[atoav]

Well the problem I see with this is that the population means very little in terms of national politics in comparison to most modern democratic nations.

So you can be California which in terms of population and GDP will surpass most of central America combined and it still just gets two representatives. Now I get that the idea here was to avoid a dictatorship of the majority that can just ignore smaller states, but the way it is now it is a dictatorship of the minority, even if you ignore all the blatant ways of voter disenfranchisement.

Sorry to all Republicans on here, but if your party needs to prevent people from voting to win, that also hurts you. Ideally you'd want a party to have to listen to their voters. Gerrymandering, predicting voter behavior and throwing out the ones who might not vote for you are all the shameful behavior of traitors to democracy.

This has to be stopped and punished on every political level, as long as you still have a say.

[jjtheblunt]

> Sorry to all Republicans on here, but if your party needs to prevent people from voting to win, that also hurts you.

Isn't their main assertion that only citizens should vote?

(something like 80% of people claiming allegiance to both parties said the same, last i saw, but numbers surely fluctuate from poll to poll)

[jmyeet]

No. There is a long history of Republican voter disenfranchisement:

- In the 1980s The RNC created the Ballot Security Task Force [1], which was a scheme to strike people off the voter rolls by sending them a mailer if they didn't respond. This led to a consent decree requiring "preclearance" for any voter roll enforcement that lasted 25+ years [2];

- Republicans lead the charge in restricting access to mail-in voting because it's used more by Democratic Party voters [3] despite there being no evidence of fraud;

- In response to Arizona turning blue in 2020, Republicans went on a massive voter suppression spree [4], which disproportionately impacts Native Americans [5];

- Nationally, the push to have a street address unfairly impacts Native Americans who often don't have an official sstreet address if they live on a reservation. That's not an accident. It's the point;

- Even the push to force people to have birth certificates is aimed at Native Americans and poor people. There are quite literally millions of Americans who don't have them [6];

- Even if you have the necessary documentation to get an ID, you may have problems getting access. Again, this is by design. For example, Louisiana closed a bunch of DMV offices in minority areas such that the only DMV in certain black-majority areas was only open one day a month [7];

- The so-called SAVE Act recently passed by the house required your birth certificate to match your ID. Well, that's a problem for married women [8].

- States such as Florida have used private firms to strike people off the voter rolls if their name sounds like a convicted felon anywhere else in the country [9].

And why are we doing all this? There is zero evidence of voter fraud on a large scale [10]. And those convicted of voter fraud are most commonly Republican anyway [11].

But let's just say that we want an ID to vote. Why don't we fund the Federal government to issue it and make sure it is readily available and cheap or free? No, we can't have that because it's never been the point.

At some point you have to realize that they don't care about "integrity". Voter suppression is the point because it's the only way they can win elections.

Lastly, I feel compelled to remind people of Lee Atwater's famous 1981 remarks [12]. Republicans went from overt racism to being ever more abstract but the goals remained the same: to disproportionately impact black and brown people.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballot_Security_Task_Force

[2]: https://www.politico.com/story/2018/01/09/rnc-ballot-securit...

[3]: https://elections-blog.mit.edu/articles/how-policy-influence...

[4]: https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/ariz...

[5]: https://azmirror.com/2024/06/06/100-years-after-citizenship-...

[6]: https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/mill...

[7]: https://www.naacpldf.org/press-release/one-day-a-month-is-no...

[8]: https://www.npr.org/2025/04/13/g-s1-59684/save-act-married-w...

[9]: https://www.tampabay.com/archive/2000/06/23/hundreds-of-vote...

[10]: https://www.hoover.org/research/no-evidence-voter-fraud-guid...

[11]: https://archive.amarkfoundation.org/the2020election/voter-fr...

[12]: https://www.bunkhistory.org/resources/lee-atwaters-infamous-...

[filoeleven]

It's an assertion not backed by data. Non-citizens voting is infinitesimally small. Between that, Noem saying out loud "we want the right people to vote", and Trump calling for nationalized elections, it's clear what the real purpose is.

[atoav]

As if that ever was a huge problem in the US. If you want people to vote and want to avoid disenfranchising US citizens there are ways to do that as demonstrated by the majority of countries on earth. When I vote for example in the EU (Austria), I proactively get a letter from the state (since I am in the voter register). With this letter and some ID card I can show up in the polling location on the weekend and vote after proofing I am the person on my ID card.

What if I am not home? I go to a website a month before the vote, they send me a letter and I vote whenever I like before my election.

Everybody has such an ID card since that card is what you would also show to proove your identity elsewhere. And since we have working social welfare every slice of the citizen population can also afford it.

If you want to solve that problem, it is possible. If you want to solve it, that is. Right wing parties will always use non-citizens as scapegoats that are at the same time draining the welfare state and stealing your jobs. Oh, and you votes. Believing them without citation is the problem here.

[CGMthrowaway]

>you can be California which in terms of population and GDP will surpass most of central America combined and it still just gets two representatives

Doesn't California have 54 reps, out of 485? And 90 out of ~800 Article III judges (lifetime appointment). It also collects $858 billion a year in state and local taxes that it gets to do mostly what it wants with

[AshleyGrant]

Yes, but it only has two senators. The 39.5 million people in California have the same Senatorial representation as the less than 600 thousand people in Wyoming.

In what world is that fair or remotely democratic?

[atmavatar]

If California was apportioned the same as Wyoming, it would have 68 or 69 representatives (depending how you round). Not to play favorites: Texas would have 50 or 51 representatives.

Even if you just count the House of Representatives, smaller states have a per capita advantage.