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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowIndiana Republicans endorsed a new attempt Wednesday to toughen laws on mail-in voting that opponents argue would unnecessarily add hurdles for people seeking to cast election ballots.
The House elections committee voted 9-4 along party lines to advance the proposal that would require voters submitting a paper application for a mail ballot to include a photocopy of their driver’s license or at least two identification numbers, such as their 10-digit driver’s license number or the last four digits of their Social Security number.
Bill sponsor Republican Rep. Tim Wesco of Osceola said the step was aimed at validating who was receiving mail-in ballots by putting identification requirements in line with what people must present when voting in person.
Democrats and voting-rights groups argued the new requirements could be especially difficult for older voters to complete and that county election workers already must confirm that a person’s signature on the application matches that from their voter registration record.
Other attempts for tougher Indiana mail-in voting rules have failed the last two years in the Republican-dominated Legislature even as former President Donald Trump and many of his supporters stoked false claims that fraud led to his 2020 election defeat.
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I think we need to have an Election Day for everyone to vote, with minimal allowances for absentee voting. And you show ID to vote.
As soon as Election Day is a federal holiday, I’m with you.
With over 240 million eligible voters, of which only 66.1% turned out in the last election, a one day, in person vote would be completely impractical. You think the system is messed up now? LOL
Other countries manage to do it and have higher participation rates.
Also, get rid of all voting machines and revert to paper ballots.
We voted without machines for many years. For what we spend on machines that we use (at most) twice a year, we can invest in more poll workers.
And we know how to make paper ballots secure. We have the technology and procedures.
And if we go to bed on election night not knowing who won … who cares?
Joe B. never thought I’d say this to you but great idea. mail in voting should be illegal.
So, you should only be able to vote if you’re able to make it to a polling place on a specific day? When urban areas in many states already have fewer polling places per capita than their rural counterparts due mainly to conservative policies and legislation? What about the elderly who no longer drive are otherwise unable to make it to a polling place? Do we just say tough luck to them or do we take the polling places to them? The idea of a modern election without mail in or absentee voting, especially in a country with so many eligible voters, is utterly insane.
Part and parcel of the idea is doing everything possible to make it to where people can vote that day.
Federal holiday. Way more sites because now you have a larger pool of people who can work. Send teams to nursing homes to get the residents AND the workers.
It’s possible if you are willing to invest. If Republicans truly want to get rid of mail in and absentee voting, they’re going to have to spend money. Otherwise, those who accuse them of just doing everything possible to make it harder for “the other side to vote” … have a pretty good case.
But the estimate I see is that we spend $10 a voter, per election … seems crazy.
Marshall, while I see what you’re getting at regarding urban/rural enabling, the “fewer polling places per capita” in rural America is typically offset by the fact that in rural America, they have considerably longer travel distances to get one of their polling places, which are only more abundant per capita because the populations are so low. Lots of things in rural America are more abundant per capita.
Try to imagine a place in urban America where people have to travel 20+ miles to get to a polling place. Viewed through this lens, it evens out.
Agree with Joe that making Election Day a federal holiday is a fair compromise. We have historically allowed mail-in voting to almost exclusively to overseas military. Most First World countries don’t allow anything approaching the mail-in voting shenanigans we allowed in 2020. They see it as “utterly insane” and rife with opportunities for corruption. Countries like Australia make voting compulsory and in person. Don’t like compelling people to vote–that’s anti-American–but an appropriate balance between making voting accessible but not corruptible is to offer clear but limited concessions to in-person voting. Feasible but rare.
Paper voting is also the standard in much of the First World. I can see an argument for the scenario where a person first punches in the candidates on a computer screen, then the computer screen spits out the paper ballot (based on the choices cast on the screen), and then the voter reviews the ballot for accuracy before submitting it in a drop box. Sort of double authentication.
That’s what we are currently doing (paper verification of computers) because of distrust of computer technology. But, if the computers can’t be trusted, despite the numerous audits that have proven they’re fine, they just should be eliminated.
Billions spent on something that has to be purchased, maintained, secured, stored… and oh yeah, updated and trained upon… would have long since been targeted for elimination.
It feels like a needless voting industrial complex. Dump it. Spend less on printed ballots and processes, wait an extra day or two for results.
I did forgot we must allow mail-in voting for the military.
If in-person voting were easily accessible and available, everywhere, then this wouldn’t be an issue.
Denying anyone their right to vote because they can’t make a drive to a remote location multiple times a year, or wait in long crowded lines, on non-holiday Tuesdays? That doesn’t seem to be pro-freedom.
In the private sector, there comes a point where you spend so much fighting waste, fraud, and abuse that you actually spend more money targeting it than if you just let it happen.
Obviously you shouldn’t just let rampant abuse happen, but there comes a time where fighting too hard isn’t worth it.
In this context, have we actually identified alot of abuse in mail in voting in Indiana? Especially since Indiana restricts its mail in one voting to those who legally attest that they are only mailing in a ballot due to one of 12 specific reasons? How much are these extra requirements going to cost counties in enforcement and verification? And is that fiscal cost going to be worth it if there isn’t a demonstrable problem to fix?
It’s very hard to look past the remarks made by a former President, who said out loud
“The things they had in there were crazy. They had things, levels of voting that if you’d ever agreed to it, you’d never have a Republican elected in this country again”
So it’s very hard to look past that and think they’ve got actual legitimate concerns, especially since they complained about the last two elections and there wasn’t fraud in either of them. Is there anything that would make them happy, outside of fixing elections like they do in North Korea or Hungary or Russia? Not sure.
I mean, most of the discovered election fraud in 2020 was down at the Villages in Florida. They get quiet when you mention that.
And it’s easy to say, look, we compromised and gave you some of what you wanted (cut way back on absentee voting and mail-in ballots) and you had to take some of what you didn’t want (things like a federal holiday that made it far easier for far more people to vote in person on Election Day).
But if they’re not willing to engage in compromise, and/or they persist in attacking elections claiming non-existent fraud, they should be ignored as non-credible.