
Is America a democracy? If so, why does it deny millions the vote? - aramanto
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/nov/07/is-america-a-democracy-if-so-why-does-it-deny-millions-the-vote
======
eindiran
It seems like Canada (for Federal elections at least) and most European
countries have voter ID laws [0]. Notably, the UK does not; they scrapped
government issued ID cards altogether in 2011([1]). I'm not sure why requiring
ID to vote is so controversial in the US.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_Identification_laws](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_Identification_laws)

[1] [https://www.gov.uk/identitycards](https://www.gov.uk/identitycards)

~~~
mullingitover
It's a vote suppression tactic when the IDs aren't trivially easy to obtain. A
county in Wisconsin only issued them from a DMV that was only open on the
fifth Wednesday of every month[1].

>That DMV service center is inside the Sauk City Community Center. And, sure
enough, as Oliver’s piece stated, it’s open only on the fifth Wednesday of
every month, from 8:15 a.m. to 4 p.m.

> The DMV doesn’t list the actual dates, so we looked them up. The four fifth
> Wednesdays in 2016 are in, as Oliver noted, March, June, August and
> November.

[1]
[https://www.politifact.com/wisconsin/statements/2016/feb/19/...](https://www.politifact.com/wisconsin/statements/2016/feb/19/john-
oliver/office-provides-id-voting-one-wisconsin-burg-open-/)

~~~
neonIcon
So let's change the rules to make them more easily attainable, instead of
throwing out the idea of something that we desperately need in this country.

~~~
mullingitover
Can you explain why the current system, under which voter fraud is
astonishingly rare, is something we desperately need to change?

~~~
neonIcon
Astonishingly rare doesn't seem to be the case[1] There are examples all over
the place, ignoring them doesn't make them any less real..

[1]
[https://duckduckgo.com/?q=voter+fraud&t=ffab&ia=news&iar=new...](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=voter+fraud&t=ffab&ia=news&iar=news)

~~~
mullingitover
A random web search is cool, but how about a scholarly article on the topic?
[http://www.projectvote.org/wp-
content/uploads/2007/03/Politi...](http://www.projectvote.org/wp-
content/uploads/2007/03/Politics_of_Voter_Fraud_Final.pdf)

> Most voter fraud allegations turn out to be something other than fraud. A
> review of news stories over a recent two year period found that reports of
> voter fraud were most often limited to local races and individual acts and
> fell into three categories: unsubstantiated or false claims by the loser of
> a close race, mischief and administrative or voter error.

Tellingly, the first hit in your search is for an article where the loser of a
close race is making unsubstantiated claims about voter fraud.

------
loons2
A Mrs. Powel of Philadelphia asked Benjamin Franklin, "Well, Doctor, what have
we got, a republic or a monarchy?" With no hesitation whatsoever, Franklin
responded, "A republic, if you can keep it."

~~~
naravara
In the context of the classics (which Franklin would have been steeped in), a
Republic is a form of government where citizens vote for qualified
representatives to represent their interests and a Democracy is when you pick
citizens by drawing lots to decide on who holds positions.

So the "we're a republic, not a democracy" line from people who want to argue
for not letting people vote makes absolutely no sense.

~~~
chrisco255
What classical government had the right to vote for a representative? Rome?
No. Only the elites could vote. Athens? Same story.

The old distinction between a republic and a democracy was elected
representatives passing laws versus the citizens voting directly on laws
themselves.

The U.S. is of course, a hybrid and has some republican elements and some
democratic elements, but in the classical sense, at the Federal level, it is
more of a republic than a democracy.

~~~
naravara
>What classical government had the right to vote for a representative? Rome?
No. Only the elites could vote. Athens? Same story.

Citizens voted. The question is who gets to be a citizen, but once you are
acknowledged as a member of the citizenry then you were entitled to have a say
in the governance.

>The old distinction between a republic and a democracy was elected
representatives passing laws versus the citizens voting directly on laws
themselves.

This is straight up wrong. Read any of the classics from Aristotle's
Constitution of Athens to Plato's Republic. Republicanism is representation of
the popular will by a gentry or elite and democracy is literally rule by the
people through drawing of lots.

It's just so transparent when people make these tenuous arguments to justify
disenfranchizing people who will be impacted by laws from having a say in
those laws. This is the last refuge of people who want to enable tyranny and
oppression.

------
derision
No, it's a republic.

~~~
paulgb
Is it a fruit? No, it's a banana.

~~~
derision
Is a tomato a fruit or a vegetable? Is probably a more accurate metaphor

------
thejynxed
Constitutional Republic, so no, we are not a democracy, and furthermore the
men who founded this nation and established the government thereof rather
despised democracy as tyranny of the ignorant masses.

~~~
dragonwriter
> Constitutional Republic, so no, we are not a democracy

"Constitutional Republic" and democracy are orthogonal rather than mutually
exclusive descriptions. All "Constitutional Republic" means is that it _isn
't_ a monarchy and that it has some fundamental governing law. Being a (direct
or indirect/representative) democracy is perfectly compatible with that. The
foundational concept of government by consent of the governed and of
government--as it would be elegantly described somewhat later--"of the people,
by the people, and for the people" embraced by the founders is exactly that of
representative democracy. The actual specific form written into the
Constitution both clearly intends something very much like representative
democracy while not quite being one.

> and furthermore the men who founded this nation and established the
> government thereof rather despised democracy as tyranny of the ignorant
> masses.

They despised both direct and unconstrained democracy, but while the pragmatic
compromise of the Constitution clearly fell short of this, many of them
certainly embraced in principle limited government by consent of the masses
expressed through a combination of equal suffrage in approval of a basic law
and equal suffrage in electing representatives to the government under that
law, or, in the language of modern political science, Constitutionally-limited
representative democracy.

------
zeristor
Why has this post been flagged?

This is an important issue, if it’s contentious then who is contending it? Am
I missing something?

------
aramanto
From the article: "Rather than being ranked with other major western
democracies, the US falls lower down the list alongside countries like Kosovo
and Romania."

[https://www.electoralintegrityproject.com](https://www.electoralintegrityproject.com)

