Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of I Heart Radio. Hey brain Stuff, Lauren Vogelbaum here with a classic episode from our archive. As of this publishing, the election cycle is over for most Americans, of everyone who hasn't had a race go into a runoff anyway. But issues of how Americans access their right to vote are exactly what we should keep talking about during the political off season, especially how to expand access for underserved and underrepresented populations.
And that's why I wanted to run this particular episode. It's about how voting works for unhoused people in this country. Hey brain Stuff, Lauren Vogelbaum here. Voting is the cornerstone of American democracy, but it can be a bit of a pain. Election day in the US is always a Tuesday's back in the middle of the work week. If you move to a new spade or county, you need to reregister and state voter I D requirements change all the time, so you could possibly show up to a
polling station, wait in line, and still get turned away. Now, imagine that you're homeless in America or unhoused, which is an often preferred term because after all, home can mean a lot of things. You might move around too frequently to maintain a stable mailing address. You might have lost your state issued I D let alone your Social Security card and birth certificate. You might not be able to afford transportation to the county elections office or your local
polling place. And frankly, you probably have a lot more pressing problems than registering to vote. So while unhoused people have every right to vote in US elections and have a vested interest in influencing policy on housing and poverty, the obstacles to successfully registering and voting while unhoused can be insurmountable. First, there's the residents and mailing address issue. Interestingly, of the fifty states requires that voters live in a
traditional residence. On voter registration forums, you can put a shelter address, a street corner, a park bench. You can even attach a hand drawn map, and that's fine for establishing that you're a resident of the state and county. But many states also required that you provide a mailing address where you can actually receive mail. Again, that can be a shelter or a friend or relative's house, but it cannot be a p O box, and it can't
be a park bench. While it's easy for many Americans to provide an alternate address where they could receive mail, that's not always the case for people who don't have a fixed residence and without a fixed address to receive election notices from the county clerk's office, unhoused voters can be wiped from voter registration roles. We spoke with Tristia Bauman, senior attorney with the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty.
She referenced to the laws that criminalize sleeping or camping in public places and said it's important to remember that homelessness is an inherently unstable state. Those laws have the effect of displacing people from the areas where they normally live and have connections. The lack of an address and the lack of ability to stay in one location lawfully conspire to make it ever more difficult for homeless people
to register to vote or vote by mail. Lack of identification is another big challenge for unhoused voters, as there are ten states was strict I D laws, meaning that you cannot vote on election day without presenting some kind of valid government issued identification. Another twenty four states had non strict voter ID laws that allow voters without an
ID to sign an affidavit swearing to their identity. Even in states without voter ID laws, first time voters registering online or by mail are required to provide a driver's license number or copies of a utility bill, bank statement, or other document certifying their residency. If they fail to provide identification during first time registration, they'll be asked to
show an i D on election day. While obtaining a driver's license or state issued i D is free in most states, that doesn't mean it's easy for an unhoused person to jump through the administrative hoops to make it happen. Poor, elderly, and unhoused people are far more likely to not have a state issued i D, which is why voter i D laws have been challenged as discriminatory. Then there's the
issue of safeguarding personal property. Even if an unhoused person is lucky enough to have an IDEA in their possession, there are many ways for those documents to get lost
or stolen, even at the hands of police. Ballman said local governments often respond to illegal homeless encampments by coming in and doing a clean up that results in the seizure and destruction of a homeless person's property, you could potentially lose your I D or your birth certificate or Social Security card, or any of the other prerequisite items
that you need to register. The good news is that advocacy groups like the National Coalition for the Homeless have created resources like a Voting Rights Guide to help shelters, drop in centers, food pantries, and other nonprofit groups organized voter registration drives to help unhoused individuals register and get
to the polls. And despite the daunting bureaucratic hurdles facing unhoused voters, there are a handful of states that specifically offer exemptions for unhoused citizens, a trend that will hopefully continue. In Indiana, for example, which is a strict photo I D state, you can register and vote without an I D if you claim indigence status, and in Oregon, unhoused voters can use the county election offices address as their
mailing address. Today's episode is based on the article Homeless Americans and Vote, but it Isn't easy on Housed to works dot com, written by Dave rus. Brain Stuff is production of our Heart Radio in partnership with Houstuff works dot com and it's produced by Tyler Klang. Form podcasts My heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. H