments on this post.

  3. 3
    Görkem says:

    “what do you think is the likelihood that the coming fascist regime will accept this as documentation for anything?”

    I mean if you’re a straight white man, I’d say the odds are pretty bloody good.

  4. 4
    Joe in Australia says:

    These are very real problems but they shouldn’t be. It’s crazy that confirming people’s identity is so frequently important for executing government business and yet there’s no simple and consistent way to do it. Here in Australia we typically have to prove our identity by producing documents such as a passport, birth certificate, driver’s license etc., with each document assigned a number of points. You need “100 points” for your identity to be proven. It’s good to have a formalised rather than arbitrary system, but the need for different documents shows that none of them is really considered to be adequate proof even though the government itself issued them.

    As for inconsistencies and name changes, I always urge people to solve documentation problems (if they can!) as early as possible because it can be hard or impossible to do it when there’s a crisis. Also, it’s often much cheaper to request multiple copies at the time a document is issued than at a later date. Having valid and unchallengeable documentation can literally be the difference between life and death for a refugee.

  5. 5
    Görkem says:

    @Joe: Australia isn’t a great system when it comes to identity proof either, 2bh.

    The obvious solution is a European-style universal ID card, but there is a very high political cost to introducing these in Anglo-Saxon countries.

    My European and Asian colleagues often express shock and disbelief when told there’s no such thing as an Australian ID card or a British ID card, but, there it is.

  6. 6
    RonF says:

    Actually, I accept all the first 3 panels as valid issues in requiring an ID to vote. IIRC the issues in panels 1 and 3 have been brought up before on this blog. But I view them as things to be fixed, not as reasons to invalidate Voter ID laws. I should think the ACLU, the SPLC or various other civil rights organizations could put pressure or even file lawsuits to force States or counties to provide temporary offices or mobile registration units in rural areas, lower fees (here in Illinois fees are lowered or even waived for people who are indigent, homeless, disabled, seniors, etc.), or to make some manner of accommodation for people with no official record of their birth.

    By no means do I discount that a failure in a State’s or county’s failure to do such things may well be based on either racism or partisanship. But my opinion is that the solution is to overcome those issues.

  7. 7
    RonF says:

    Joe, what complicates things in the U.S. is that the ID you use for most things in your life are issued by the State, not the Federal government, and each State sets its own requirements. The obvious exception is obtaining a passport for international travel, but apparently only about 1/3 of Americans have a valid passport. The key to a State ID is that while it establishes that the State has verified your identity, you can get one without being a citizen. After all, there’s no reason why a non-citizen who is legally in the U.S. should not be able to drive, buy alcohol, open a bank account, cash a check, etc. So unless a State ID has some kind of indication on it that differentiates a citizen from a non-citizen it would not be valid to establish that you are eligible to vote.

  8. 8
    Doug says:

    @7 seems to me that if that’s a known problem, then anyone introducing bills to require voter ID would have to also include provisions to supply those voter ID’s in ways that solve these common well known problems. FI they don’t, then they’re admitting pretty openly that it’s about suppression and not fraud prevention. in fact, many times they say outright that it’s about keeping the “wrong” people from voting. The burden of proof/solutions should be on the people who want to require ID. Not on rights groups.

    It feels incredibly disingenuous, to the point of willful ignorance, that you’d invoke organizations with goals that clearly don’t align with yours and ask them to solve problems created by political orgs you support. I’m a long time lurker and read the comments though, so I know it’s par for the course for Ron.

  9. 9
    Corso says:

    Following up on Ron’s comment, with which I basically agree, it seems from an outsider’s perspective that this is one of the situations where the reality of mainstream conservative opinion will not match the caricatured version held up as the progressive boogeyman.

    While I’m sure that everyone has a case or two in their arsenal of some petty tyrant of an official legitimately trying to keep people from voting, my expectation is that most Republicans are being honest when they say that they think elections should be fair, and ID is one of the checks of a healthy democracy…. They may not say it that well, but it is what it is. If the response to that was more often something like “let’s make getting an ID easier” as opposed to the reality of current discourse, you’d probably be pleasantly surprised by the outcome and generally better off.

  10. 10
    RonF says:

    what do you think is the likelihood that the coming fascist regime will accept this as documentation for anything?

    1. Well, hopefully the GOP will take Congress in 2022 and stop the progress towards fascism.
    2. A birth certificate with information crossed out and the change initialed? I’m astounded that it’s taken as legitimate by anyone now! I’m sure it’ll be a royal PITA but I’d get something a little more official. I did a check and here in extremely Democrat-run Illinois there’s no way that would be accepted. For example, to get your license or State ID card upgraded to a “Real ID” you would have to file a name change request and present both the original birth certificate and the approved name change request upon applying for the upgrade.

  11. 11
    Dianne says:

    Well, hopefully the GOP will take Congress in 2022 and stop the progress towards fascism.

    In what alternative reality is the party that is sponsoring voter suppression laws, the party of Trump, going to stop fascism? They’re openly endorsing it. (Yes, I know that your comment was intended to elicit this question, but I’m still wondering how anyone who has paid the slightest attention to the news can possibly think that the Republican party is not explicitly fascist. It’s practically their platform.)

  12. 12
    Dianne says:

    After all, there’s no reason why a non-citizen who is legally in the U.S. should not be able to drive, buy alcohol, open a bank account, cash a check, etc.

    I’ve done all that in countries where I’m a foreigner without having to get any specific ID from the country in question. I don’t absolutely know that the US will accept a foreign driver’s license or ID card as ID for driving, buying alcohol, etc, but I would assume it follows the free world in this regard. Therefore, where is the problem? The state can issue an ID that allows residents to vote and allow foreigners (or even out of staters if we’re talking about an ID issued on the state level of government rather than an ID issued by the state of the United States) to use appropriate ID issued by their government to drive, buy alcohol, etc.

  13. 13
    Görkem says:

    “my expectation is that most Republicans are being honest when they say that they think elections should be fair”

    Well that’s definitely… an expectation.

  14. 14
    Dianne says:

    The Republicans demonstrating their dedication to stopping the progress towards fascism. Or not.

    From: http://https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/may-18-2022?s=r” rel=”nofollow”

    “The House also voted today on the Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act of 2022, which steps up the sharing of information about domestic terrorism among government departments and creates an interagency task force to analyze and combat white supremacist and neo-Nazi infiltration of the uniformed services and federal law enforcement agencies. The House passed the bill by a vote of 222 to 203. All the no votes came from Republicans; all the Democrats voted in favor. It now goes on to the Senate.”

  15. 15
    JaneDoh says:

    Where I currently live, there are huge number of things accepted as ID for voting. One of them is the voter card mailed to you + another form of ID. Things anyone with a house might have (like utility bills). If you don’t have any of that, another person with ID can vouch for you. I would agree that the main goal of voter ID laws was to establish identity if things like that were written in to the laws. Most of the newer voter ID laws act like a poll tax, requiring something expensive to prove ID.

    FWIW, I was shocked that our original birth certificates from the 70’s (which do in fact look like something someone printed up at home and wrote on) were accepted as ID. And not in the states we were born in. We had to pay $75-100 each to get “updated” versions to use abroad (I don’t live in the US anymore). One of our fancy new birth certificates is a photocopy of that random piece of handwritten paper on new fancy bureaucratic-style official looking paper. We fortunately already have passports, so we never have to rely on birth certificates to prove identity, but I can see how it would be a real problem for someone whose only form of “official” ID is an old birth certificate.

  16. 16
    Ampersand says:

    So unless a State ID has some kind of indication on it that differentiates a citizen from a non-citizen it would not be valid to establish that you are eligible to vote.

    That’s what voter rolls are for.

  17. 17
    Corso says:

    For what it’s worth, my experience is very similar to Jane’s, and I think it’s fair. Best option is a driver’s license, Next option is another form of government issued, photo ID (there’s a couple), next step is a voter card and two pieces of mail, next is affirmation (A friend says you are who you say you are and signs a paper to that extent).

    In fact, this last election, I had a heck of a time voting because I’d just moved, updated my driver’s license, and the temporary paper copy was not good enough. I didn’t have a different form of photo-ID, and while I did have my voter card, I was short a utility bill. I had a friend who could affirm, but didn’t end up needing to because I did a last ditch check at the post office and was lucky enough to have mail. Whole process took maybe a half hour more than usual, and I had no one but myself to blame.

  18. 18
    JaneDoh says:

    I should also say that where I live now we have universal health care for residents, which provides all eligible with a photo ID. That is another easy way to provide cheap photo ID for a huge percentage of eligible voters that the US loses out on.

  19. 19
    harlemjd says:

    Dianne – yes, a foreign national can use their home-country ID as proof of age/identity. There are some exceptions to that where the proof required to get the ID in question is known to be more lax than the US finds acceptable, but as a general rule you should be fine, barring stupidity from the cashier.

    Foreign or international driver’s licenses are also fine, BUT in the US you are supposed to have a license issued from the place where you LIVE, so if you’ve moved to the US, you are supposed to get licensed by the state in which you are living (and people who move between states are supposed to get a new license as well).

  20. 20
    RonF says:

    “I don’t absolutely know that the US will accept a foreign driver’s license or ID card as ID for driving,”

    Nope. You need a drivers license from the State you reside in.

    “buying alcohol”

    They don’t have to take it. And good luck getting someone who’s never seen one before to accept it.

    “The state can issue an ID that allows residents to vote and allow foreigners (or even out of staters if we’re talking about an ID issued on the state level of government rather than an ID issued by the state of the United States) to use appropriate ID issued by their government to drive, buy alcohol, etc.”

    A foreigner that is legally in the U.S. can get the State he or she resides in to issue them an ID that would be good for obtaining goods and services that you can otherwise legally purchase. But the issue is that while you can tell in a glance at the card if someone can legally purchase alcohol with it (e.g., in Ilinois a minor’s ID or DL is printed in portrait mode, but the one for someone 21 or over is printed in landscape mode), in most States those IDs do not designate whether or not you are a citizen.

  21. 21
    Görkem says:

    “Nope. You need a drivers license from the State you reside in.”

    The key is -reside-. If you don’t reside in the USA, you can indeed use a foreign driving license (sometimes you also need an IDP, but you don’t need an American license).

  22. 22
    Corso says:

    I’m sorry, but those are some really weird takes.

    “Nope. You need a drivers license from the State you reside in.”

    “They don’t have to take it. And good luck getting someone who’s never seen one before to accept it.”

    “A foreigner that is legally in the U.S. can get the State he or she resides in to issue them an ID that would be good for obtaining goods and services that you can otherwise legally purchase.”

    It’s like you’ve never heard of tourism. There’s an entire industry that desperately wants you to take a flight somewhere using your foreign passport, rent a car with your foreign license, and drink yourself silly with your proof of age ID. I can’t think of anything I wasn’t able to do with my Canadian driver’s license my last trip to Vegas.

  23. 23
    RonF says:

    O.K., I’ll confess I was thinking of someone who was residing in the U.S., not a tourist. And if you’re in an area where people are used to dealing with tourists, I can see where you could get services based on a foreign ID. And Vegas? Hell, if you wanted to pick a place in the U.S. where you can get away with just about anything, Vegas comes in about #2 just below New Orleans.

    Americans tend to look at Canada as not quite a foreign country anyway. Heck, I spent American currency when I’ve gone to Canada, and sometimes even gotten back American currency in change. Try that in Japan or France and see how far you get.

    Amp @ 16:

    “That’s what voter rolls are for.”

    True. But my point was that such an ID alone is insufficient for establishing eligibility to vote. Which makes me wonder how same-day voter registration on Election Day works in the States where they have it.

  24. 24
    Dianne says:

    This would probably all be simpler if we just had an anmeldung/abmeldung system like in Germany. When you move, deregister at the place of last residence, register at the place of new residence. Your voter registration could move at the same time with no additional work. Of course, this would depend on the places of registration being convenient to access (both in location and times that they are open), requirements for demonstrating residency being free and easy to obtain, and the bureaucracy generally working with reasonable efficiency.

    Also, this may be a bit of American exceptionalism, but why not let foreign nationals who reside in the US vote? US foreign policy, which is partly determined by who is in office, has a major effect on the entire world. Shouldn’t all people affected by the policy have a say in it? (Note: This is an idea I’m trying out, not a hill I’m prepared to die on. Please adjust your reaction accordingly.)

  25. 25
    Görkem says:

    “US foreign policy, which is partly determined by who is in office, has a major effect on the entire world. Shouldn’t all people affected by the policy have a say in it?”

    A lot of countries do allow resident non-citizens to vote.

    However, this argument is not so much an argument for resident non-citizens to be allowed to vote, but non-resident non-citizens to vote!

  26. 26
    Görkem says:

    “if you’re in an area where people are used to dealing with tourists, I can see where you could get services based on a foreign ID.”

    I once rented a gun with a foreign ID card in rural Georgia. The guy renting it to me was quite open about never having seen one before.

  27. 27
    Dianne says:

    this argument is not so much an argument for resident non-citizens to be allowed to vote, but non-resident non-citizens to vote!

    Well, yes, I suppose it is. But I didn’t want to make Ron faint by suggesting that right off…Actually, I’m not sure how to work this for maximum fairness: People in other countries besides the US are affected by US policy, but not to the degree that those in the US are. So do they get 1/2 a vote apiece? X votes per country? Does the status of the country (i.e. how wealthy, how entangled with the US) matter? So many questions. That being said, it’s clear that right now people in many countries are suffering because they don’t have any influence on US’s behavior with the usual result that their needs are not considered by the US when it manipulates their governments. So they really should have representation, but how?

  28. 28
    Corso says:

    Well, yes, I suppose it is. But I didn’t want to make Ron faint by suggesting that right off…Actually, I’m not sure how to work this for maximum fairness: People in other countries besides the US are affected by US policy, but not to the degree that those in the US are. So do they get 1/2 a vote apiece? X votes per country? Does the status of the country (i.e. how wealthy, how entangled with the US) matter? So many questions.

    Indeed. How many votes would China or Russia get?

    It depends on what exactly is being voted on, perhaps non-citizen residents might have a part in municipal elections or local school board elections as an example, but I think the rational default is that only citizens should elect their representatives. Actual residency might be the next step in… But past that? It’s like the Boston Tea Party in true reverse: People the world over, not liable to your laws, not paying your taxes, having a say in the laws that govern you.

    America obviously has influence outside it’s border, you export your culture to the world, but I’m not sure that’s an excuse to give other people a say in American policy. Not only aren’t they interested in your well being, but there are a lot of people out there with some very different ideas on how to run things, and in ways that are absolutely antithetical to American values. And I don’t mean “American values” in the campy faux-patriotic Republican way, I mean in the things that you generally agree on.

    And even absent a values discussion, to get well and truly extreme… Why wouldn’t the citizens of India, one of the worst polluters on Earth, vote to ban non-renewable energy consumption in America entirely? People might die from lack of heat in the northern states over the winter, and everything would basically grind to a halt…. but it would be great for your carbon footprint.

  29. 29
    Görkem says:

    “Actual residency might be the next step in… ”

    As I say, a lot of countries do precisely this, without seeming to suffer for it.

    “So they really should have representation”

    This is quite a large can of worms. It’s obviously true that people outside the USA are affected by US policy, but while the USA is the most globally powerful country, it’s not the only one. One could very easily make exactly the same argument for China, and fairly easily for France, the UK, Japan, Russia, India and a slew of other countries. One could even make it in quite narrow circumstances for countries that don’t have a particularly high global profile but still have definable influence outside their borders – e.g. Malaysia’s economy is quite dependent on import/export via the port of Singapore, so should Malaysians be allowed to vote in Singapore? Malaysians might well have more interest in shaping Singaporean elections than American ones.

    It also raises the enormous spectre of non-free elections. China, as the largest single part of the world-outside-America, would be the single largest foreign factor in American elections. Chinese elections for China are not fair, and there is no reason to assume the Chinese government would allow fair elections for America to take place on its soil (the government’s cooperation would be necessary). So any vote given to Chinese people in American elections would be delivered unto the Chinese communist party.

    And we can apply this logic inside America to – California is a huge economy that affects much of the rest of the USA, not least its neighbours. Should Nevadans get a vote in Californian elections?

    Of course the philosophy behind this argument is unimpeachable, the world is interconnected, state borders are often nominal, and when you don’t give people outside the country the right to vote, the incentive to offload problems onto the disenfranchised group is overwhelmingly tempting. But you can’t really solve this -within- the framework of national elections. The real need is to have a global governing body that is elected universally and can set the agenda for global-scale issues (climate change would be an excellent example), although there are clearly massive practical problems (not least the unfair elections problem I already mentioned). I’m sure RonF and Corso will heartily endorse my call for a global superstate that can overrule American policy preferences!

  30. 30
    Dianne says:

    An alternative way of dealing with the problem of the US having unbalanced power might be to break up the US into, say, 5-10 smaller countries each with less power. Balance the power better and the question of what the country is doing becomes less urgent for those outside its border.

  31. 31
    Görkem says:

    “An alternative way of dealing with the problem of the US having unbalanced power might be to break up the US into, say, 5-10 smaller countries each with less power. ”

    Jean-Jacques Rousseau liked this post

    But seriously, even a country with 20% of the USA’s wealth and military power would still be 2nd wealthiest and 2nd most military powerful country in the world.

    Would you like to see any other countries also split up? China, for example? Or do you think this level of global hyperpower is, at least currently, a uniquely American phenomenon?

  32. 32
    RonF says:

    Görkem, @26:

    In rural Georgia? He was probably happy to give someone from another country a chance to use a gun.

    When I was on staff for the 25th World Scout Jamboree Mondial in the hills of West Virginia the shooting facility had to have had at least 300 shooting stations. Shotgun (trap, not skeet), .22 and 9mm handgun, and .22, .223 and (IIRC) .308 rifle. I was on Program Safety Staff (for the whole Jambo, not just shooting) and talked to the staff there. Their estimate was that 60% of the people who showed up had never handled a firearm before and never would again due to the laws of the countries they came from. The lines were over an hour long all over. And the staff was thrilled to give these folks a chance.

    Dianne:

    As Görkem has commented on, acts by countries other than the U.S. affect people in other countries. What he didn’t comment on was that people in the U.S. are affected by what happens in other countries as well. If Germany and other European countries would spend more on defense we could spend less. If they had adopted (and kept) nuclear energy and promoted gas pipelines to Israel and elsewhere Putin would not have had the money to be so bold as to go adventuring in Ukraine. If China would shift energy production away from coal instead of building coal plants by the score we would not have nearly as much CO2 production (and air pollution, especially on the west coast). If the government of Mexico and some South American countries weren’t so corrupt they’d have sounder economies and we wouldn’t have as many people showing up on our southern border. Should the U.S., then, have the right to vote in German, Russian, Mexican, Colombian and Chinese elections?

    Yes, with regards to South and Central America the U.S.’s hands are not clean. Granted. But we are where we are, and if we could vote in their elections we could toss the bastards out and put some reformers in. If you hold that we broke it, it seems to me that we should have the chance to fix it, and I assure you I’m no fan of sending in troops.

  33. 33
    RonF says:

    Görkem:

    Would you like to see any other countries also split up? China, for example?

    There’s plenty of people in China who would like to see China split up. China is not so much a country as it is an empire, much like the U.S.S.R. was before its breakup. Multiple ethnic groups there resent the domination of the Han.

  34. 34
    Corso says:

    I’m sure RonF and Corso will heartily endorse my call for a global superstate that can overrule American policy preferences!

    I know that was in jest, and fair… I don’t think I’d be on board. But…. I don’t think the aspiration is bad, I just don’t think the implementation would work.

    The idea of the UN is good, but the UN in practice is a joke, with some of the worst human rights abusers looking down the bridges of their collective noses at imperfect but relatively decent countries from seats on the Human Rights Council in some of the most pot-kettle-blackery I’ve ever seen in my life. I think a functional UN might give a roadmap for other organizations in the future, but as it stands, it just feels like giving your enemies another weapon to use against you.

  35. 35
    Ampersand says:

    It’s hard to imagine how a one-world government – or a multi-government world in which everyone would have some stake in every country’s governing decisions, no matter where they live – would work.
    When I try to imagine it – how it could actually function, at a pragmatic policy level – I often slip into science fiction territory.

    (Has anyone written a sf story or novel set in a country or would in which John Rawl’s veil of ignorance was actually put into practice? For example, perhaps people volunteer to have their memory of who they are temporarily or permanently wiped in order to join the governing bodies.)

    I don’t know how this would work, practically speaking, but if we’re going to be imagining world government structures that probably will never exist, I’d prefer to see something where the less material well-being any country has, the more say it has in the world government allocating resources and setting trade policies. (Subject to some limits of human rights, of course).

  36. 36
    Lauren says:

    It’s not a one-world-government, but – in theory – the EU represents a model of possible interconnected democracies. Basically, the theory is that every member-country gives up some of its rights to the union, but in turn the people of that country get some powerd over the other countries that are also part of that union through the elected EU–representatives.

    Note that I am not at all saying this is a parfect system. Veto rights lead to a lot of “smallest common denominator” – decisions that hamper progress/ protection of democracy and human rights (The current hungarian and polish governments’ policies and the EU’s struggle to respond are a prime example of this. Plus, despite all the lofty ideals being touted when discussing the goals of the EU, the fact remains that it originated from several different inter-nation-commerce-treaties. Capitalism, not democracy, has always been the driving force, and it shows.

    Still, there are models out there. Of course, non-democratic nations would never join a body that demands – and could theoretically enforce – democracy. And even many democratic nations, while eager to have power over others, would never agree to give up any of their own. Just look at the US and it’s refusal to have US-citizens subject to the international criminal court, while eager to point at other countries’ war crimes.

  37. 37
    Dianne says:

    If Germany and other European countries would spend more on defense we could spend less.

    Or we could spend more. I can easily imagine, “The Germans are rearming!!! You know what happened last time they did that!” as an excuse for increasing the military budget.

    Actually, Germany is spending more on defense now, thanks to Trump’s benefactor in Russia. Has the US even discussed deceasing spending accordingly?

    But we are where we are, and if we could vote in their elections we could toss the bastards out and put some reformers in.

    I have no idea how anyone could possibly look at the last several US elections and inter-election maneuvers of a certain party and say this without a sarcasm tag. The last thing that would help Central and South America is MORE US interference. Decreasing US power and allowing local reformers to be put in place instead of continual US-funded destabilization, that might help.

  38. 38
    Dianne says:

    This is an interesting discussion, IMHO.

    Would you like to see any other countries also split up? China, for example? Or do you think this level of global hyperpower is, at least currently, a uniquely American phenomenon?

    I think China bears watching. If I were the ultimate dictator of Earth with unlimited power to make governments do what I want, China would definitely be on the list of countries whose power might be getting out of control and might need to be split up.

    That being said, I think that currently the level of hyperpower is a uniquely US-American phenomenon. On a related note…

    And we can apply this logic inside America to – California is a huge economy that affects much of the rest of the USA, not least its neighbours. Should Nevadans get a vote in Californian elections?

    I’ve heard it claimed that the primary job of the Canadian prime minister is to keep the giant baby to the south happy. Is the primary job of the governor of Nevada to keep the giant baby to the west happy? Not is it a job of the Nevadan governor, but THE primary job of the Nevadan governor. If it is, then, yeah, something should be done to rebalance power*. If not, the situation is not analogous. It’s not a matter of there being some power imbalance, but a multiple order of magnitude power imbalance. 99% of the countries in the world can’t even mildly inconvenience the US, certainly not without horrific reprisals. Consider what was done to Nicaragua when they failed to follow the US’s orders to the exact letter.

    *I’d advocate for splitting California up first, though. It’s really at least two states jammed together. Splitting it into North California and South California would equalize their representation in the Senate and probably give them a fairer share of the electoral college. Splitting New York into New York City (the state) and New York or maybe North New York could be considered on similar grounds.

  39. 39
    RonF says:

    Amp @ 35 :

    It’s hard to imagine how a one-world government – or a multi-government world in which everyone would have some stake in every country’s governing decisions, no matter where they live – would work.

    Indeed. Local conditions, cultures, resources, etc. basically need to be dealt with on as local a basis as practical. An idea which extends not only to the planet as a whole but even to single nations. Here in the U.S. we call it “federalism”, which is why taking power from the States and giving it to the Federal government is at best inefficient – and we haven’t hit “best” very often.

    I’d prefer to see something where the less material well-being any country has, the more say it has in the world government allocating resources and setting trade policies.

    So a country with few resources than another country could actually have resources taken from that other country and be given to it?

    Would there be any allowance for the origin of the lack of material well-being in the first country being due to misgovernment? Who gets to make THAT call?

  40. 40
    RonF says:

    Dianne:

    Actually, Germany is spending more on defense now, thanks to Trump’s benefactor in Russia.

    Actually Germany had already pledged to start spending more on defense after Trump rightly pointed out that if Germany wasn’t going to live up to Article 3 of the NATO treaty he didn’t see why we should live up to Article 5 (although he worded it with a bit more punch). And Trump’s actions in encouraging domestic energy production and thus driving down the price of oil did tremendous damage to Putin’s ability to wage war. Thank you Joe Biden.

    Has the US even discussed deceasing spending accordingly?

    I hope not. If anything we need to increase the budget to build the Navy back up and get caught up to years of deferred maintenance and training. You spoke of keeping an eye on China. Well, what we see is them claiming a goodly chunk of the Pacific Ocean near Southwest Asia and Oceania as their private pond, making territorial claims and asserting as territorial waters a region that a good 40% or more of all global trade goes through. And building up a blue-water navy to back up their claims. That’s not going to go away by emulating Neville Chamberlain.

    I have no idea how anyone could possibly look at the last several US elections and inter-election maneuvers of a certain party

    Oh please – interference in Central and South American countries has hardly been the domain of one political party in this country.

    and say this without a sarcasm tag.

    I didn’t think I needed one! Not for this group, any.

    The last thing that would help Central and South America is MORE US interference.

    And the last thing that would help the U.S. is to have countries dominated by cartel-corrupted aristocracies interfere in ours. Their main objective would probably to gut ICE, the Border Patrol, and any other agency that would interfere with the further development of the heroin and cocaine markets in this country.

  41. 41
    Dianne says:

    Actually Germany had already pledged to start spending more on defense after Trump rightly pointed out that if Germany wasn’t going to live up to Article 3 of the NATO treaty he didn’t see why we should live up to Article 5 (although he worded it with a bit more punch).

    A decade or so ago, if you had asked me whether event X which would weaken the US’s hold on world domination would be a good thing, I would have said “yes”. But here we have an example of an event (Trump) that clearly damaged the US’s standing in the world but was also clearly a horrific thing for both the US and the world in general. So, yeah, there are things that can both decrease the US’s prestige and power and harm the world in general. Thank you for that reminder.

    Trump’s actions in encouraging domestic energy production and thus driving down the price of oil did tremendous damage to Putin’s ability to wage war.

    What evidence are you basing this extraordinary claim on? Trump was and is Putin’s poodle. His encouragement of destruction of national parks for the extraction of minimal amounts of oil self evidently did not damage Putin’s ability to wage war. Putin’s military is failing largely because of incompetence in the use of their weapons (mostly because of failures at the command level, the underlying structure of the military that does not allow local commanders to act independently, and a certain amount of self-defensive sabotage on the part of the grunts), not because they haven’t been well funded.

    And given that there was an oil glut in the 2010s that meant that at one point crude oil literally could not be given away (the companies were paying to have it carted away and stored by someone else–admittedly, that was a transient event), I don’t see how adding more oil extraction did anyone any good. Actual oil producers who were extracting oil for profit, not for political gain and sheer malice, were capping oil wells during this time period because there was no point. The glut may have lessened Putin’s ability to ramp up military spending somewhat, Trump’s actions, not at all.

    Finally, Putin’s international income was decreased by sanctions, which the US did join in on. Some were imposed prior to 2016, some after 2020, but none during Trump’s administration.

  42. 42
    Dianne says:

    I hope [that the US does not decrease military spending in response to Germany increasing theirs]. If anything we need to increase the budget to build the Navy back up and get caught up to years of deferred maintenance and training.

    Well, there you go: conservatives will inevitably find an excuse for why the military budget needs to be increased, no matter whether their demands are met or not. So there’s absolutely no point in meeting their demands. It won’t help.

  43. 43
    Ampersand says:

    So a country with few resources than another country could actually have resources taken from that other country and be given to it?

    Nope, that’s more extreme than anything I suggested. Think of it like the mechanisms which you favor which give the more rural (and whiter) states in the US more sway. A vote in Idaho has more power, on a national level, than a voter in New York. But it doesn’t follow from this that Idaho can simply demand “take New York’s supply of fresh water and truck it to us in Idaho.”

    I think where your inference falls down is that “X has greater power in the system than Y” doesn’t have to mean “X has absolute power and Y has zero power.”

    In the real world, there’s a strong tendency for the wealthy and powerful to hoard their wealth and power, leaving the poor and powerless stuck in that state, which is unfair because poverty inherently sucks for those experiencing it. I think it makes sense to try and think of mechanisms to push against that tendency for the wealthy and powerful to be able to prevent any changes to the status quo.

    Would there be any allowance for the origin of the lack of material well-being in the first country being due to misgovernment? Who gets to make THAT call?

    I consider that a matter of democracy, which in the end is a matter of civil rights (if you believe that democracy is a civil right). So “THAT call” should be made primarily by local voters, but there should be a system in place to guarantee that voters have access to real democracy (i.e., it’s not unreasonably difficult for a majority of voters to bring about changes to who is governing them and how).

  44. 44
    Dianne says:

    Oh please – interference in Central and South American countries has hardly been the domain of one political party in this country.

    I think you misunderstood my point. I agree that interference in Central and South America has been and is a bipartisan crime. However, I was referring to something closer to home: The voter suppression laws being proposed and generally passed in states dominated by Republican legislators.

  45. 45
    Görkem says:

    “I’ve heard it claimed that the primary job of the Canadian prime minister is to keep the giant baby to the south happy.”

    I am not sure that is actually true. Looking at the preparations for the Canadian election, there seems to be a lot of focus on domestic policies and relatively little on foreign policy. But assuming that it is true. Is this the phenomenon, theoretical or actual, that you believe justifies non-Americans voting in American elections? That for some countries, “what will America do next” is -the- crucial question?

    Because I guarantee you there are plenty of countries in the world where keeping an eye on China is a much bigger job than keeping an eye on America. Mongolia, Vietnam and Nepal all immediately spring to mind. It is probably more common that countries keep an eye on America than any other country, but it’s not an exclusively American phenomenon. Take it right down to the very localised level, the Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea spends a lot of time trying to figure out what Australia will do next. Should Papuans vote in Australian elections?

    My point is that American influence over other countries may be unique in extent or size, but it isn’t unique in practice. Putting it coloquially, if the world is a schoolyard, America is the biggest and loudest and most prolific bully, but it is not the only bully, and it would be irresponsible to focus all our anti-bullying efforts on a single bully.

    To put it more cogently, if we handed Mongolians or Papuans the power to influence American elections, they’d be kind of lost. But if we gave them the power to influence Chinese elections or Australian elections (respectively), they’d get to work straight away.

  46. 46
    Görkem says:

    @Dianne: Thinking about it further, your mentions of Nicaragua makes me think maybe you would advocate for a reparations-based voting, e.g. that as a form of restitution for historical wrongs, in addition to apologies or compensation payments, victim-nations should be given the right to somehow influence their former aggressor’s internal politics for a defined period of time.

    This used to happen a lot in the age of European cabinet diplomacy, when a victorious power during a war would grant itself certain rights to supervise the loser’s internal politics. (E.g, after losing a war with Russia, the Ottoman Empire granted Russia the right to supervise the Ottoman Empire’s treatment of religious minorities). This was done via elite mechanisms, not anything popular, but that was the context of pretty much all politics of the time. This could potentially be a model and it does fit a roughly restorative-justice based framework, e.g, a nation abuses its right to make sovereign policy decisions, so this right is limited for a period. However, it would definitely not be limited to the USA – there would be plenty of nations with such claims against the USA, but plenty who would be much more interested in claims against other countries. (And some countries would be both supervised and supervising, which could be complex – e.g. if Iraq is allowed to supervise the USA’s policies because of the Iraq war, but Kuwait is allowed to supervise Iraq’s policies because of the 1991 invasion of Kuwait, can Kuwait indirectly supervise the USA’s policies?)

  47. 47
    Ampersand says:

    But if we gave them the power to influence Chinese elections or Australian elections (respectively), they’d get to work straight away.

    The more willing a government is to punish the people it directly rules over for ideological reasons, the more attractive the idea of voting power for people the government doesn’t have that level of direct power over sounds.

    (But I can think of practical reasons it wouldn’t work.)

  48. 48
    Görkem says:

    “The more willing a government is to punish the people it directly rules over for ideological reasons, the more attractive the idea of voting power for people the government doesn’t have that level of direct power over sounds.”

    I’m not quite sure what you mean by this? It’s worth noting that Mongolia is a democracy, in case that’s relevant.

  49. 49
    Ampersand says:

    I was thinking about the Chinese government, not Mongolia’s government, as the one that is willing to punish its own people for ideological reasons.

  50. 50
    Görkem says:

    So you’re saying that -Chinese- people would be happy for Mongolians to vote on Chinese politics? That may be true (it raises the question of how non-democratic governments fit into this), but it’s perpendicular to what I was saying, which was that Mongolians would be more interested in voting for Chinese policies than American ones.

  51. 51
    Ampersand says:

    So you’re saying that -Chinese- people would be happy for Mongolians to vote on Chinese politics?

    I was really just idlily chatting, not attempting to make actual policy proposals (as I think I’ve already made clear once or twice in this thread).

  52. 52
    RonF says:

    Dianne @ 41:

    But here we have an example of an event (Trump) that clearly damaged the US’s standing in the world but was also clearly a horrific thing for both the US and the world in general.

    I don’t see either one of those assertions as clear. I’ll wager that neither would the majority of the people in the U.S. right now. Wars, the increases of food and energy prices and general inflation and the incompetence of the present administration (e.g. the withdrawal from Afghanistan) is making a lot of people quite nostalgic for the previous Administration.

    What evidence are you basing this extraordinary claim on?

    Trump’s emphasis on domestic energy production helped drive down the price of oil and natural gas worldwide, striking a direct blow against Putin’s ability to spend money on his military. Biden reversed all that and made it quite clear that he regarded our oil companies in particular as the enemy and that he wanted to shrink their market substantially. This not only slowed down production but gave the oil companies a disincentive to invest in creating new and maintaining existing refining capacity – which we are now suffering from. Driving up the price of oil pumped money into Russia. Biden’s commentary about having no idea what to do should Russia make a “limited incursion” into Ukraine coupled with the disastrously incompetent withdrawal from Afghanistan encouraged Putin to do what he dared not do while Trump was in office.

  53. 53
    Dianne says:

    Trump’s emphasis on domestic energy production helped drive down the price of oil and natural gas worldwide, striking a direct blow against Putin’s ability to spend money on his military.

    Or…not. It appears that crude oil production has been higher under Biden than under Trump. Mind you, I’m not especially thrilled with this–I’d rather move towards independence from oil than to drill more in the US. Nonetheless, if oil drilling is what you want, Biden’s a better bet than Trump. Also, apparently very little US oil comes from Russia. The Russian-Ukrainian war may be driving up gas and oil prices in Europe, but in the US it’s all about profit, profit, profit.

  54. 54
    Görkem says:

    “the incompetence of the present administration (e.g. the withdrawal from Afghanistan)”

    Ah yes, the withdrawal from Afghanistan, which a Republican would never have done or would have somehow done in a way that simultaneously destroyed the Taliban. If only we’d voted for Trump who totally did NOT have a plan to withdraw from Afghanistan and actually campaigned on staying forever, honest.

  55. 55
    Dianne says:

    Görkem@54: Also remember that Trump withdrew most of the troops, leaving a residual force smaller than the NYC police force. Biden had the choice between redeploying large numbers of US soldiers or withdrawing. It was not feasible to try to maintain an occupation force that small.

  56. 56
    Görkem says:

    @Dianne: I hate to say it, but if Trump’s policy was indeed to complete a withdrawal, his troop draw down made sense. If, as he and other Republicans are claiming, they intended to stay forever, it was foolish.

    It seems to me that the withdrawal from Afghanistan would have ended in a disaster regardless – the Taliban were ultimately far stronger than expected and nothing could have been done to change that bar years of further war. So as much as I do put on Trump, this, I do not think he would have done worse then Biden. And to a certain degree it is the job of an opposition party to call out government mistakes even if the opposition party wouldn’t have necessarily done better had they been in office. But this idea that Trump had some magical plan to stabilsie Afghanistan while also minimising American casualties is ludicrous.

  57. 57
    Dianne says:

    @Görkem: I may be interpreting the situation wrong, but my impression was that Trump’s plan was to draw down forces. End of plan. Not withdraw, not try to transition to local rule, just withdraw some forces for the election benefit and then stop. I have no idea what would have made the Afghanistan invasion anything other than a disaster, but Trump’s move strikes me as the worst of both worlds: neither providing enough troops for effective regime stabilization nor leaving altogether. I’m not saying that Biden did a great job, just that I’m not sure what he could have done better given the situation as it was set up.

  58. 58
    Görkem says:

    The US-Taliban deal, which was signed by the Trump administration, stipulated a May 2021 withdrawal date for US forces. So, at least publicly, Trump was committed to a withdrawal. Negotiating a withdrawal was still on the Republican party’s website as one of the accomplishments of the Trump administration until it was deleted in August 2021 so they could claim they always opposed withdrawal and try to associate the policy with the Biden administration, but the US-Taliban deal is a matter of public record.

  59. 59
    Corso says:

    Görkem @ 56

    It seems to me that the withdrawal from Afghanistan would have ended in a disaster regardless – the Taliban were ultimately far stronger than expected and nothing could have been done to change that bar years of further war.

    I don’t know if it was necessarily that the Taliban were stronger than expected, so much that it was that the Afghan army was disinterested.

    I think a part of this topic that doesn’t get mentioned is that the Taliban’s existence in 2022 is notable in and of itself.

    20 years after America invaded, after suffering egregious casualties, after having having their leadership decimated multiple times, a significant chunk of a generation of young men chose to take up arms and fight for the Taliban against their government. What does that? I think it would pay to try to understand what happened there… What drove those men into that meat grinder to fight for that cause? Because whatever that was… That was the failure of the American campaign. America was never going to succeed without the people, and it’s fairly obvious that America didn’t have them.

  60. 60
    Görkem says:

    “What drove those men into that meat grinder to fight for that cause?”

    Nationalism.