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The problem with asking for stronger authentication at the polling place is that we live in a third-world country [1] that does not have a free, mandatory natio

by azernik 10y ago

The problem with asking for stronger authentication at the polling place is that we live in a third-world country [1] that does not have a free, mandatory national ID card. Those aren't just cards with photos - they're tokens of a national system for authenticating citizens' identities, which they must use in order to participate in daily economic life (get a cell phone, open a bank account, sign a lease, etc.) Since in a sane country everyone has one of these (usually on their person), requiring people to present it doesn't present an extra burden. Whereas in the US, in which a shockingly large fraction of the population goes about their daily lives without any such government-authenticated identity, forcing people to obtain such an identity just in order to vote is more likely to disenfranchise them than to get them to go get an ID. Case in point - under the Help America Vote Act, you do have to present identification on the first time you register (or in practice, the first time you vote after you register by mail)... but in order to avoid the disenfranchisement issue the list of allowed forms of identification is so enormous as to be meaningless. [1] I exaggerate. A little.

SilasX 10y ago
Those are (well trod) arguments against Voter ID, which I took care to specify I was not making. They are not arguments against e.g. voter cards, requiring the person to know their address in addition to their name, etc. Are you okay with them giving me your ballot simply because I claimed to be you? (It will be too late to take it back once I've cast.) If not, you agree with me, and "we're just haggling over the price" as the saying goes. Btw, you need to authenticate yourself to open a bank account in the US.
- azernik 10y ago
  In California, at least, you do need to know your address... at least, the address they registered with, because there is no database of people's actual addresses. Which comes back to a chicken-and-egg problem - when someone registers, how do you verify that their information is correct? The point I really want to address is that having good voter authentication is more or less equivalent to the project of having a national or state ID card. Which no one in the US seems to be willing to undertake. I am not okay with the lack of authentication, but I'm more okay with that than with disenfranchising people who happen not to be integrated into our ramshackle systems of identification. Ideally, I'd like to have a state or national ID card possessed by at least, say, 98% of the population, and use that to authenticate - but we're not there, and empirically disenfranchisement is a bigger problem in the United States than voter fraud. (Also, WRT it being too late to take back ballots - this is the point of provisional ballots. If you show up for your first vote and can't fulfill the (laughable) HAVA ID requirements or are for some reason not on the rolls, you cast a provisional ballot in a sealed envelope, and over the next month the registrar of voters tries to decide whether it's actually you and whether to count your vote.)
  - SilasX 10y ago
    >In California, at least, you do need to know your address... at least, the address they registered with, What I meant was, when you go to the poll, they don't even challenge you to give a name and address. You simply have to assert that you're Silas, and boom, you get my ballot, no questions asked. And that's true, as it's what happened the last 8 or so times I voted. >The point I really want to address is that having good voter authentication is more or less equivalent to the project of having a national or state ID card. Which no one in the US seems to be willing to undertake. I thought I made very clear that I wasn't speaking about full photo ID? And that there are trivial mechanisms far short of photo ID but far better than "give away my ballot to any one who asks, and irreversibly count the vote before it can be corrected." For example, photo-less voter cards mailed with your registration (Usable in lieu of a photo ID). It's not perfect, but it's easy and 100x better than "are you a bot? Promise?" that we seem to tolerate here. In fact, that's what worries me about this whole thing, how contorted the debate has gotten: how you can't even voice trepidation at "honor system authentication" for something as solemn as voting, without getting hit with a well-tuned copypasta of sob stories about people who live off the grid but still want to vote. >(Also, WRT it being too late to take back ballots - this is the point of provisional ballots. If you show up for your first vote and can't fulfill the (laughable) HAVA ID requirements or are for some reason not on the rolls, you cast a provisional ballot in a sealed envelope, and over the next month the registrar of voters tries to decide whether it's actually you and whether to count your vote.) That doesn't undo the ballot that was just cast by the guy claiming to be me.

by azernik 10y ago

SilasX 10y ago

Those are (well trod) arguments against Voter ID, which I took care to specify I was not making. They are not arguments against e.g. voter cards, requiring the person to know their address in addition to their name, etc. Are you okay with them giving me your ballot simply because I claimed to be you? (It will be too late to take it back once I've cast.) If not, you agree with me, and "we're just haggling over the price" as the saying goes. Btw, you need to authenticate yourself to open a bank account in the US.

azernik 10y ago
In California, at least, you do need to know your address... at least, the address they registered with, because there is no database of people's actual addresses. Which comes back to a chicken-and-egg problem - when someone registers, how do you verify that their information is correct? The point I really want to address is that having good voter authentication is more or less equivalent to the project of having a national or state ID card. Which no one in the US seems to be willing to undertake. I am not okay with the lack of authentication, but I'm more okay with that than with disenfranchising people who happen not to be integrated into our ramshackle systems of identification. Ideally, I'd like to have a state or national ID card possessed by at least, say, 98% of the population, and use that to authenticate - but we're not there, and empirically disenfranchisement is a bigger problem in the United States than voter fraud. (Also, WRT it being too late to take back ballots - this is the point of provisional ballots. If you show up for your first vote and can't fulfill the (laughable) HAVA ID requirements or are for some reason not on the rolls, you cast a provisional ballot in a sealed envelope, and over the next month the registrar of voters tries to decide whether it's actually you and whether to count your vote.)
- SilasX 10y ago
  >In California, at least, you do need to know your address... at least, the address they registered with, What I meant was, when you go to the poll, they don't even challenge you to give a name and address. You simply have to assert that you're Silas, and boom, you get my ballot, no questions asked. And that's true, as it's what happened the last 8 or so times I voted. >The point I really want to address is that having good voter authentication is more or less equivalent to the project of having a national or state ID card. Which no one in the US seems to be willing to undertake. I thought I made very clear that I wasn't speaking about full photo ID? And that there are trivial mechanisms far short of photo ID but far better than "give away my ballot to any one who asks, and irreversibly count the vote before it can be corrected." For example, photo-less voter cards mailed with your registration (Usable in lieu of a photo ID). It's not perfect, but it's easy and 100x better than "are you a bot? Promise?" that we seem to tolerate here. In fact, that's what worries me about this whole thing, how contorted the debate has gotten: how you can't even voice trepidation at "honor system authentication" for something as solemn as voting, without getting hit with a well-tuned copypasta of sob stories about people who live off the grid but still want to vote. >(Also, WRT it being too late to take back ballots - this is the point of provisional ballots. If you show up for your first vote and can't fulfill the (laughable) HAVA ID requirements or are for some reason not on the rolls, you cast a provisional ballot in a sealed envelope, and over the next month the registrar of voters tries to decide whether it's actually you and whether to count your vote.) That doesn't undo the ballot that was just cast by the guy claiming to be me.