4 ms·
The thing is in the US we lack a mandatory national or even state id. We use a driver's license which is effectively mandatory in rural parts of the country be
by lotu 10y ago
The thing is in the US we lack a mandatory national or even state id. We use a driver's license which is effectively mandatory in rural parts of the country because otherwise you can't get anywhere. However if you are poor and live in a city the odds that you don't have a driver's license go way up. It turns out that their is no ID the government forces you to have. Clever politicians realize that they don't need to prevent everyone who disagrees with them from voting just preventing 2-3% is likely enough in many races.
The idea of voter ID is effective because of what you just said it sounds so reasonable, until you look at the motivation that it disproportionately results in poor people not being able to vote.
- oh_sigh 10y agoWould you support voter ID if it came bundled with a low friction, easy to obtain voter ID card?
- vinay427 10y agoNot the parent commenter, but I personally would support this if the ID card was mandatory and free to any resident citizen. If it was issued by states, the federal government would need to require all states to comply. The REAL ID act was supposed to be a step toward this, but has been continually delayed as far as I know.
- tasty_freeze 10y agoWhat problem do we have that a voter ID would solve?
- yehi 10y agoIs that a rhetorical question? The reason given for requiring voter IDs (while possibly not the primary one) is to prevent voter fraud. Are you asking if there has every been a case of voter fraud? If so, here is one example [1]. [1] https://www.texasattorneygeneral.gov/oagnews/release.php?id=2071 https://www.texasattorneygeneral.gov/oagnews/release.php?id=...
- jackvalentine 10y agoI think the above poster is implying that voter fraud is so infrequent as to not be a problem. I also note that mandatory ID laws wouldn't have stopped the case you linked - they had IDs but the fraudulent bit was the citizenship!
- yehi 10y agoI'm not from the US but don't IDs require proof of citizenship? I mean, if an illegal immigrant were to try to get a driver license wouldn't they have to prove that they were legally in the US? Or can anyone from any country take a driving test and get a legal American drivers license? If the later, then I can understand why people are against requiring such an arbitrary form of identification.
- dagw 10y agoif an illegal immigrant were to try to get a driver license wouldn't they have to prove that they were legally in the US? Varies from State to State as far as know. At least in some states it's enough to prove that you live in the state, not that you are living there legally.
- maxerickson 10y agoThere's been activity to standardize checks: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/REAL_ID_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/REAL_ID_Act I definitely had to show the 4 types of documents the last couple of times I've moved (photo/birth/status/address). Stupidly, the first id that was obtained by showing that stuff didn't serve as proof of the first 3 when I moved again.
- cafard 10y agoOne can be a legal resident of the US, have a driver's license, and be unable to vote. I know a number of foreign nationals with licenses. A bored immigration guy in Detroit once amused himself by pointing out that neither my driver's license nor my draft card showed that I was in fact a citizen of the US, or I guess a legal resident. When I said that this was the only ID I was carrying, and shrugged, he waved me through.
- kalleboo 10y agoFaith in the electoral system
- sanderjd 10y agoI would have more faith in the electoral system if more people voted. This would result in fewer people voting.
- oh_sigh 10y agoWhy? If people don't want to vote, then they shouldn't vote. A person not voting because they know they are uninformed or don't care is great.
- sanderjd 10y agoI disagree with you. That's fine though, I don't mind if you have that opinion, as long as it doesn't lead to disenfranchising people.
- burkaman 10y agoProbably, but it would need to be extremely low friction. If poor people need to take a half day and go wait in line somewhere to get their new ID, that's not good enough.
- js2 10y agoOnly if it is proven to prevent fraud and not to disenfranchise voters. Here's the thing: voting day fraud doesn't happen in any significantly meaningful amount. Voter ID's true motivation is to disenfranchise voters, and it's justified by claiming it prevents a threat which simply doesn't exist.
- Rapzid 10y ago> The idea of voter ID is effective because of what you just said it sounds so reasonable.. This goes for more than just voter ID. Politicians will say things that "sound reasonable" or "are common sense" on the surface, but the motives and fact once you get into the details tell a much different story.
- olejorgenb 10y agoUh, you guys have passports? (or am I overlooking something really simple?)
- fortenforge 10y agoNope. Only people who need to leave the country have passports. This generally doesn't apply to the working poor.
- LordKano 10y agoPassports exist here but not everyone has one. Off the top of my head, I'd say that most people don't have one.
- cafard 10y agoI was in my 40s before I had one.
- burkaman 10y ago~35% of Americans have passports. No reason to get one until you need to travel abroad.
- r_smart 10y agoDo states not have a 'State ID'? I know we have them in the state I'm in. It's even easier to get than a driver's license and is used for all the same things except you obviously can't drive with it. They're also cheap.