The Supreme Court brought back Trump's mass voter verification system. The system cross-checks an immigration database to catch noncitizens voting. Critics say it'll disenfranchise actual voters instead. Both sides are probably right, which makes this f*cking perfect.
Trump's administration pitched this as essential fraud prevention. The fraud they're preventing happens so rarely that you're more likely to get struck by lightning while filling out your ballot. But why let statistical insignificance ruin a good culture war? The Supreme Court looked at this expanded database and said yes, let's do this. Let's build infrastructure around a problem that doesn't exist. That's the kind of forward-thinking governance that makes you wonder if they're trading options on the side.
The critics warn this could disenfranchise legitimate voters. They're correct. Databases are famously accurate and never flag the wrong person. Just ask anyone who's tried to fix a credit report error. Now imagine that process but for your constitutional right to vote. Should be seamless.
Here's what actually happens. Some bureaucrat in a windowless office clicks a button. The database spits out names. Half of them are wrong. Those people show up to vote and get turned away. They file provisional ballots that may or may not get counted depending on whether Karen in the elections office had her coffee that morning. Democracy in action.
The Trump administration wanted this because noncitizen voting is their white whale. They've been hunting it for years with the same success rate as someone trying to time the market using a Magic 8-Ball. But persistence pays off. The Supreme Court gave them their toy back. Now they get to run the whole country through a system designed to solve a problem smaller than the error rate of the system itself.
Retail traders have better odds picking penny stocks blindfolded than this database has of improving election integrity.
Photo by Fine Photographics on Unsplash
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