When was the last time the majority of Americans agreed on anything?
I’ll get to that in a moment. I have to start wading through some controversial territory to get there; I’ll try to lay it out in a neutral way so you can be better informed.
Whether you call them illegal immigrants or undocumented workers, the topic has been in the news quite a bit lately. Our nation was built on the backs of immigrants, certainly, but there’s a very large difference between the legal and illegal versions of migration into the United States. I don’t want to go too far down this rabbit hole; suffice it to say Democrats are widely in favor of encouraging vast numbers of undocumented workers into the country, and Republicans are widely opposed to it. What’s the rationale here?
Every 10 years, the U.S. performs a census. We want to see how many people live in our country, where they live, and as much demographic data about age, income, household size, ethnicity, etc. as we can easily collect. Ok cool, that sounds reasonable. One of the things the government does with that data is re-apportion congressional representation among the states according to population. Every state gets two senators regardless of how many people live in each state, but aside from that, the more people reside in a state, the more representatives they’ll have in Congress. For example, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming don’t have very many people living there, so they barely have any representation in the House of Representatives. Each of those states gets two electoral points for each senator, plus one point for a congressional representative, for a total of three Electoral College points each. California, Texas, and Florida, on the other hand, have very large populations. Accordingly, there are a lot of congressional districts, and a lot of Electoral College points, associated with those states. I’m sure you’ve watched as the Electoral College map gets filled in on presidential election nights. The states with the largest population are worth the most electoral votes.
California is the single most important state on the Electoral College map. It’s worth more points than any other state. A presidential candidate has to win 270 points in the Electoral College, and right now California accounts for 54 of them. That is, until the next census occurs.
Contrary to the best interest of the American electorate, it turns out congressional representation is not based on how many American citizens reside in a given state; it’s based instead on how many people, including non-citizens, live there. Due to its policies that result in a high cost of living, American citizens have been leaving California for years. They can leave California, but if additional people, citizen or otherwise, move in, it will mitigate the loss of electoral points. If your party normally wins California but people are leaving it in droves, what’s one possible solution to maintaining population levels? Facilitate the arrival of undocumented migrants in areas otherwise losing populations. Doing so tinkers with the census results, which subsequently affects the electoral math.
So what is it the majority of Americans are agreeing on?
It’s a slightly different, but still related topic. What’s your view on having to prove your identity and eligibility when you register to vote? Do you think you should be able to just show up and state your name and address, or should there be something a little more stringent where you have to prove you’re eligible to vote in an election?
According to a recent Pew poll, this is not a controversial topic at all. Overall, 83% of Americans (71% of Democrats and 95% of Republicans) are in favor of having a requirement for voter ID. The numbers are also high when broken down by race. Harry Enten of CNN has been quoted as saying “The bottom line is this: Voter ID is NOT controversial in this country. A photo ID to vote is NOT controversial in this country. It is not controversial by party and it is not controversial by race. The vast majority of Americans agree.”
Why, then, is there so much opposition to it by members of one of our two major political parties on Capitol Hill? Because it reduces opportunities to operate in the margins. When voter rolls are pretty slim, it’s fairly easy to ensure there isn’t any funny business going on regarding fraud in an election. When the voter rolls are swollen, it increases the opportunity for voting shenanigans. Election officials are just like any other job…there never seems to be enough hands to cover the basics. As long as everyone’s acting in good faith and playing by the rules, it’s wonderful to have high percentages of eligible voters participating in their civic rights. Not everyone plays by the rules, however, and fraud is more difficult to catch when it’s hidden among extensive numbers of registered voters in an understaffed voting location.
It may not be a 100% solution, but there’s a bill which has already passed the House, called the “Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act,” which aims to make it mandatory to be able to prove citizenship when registering to vote in elections. Again, only American citizens are eligible to vote in American elections. The various states are allowed to run their elections how they want, but they’re all supposed to have a process that ensures only American citizens can cast votes. Not all states have a stringent process. It might be a stretch to say there’s widespread fraud, but fraud does exist. The SAVE Act would establish minimum requirements for registering to vote (strict photo ID requirements and proof of citizenship). The downside is that even American citizens who are eligible to vote may not have easy access to the required proof (not everybody has a passport, for example, and there are plenty of people who wouldn’t be able to easily find their birth certificate). The requirements aren’t particularly onerous; you usually need to provide similar proof when starting a new job. While you don’t always need to have citizenship to get a photo ID, the SAVE Act would mean you must prove citizenship to register to vote. In theory, the combination of secure voter registration and legitimate photo ID should help minimize fraud at the polls.
This doesn’t quite cover everything related to election controversy these days (numerous states are looking at redrawing their congressional districts to manipulate which party wins the district), but hopefully it will help keep you informed as you hear about the SAVE Act in the coming days/weeks. Remember that it’s not the news media’s job to keep you informed on all sides of an issue; it’s the news media’s job to get high ratings and sell advertising space. Straightforward, honest reporting doesn’t draw an audience, but controversy and outrage do. Hopefully this will help you keep the facts straight as you keep an eye on the latest developments.