I grew up in Florida for a fair portion of my life. Fort Lauderdale lacked traditional theme parks. Though we occasionally had these traveling proxies instead. Groups of traveling theme parks will assemble amusement park rides in the parking lots of shopping centers. We may have gone to one of these from time to time.
However, large theme parks such as Disney World, Universal Studios, and Busch Gardens are located in Florida. Throughout my childhood, I’d occasionally visit these parks. Many times, these trips were coordinated by family or friends; other times, our schools organized them. In fact, when I graduated from high school, we spent a night at Disney World at an event called Grad Night.
As a younger child, a dreaded sign littered these trips at some rides. That sign read, “Must be this tall to ride.” Generally, the more fun the ride, the more likely they are to make such a stipulation. Obviously, not everyone who wants to ride Space Mountain is allowed to.
We call it ‘the funnel’.
When we examine data, we look at the input and output of a filtering process. The very condition of the filter, like “must be this tall to ride”, will exclude portions of the input. By definition, the number of people in the input of the process will be larger than the number of people in the output. Hence the term “funnel”. If data flows downward, with gravity, the volume gets smaller with each filtering process.
About 25,000 people ride Space Mountain each day; obviously, not everyone who wants to ride Space Mountain is permitted to ride. Again, there’s that pesky condition that will exclude certain patrons. I always assumed that the reason behind this restriction was around safety. Hence, only a subset of those who want to ride can do it safely.
This is appropriate and intentional. To use a common expression, this is “by design”.
Let’s take another example, freedom of speech. Are there instances where saying whatever you want is disallowed? First, private networks, like Facebook, TikTok, or Twitter, have the right to set their own standards; they can refuse your content or take it down. First Amendment protection applies to the government suppressing your freedom of speech. However, there are still some limitations, such as incitement of illegal activity, harassment, or invasion of privacy.
Nothing to filter
Naturally, let’s examine another instance around civil rights. For this instance, the input set needs to match the output set. In this particular case, the description of the input set is: “United States citizens who are at least 18 years old.” The output set is: “Eligible to vote.”
The United States Constitution clearly states that every citizen has the right to vote. The Fifteenth Amendment grants the right to vote to every citizen, independent of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. The Nineteenth Amendment granted women the right to vote. The Twenty-sixth Amendment sets the voting age at 18 years.
Nothing in the Constitution talks about voter registration, voter rolls, voter photo identification, or even the ability to speak English. Therefore, none of these may be used to disqualify an 18-year-old US citizen from voting. End of discussion.
To deny someone the right to vote based on registration, voter rolls, or the kind of identification they have is unconstitutional.
Voting logistics
I’m realistic. I understand cases of voter fraud exist; I won’t maintain that it doesn’t occur. However, the proven cases of election fraud are exceedingly rare. The right-leaning Heritage Foundation has tracked instances of voter fraud since the 1980s. The state of Washington has had 15 cases… ever. Conservatives would have you believe that voter fraud is rampant. They paint a picture that undocumented immigrants vote in presidential elections… multiple times. Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick put up a $1M bounty for cases of voter fraud. He did pay $25k for one instance of voter fraud by a Republican.
There have been around 1500 proven cases of voter fraud since the 1980s. This averages to 34 cases per year for the entire country. Or in other words, we average fewer than one case of voter fraud per state per year.
We should absolutely filter voting eligibility from the entire United States population to US citizens over 18 years old. However, I’d like to think that the United States already has a list of all its citizens, along with their ages. They get annual declarations of their citizens’ income through W-2 forms, so they know where we live. Can you tell us again why we need to register to vote?
And please don’t get me started on the fragility of using a tiny photograph to identify someone. We can do better.
Obviously, we want the instances of voter fraud to be zero. However, is this a problem that we need to solve? Allow me to frame it this way: people tragically die from jet skis, lawnmowers, and ladders. Any of those is more likely to occur than voter fraud. Is Congress spending time drafting legislation to minimize these? No.
Why the need for more strict voter integrity?
A new bill has been drafted that proposes stricter rules on voting and voter registration. It’s called the SAVE Act. Conservatives assert that these new rules are essential to address the whopping 34 instances of proven voter fraud each year. However, I’d like you to wrap your head around this very simple concept.
Yes, a fraudulent vote cast is tragic; however, to deny (or impede) an eligible US citizen from voting is equally as tragic. Therefore, if these new regulations suppress more than 34 votes, they have done more harm than good. Very simple.
One could argue that these new rules affect both Democrats and Republicans equally, so there’s no bias. However, it’s almost as if the Republican members of Congress who drafted this bill meticulously defined these conditions to target certain demographics, much like voter integrity gerrymandering. Analysis demonstrates that these new regulations disproportionately impact:
- Married women
- Rural Americans
- Young and first-time voters
- Low-income Americans
- People of color
- Military members and Americans abroad
- Transgender Americans
Examine that list. Don’t you find it profoundly curious that most groups listed above tend to vote for Democrats?
Was it done with malice?
Readers have called the SAVE Act Jim Crow 2.0. The latter is a reference to the voter suppression laws, which were eventually ruled unconstitutional. These included poll taxes, intelligence tests, etc. Each such law was passed with a certain rationalization. First, it costs money to run a voting poll, so we’d charge voters a certain fee to vote. Even if that sum was the same for everyone, it was modest to wealthy voters and prohibitive to poor voters. Second, we can’t give anyone the ability to vote; voters must be well-informed. Therefore, they must pass a certain intelligence test.
It all sounds reasonable, much like many elements of the SAVE Act. Hindsight now tells us that states established the decades-old Jim Crow laws with the intent to suppress the vote of our black citizens. Decades ago, they surgically carved out a set of rules to target a particular demographic. It didn’t matter that they couldn’t effectively prevent every black citizen from voting, nor that they also impacted some white citizens. It simply had to disproportionately target black citizens.
Conservatives push back against those who oppose the SAVE Act. They’ll assert that Democrats want undocumented immigrants to vote or that they want to game the system. It’s part of a decades-old, well-scripted narrative. However, are we so profoundly naïve that we believe that the voters impacted by the SAVE Act being Democratic-leaning is merely coincidental?
I’ll close this discussion with two facts for you to ponder. They are beyond contestation:
- We average fewer than one proven fraudulent vote per state per year.
- To establish laws that prevent even one eligible voter from voting is to impinge upon their constitutional rights.