Voter ID: An Example of Perspective

Voter ID is one of those topics where much of the public discussion is built around shared-experience viewpoints that fail to grasp the reality of the situation. Everyone has a driver's license! Voter fraud is bad! Let's require everyone show an ID in order to vote. Problem solved!

When you dive in, the truth is quite different. Around 10% of eligible voters don't have a license - that means over 10 million people! Voter fraud is nearly non-existent, with only a few dozen actual cases in the entire country over the past few elections. There is no problem to solve, but requiring ID's creates a problem for a very large number of people. How does this come about? Because people look at the world from their own perspective and rarely bother to check their reality against objective facts. For example:

I just renewed my CA driver's license and thought the experience might be helpful to relate some realities regarding voter ID laws. I didn't just renew my license, I upgraded to the new 'Real ID' which is going to be required for flying and probably the type of thing voter ID proponents want.
A Real ID requires proof of identity (passport or birth certificate), proof of Social Security (SS card), and proof of residency (utility bill). A Real ID application also has to be processed in person at the DMV. All told, the process was fairly simple and only a slight inconvenience for me. The 'for me' is the key part - let's see what that means.

I have a passport, but lots of people don't and the process to get one is both involved and slow (and costs $145). So I could have used my birth certificate. I didn't have a copy of my birth cert. I've moved over a dozen times in the past couple decades and lost it along the way. Spent an hour looking for it in file cabinets, boxes - no luck. I now live 1,500 miles from where I was born, but I could get a birth cert through mail (found this info online). It costs $30 and requires a notary (more time and money). I was actually visiting my mom, who still lives in the same county, so I did it in person. It took an hour, cost $30 (not including $300 flight), and required me to show my picture ID :)

I also managed to lose my Social Security card sometime over the years. I was able to order a replacement online (for free!) and it came in the mail 4 weeks later. For proof of residency, I needed to present a bill. Most of our bills are in my wife's name (she's the one who gets the paycheck), but the internet bill is in mine. Once I had the necessary paperwork I went online (gotta use that internet I pay for!) to fill out the application ahead of time (you can use the machines at the DMV for this). I tried to make an appt at the DMV to save time. Soonest option was 6 weeks away. Instead I went in without an appt. I'm rural, but close to town, which has the only DMV office within an hour's drive. At least half the people in my area are 10+ miles out and there's no public transportation. I drove my car - sucks if you don't have a car (which is fairly common among people without a driver's license). Our local DMV is widely renowned for its short wait times. Only took me an hour to get to the desk, show all my paperwork and have them process it. Cost $35.

That's it! In two weeks I should have a Real ID picture ID that will work for things like boarding a plane, entering a military base, or, presumably, voting.

Getting that ID took two months from when I started getting stuff ready. Cost $65 in direct costs (could easily cost more). I spent about four hours of my time working on this ID. Would have been longer if I didn't have internet at my house and a car to get around. For a lot of people, it would take a lot more time to track down paperwork, use public internet to get info, physically visit DMV, etc.
$65 isn't much for a middle-class American, and I didn't have to take off time from work. The cost of internet/vehicle/computer/printer is paid for anyway. $65 is real money, the food budget for a week for some folks, and the ID process could easily cost hundreds. Losing a day of work is even more money.

About 20% of Americans don't have internet access of any kind at home. Over half of all workers are hourly, most without Paid Time Off. About 20 million earn 'near-minimum' wage. People would have to start the ID acquisition process months ahead of any election and still might not complete it in time. The basic premise of voter ID laws is to disenfranchise millions of voters in order to prevent dozens of illegal votes. It's farcical on its face, and anti-democratic. When you think about voter ID (or anything, really), consider it from perspectives unlike your own. That's what empathy really means.

Analogies: Reserving the Right to Refuse Service

Since there's been a lot of chatter about civility, I thought I'd pose a little thought experiment. Let's say you're the owner/manager of a restaurant. One night, you have a patron who uses racial slurs towards your staff (who are minorities). How do you respond?

Do you have the right to ask the customer to leave for harassing and intimidating your workers? Can you refuse them service? Legally, yes. Restaurants can kick any individual out for their behavior. What they can't do is refuse service to a class of people (like African Americans). People get kicked out of places for bad behavior all the time, and that includes using racial slurs.

Morally, also yes. I think most people would kick a racist out, stand up for their employees. And if they did it by asking the person politely to leave and refunded any charges they had made, most would consider it a rather civil response to an uncivil person.

So we're clear: in our society (America) we are okay with refusing service to racists.

Now, if you think using racial slurs to denigrate someone is racist, but you don't think an organization whose head routinely uses racial slurs and dehumanizing language towards minorities is racist, you might want to rethink your definition of racism.

If you think threatening someone in person is harassment, but a government official using the power of their position to threaten individuals with violence is not, you have strange notions of justice.

And if you think a person is responsible for their own words and actions, but won't condemn someone who chooses to lie in the defense of a corrupt organization which has repeatedly violated our society's mores and urged law enforcement to violate constitutional principles to punish their opponents, then I think you lack a sense of personal responsibility.

We all like to think that we can and should stand up to condemn racist, bigoted individuals who threaten ourselves or our neighbors. Just because that person does it as part of their job in the most important office in the land changes nothing. We have the right to refuse service and we need to start using it.

The Woebegone White Working Class

More than a year after the 2016 election I’ve come across yet another article debating the dilemma of the white working class. This one involved a study by a Princeton sociologist studying the views of rural Americans. To be fair, it’s a completely valid topic of study, as are most of the many looks into that segment of society. It’s not the inquiry into the thoughts and feelings of the white working class that I object to, but the weight and interpretation such studies are given. All the think pieces seem to come to the same conclusion: poor white people blame the government and people with darker skin for their troubles. Sometimes they argue that those troubles are real, so we need to show compassion. Sometimes they argue that there is a basis for those beliefs, that the government could do more for them, that minorities do receive a disproportionate share of benefits. But such arguments miss the big picture: the white working class generally have it better than minorities and the government policies that affect their lives are primarily conservative ones. The working class is a broad, poorly defined category. White working class breaks it down a little better, but it still not monolithic. It really tends to be rural white people without a college education that break strongly Republican in elections. And not the poor - even the white poor tend to split evenly left and right. It’s those who earn between $50-$100k that we’re talking about here. So not those who are really badly off. About 67% of them voted Republican in the last election. This is the cause for all the hand-wringing, all the articles castigating the elitist liberals for losing touch with the real America. It’s bullshit. First off, the Democrat won the majority of the vote. The only honest way to interpret that is that more Americans supported the liberal candidate than the conservative one. So if any group is out of touch with Americans, it’s not the left. But you can argue that a specific voting block, the white working-class, is strategic for electoral victories. That’s true and fine, but it doesn’t carry the same moral weight that you hear from the pundits. If you want to discuss strategic victories you should spend a fair amount of time discussing why we still have a system that disproportionately favors a minority group (low-population state voters) and whether such a system is fair and appropriate in our current age. Conversely, the Democrat won 66% of ALL Latino voters and 88% of ALL African-American voters, yet there is little to no discussion on how Republicans should reflect upon their failure to empathize and connect with such voting groups (who combined represent a similar number of actual voters to the white working class). If we’re interested in discussing why some groups feel left out and how some political ideologies distance certain groups, aren’t these groups worthy of the same concern and consideration? Because when you come down to it, all voters tend to be tribalistic and race is the largest tribal indicator in our country. So it’s not surprising that white voters vote for their perceived racial interest and people of color do the same. The difference is not in their behavior but in the racial reality in our country. Our society favors white people. Whether it’s the criminal justice system, employment opportunities, educational programs, or basic financial support through historical distribution of wealth, white people have the advantage. It’s not a fair system. The evidence for this is overwhelming and ubiquitous and I won’t even bother going into it here. That means that people of color are voting along racial lines to change an unfair system that disadvantages them. White people, specifically the white working class, are voting to maintain an unfair system that gives them advantage. It’s not morally equivalent and that is where the discussion should lie.

Analogies: The Dog Stipend

Let’s suppose the government decided to give a $50,000/year stipend to everyone who owns a dog. Why? Why not. I mean, dogs are great, most people love dogs, lots of people already own dogs, it’s really a common thing, practically part of the fabric of American society. Where does the money come from? We’ll get to that. First we’ll look at what happens. I would expect a lot more people to start owning dogs. Some people who didn’t even like dogs would probably get one. Most people would say they own their dog because they love it, and that they’d own a dog without the stipend, but they would also take the cash. But some people wouldn’t own a dog. Maybe they’re allergic. Maybe they don’t like dogs and they’re the type to stick to their principles. It’s their choice - they could get a dog and take the money if they want, so they really shouldn’t complain about missing out on the money. But that’s not it. If a significant majority of people get a dog (take the money) it would alter the value of money. If you earned $50k before, you now have $100k (and the marginal expense of owning a dog). But for those who stuck to their principles (and maybe their cats), they still only have $50k. They’re purchasing power is practically cut in half. Again, I hear you say, that’s on them. They could have gone along with the game. Sure, it’s rather arbitrary, and spending our government’s money to support dog-ownership means those resources aren’t available for many other much worthier goals, but that’s the game. Play along or suffer the consequences. I think most people would do just that. Most would take the money, and the large number of dog-lovers would never question the fairness of the system. But all of us know it isn’t right. Since this is a theoretical exercise it’s pretty easy to step back and say that forcing dog-ownership isn’t right. Penalizing people for sticking to their principles, especially when it doesn’t harm anyone, even worse, when going along with the system doesn’t even reward people for something worthwhile, is simply wrong. We know it is. Now imagine that it isn’t the government, but society itself. And instead of cash, it’s stature, respect, or privilege. Because this is in effect what we do. Maybe not to that degree, and not in such an obvious financial way, but our society rewards certain norms and standards that really don’t help society in any way (but clearly help certain subsets of society). Maybe it’s skin color, or being cisgendered, or simply meeting beauty standards like women wearing makeup and dresses. The amount of penalty/bonus varies depending on the societal standards and how strictly they’re enforced, but the concept is the same. We spend a huge amount of human capital enforcing ridiculous norms and waste more humanity by penalizing those principled enough to not play the game. We know it’s not right, but we so often take the cash anyway.

Analogies: Teaching the Proper Lesson

There are plenty of wrongs in the world. Which ones you choose to fight against, and when you make your choice, says a lot about what you consider good.