re: #25 kirkspencer

This has been around for a long time, though under the guise of “must own property”. It’s one of several reasons various programs to help low income families own homes get such vitriol, and the blame when the housing market took a dip.

(Oddly, the people doing this wanted to look away when it was shown the real problems tended to be high-dollar homes and high-wealth individuals all playing games with the money.)

The “property-owners” requirement to vote was also a mainstay in voter suppression of former slaves in the post-Civil War and Jim Crow-era South. Those individuals typically didn’t own their own property, but were either living on their “employer’s” farmland property, or were “company town” residents. It’s not a big stretch to imagine that is part of what is behind this latest idea.