7 ms·

We desperately need a national ID card. Social security was never designed for this purpose and it's terrible for it. Drivers license requires having access to

We desperately need a national ID card. Social security was never designed for this purpose and it's terrible for it. Drivers license requires having access to a car and some way to learn how to use it.

QuercusMax 8y ago
If we're going to have a national ID card, then it needs to be: 1) Free. Period. Otherwise you're going to disenfranchise poor people who can't afford even $50 to get an ID. 2) Universally accessible. If we're going to require it, then we need to make sure everyone has one, from a little old lady living 100 miles from civilization in Montana, to the homeless living in camps near San Jose.
- tjoff 8y ago
  Neither of those points could possibly be a problem.
  - dev_dull 8y ago
    You’ve clearly never seen your local government at work.
    - AnimalMuppet 8y ago
      I think tjoff was being sarcastic, but I'm not certain.
- avar 8y ago
  There's plenty of countries where neither of those is true, but the voting system requires a national ID and has better outcomes by any reasonable metric than the US. So you don't really need those things, but they may be proxy issues for other hard-to-solve issues.
  - slg 8y ago
    I am not very familiar with the systems other countries use so I am genuinely curious which ones you are referring to here and whether they are comparable to the US. The US has a centuries long history of laws designed to make it harder for "undesirables" to vote. The US's racial and socioeconomic makeup and its history of oppression of those groups makes this a much more contentious issue than some other countries that historically have been very homogeneous.
    - avar 8y ago
      E.g. in Iceland you can vote with a driver's license, a passport or a national ID. Those cost, respectively, $45, $110 and $40. Although I see now the first national ID you get issued in your life is free, but if you ever lose it you pay the fee to renew it. It's the same sort of thing in most European countries, you need to prove who you are, and usually doing that costs some one-off nominal fee. Voting is always going to carry some cost, whether that's money or in externalities imposed on voters. I'm not saying Iceland and other European countries are "comparable to the US", I'm sure we could spend all day moving that particular goal post. I was just pointing out that there's nothing wrong per-se with requiring ID to vote. I'm somewhat familiar with the US history on the matter, and realize that in practice, and I think uniquely in the US, it's a wedge issue that's historically been motivated by voter disenfranchisement. But it's important to separate that practical concern about particular implementations from the very notion that having a national ID system and using it for things like voting could never work. I'm curious about how this works in practice. If you're a tourist visiting the US during a vote can you just show up to a voting polling station and cast a vote? If you don't have to show your ID what happens from the time you walk up to a polling station until you cast your vote and walk out again?
      - mercutio2 8y ago
        Claiming to be a citizen, or claiming to be someone you’re not, is voter fraud, and can lead to a decade or more in prison. As it happens, essentially no one in the US commits voter fraud of this sort (the go in, vote as someone you’re not, kind. Ballot stuffing may or may not be a thing, or rigging of digital elections may be a thing). The US also makes voting day be on a normal work days, it’s not a holiday or weekend, and people don’t get time off work to vote. There are often very long waiting lines to vote. So telling people they need an ID to vote leads to people actually being disenfranchised, in the US, if they just forgot their ID. And again, actual voter fraud is so rare that it’s national news when someone is convicted of it (and people go looking for it often).
frickinLasers 8y ago
I'm not particularly informed on arguments for and against this, but shouldn't a national ID require some modicum of trust in the national government? In their ability to keep the database safe from bad actors, including Executives that fancy themselves dictators? A national ID sounds like a terrible idea for this country right now.
- jniedrauer 8y ago
  We already have one. It's called social security and it's a procedurally generated 9 digit number that is vulnerable to series prediction among other things, and essentially can't be (or almost never is) regenerated if it's compromised. It's a very poor system that was never designed for its current use. We have many of the downsides of a poorly implemented national ID and very few of the upsides. We need an actual purpose built national ID.
- AnimalMuppet 8y ago
  The US doesn't have a national ID at least partly because of a revulsion toward the USSR "papers, please" restrictions on movement. The "lack of trust" in the national government has very little to do with database security.
CocaKoala 8y ago
You can get an ID card that works as legal id but isn't a driver's license, but it still requires going to the DMV and burning at LEAST several hours, which isn't an option available to everybody.
- robotrout 8y ago
  I'm sure their friendly neighborhood community organizer will charter a bus for them to get their ID cards. If they're citizens, there will be somebody who wants their vote badly enough to walk them through that process and even buy them a sandwich for their trouble. Let's join the rest of the world and make sure that the people voting in our elections are citizens. Community organizers have proven to be extremely effective at getting voters to the polls. If a preliminary step is for them to get them their card, I'm sure they won't flinch from that duty.
  - wtallis 8y ago
    Transportation to a DMV office isn't the main limitation. Having the freedom to miss a day or two of work to spend waiting in line is a bigger problem, especially when those offices don't necessarily process non-driver ID cards on all ordinary business days. > Let's join the rest of the world and make sure that the people voting in our elections are citizens. The proper time to verify citizenship is during the registration process, when there's time to be thorough. You can't do a reasonable job of validating ID or checking that a person is only registered to vote in one place at the polling place.
    - robotrout 8y ago
      I will support any system that insures that all voters have verified citizenship.
      - wtallis 8y ago
        At what cost? Are you interested in ensuring that additional voting restrictions actually prevent more illegal votes than they prevent legitimate votes? What makes you think the base rate of non-citizen voting is even high enough to be a problem that can be addressed without invariably causing more harm than good?

QuercusMax 8y ago

If we're going to have a national ID card, then it needs to be: 1) Free. Period. Otherwise you're going to disenfranchise poor people who can't afford even $50 to get an ID. 2) Universally accessible. If we're going to require it, then we need to make sure everyone has one, from a little old lady living 100 miles from civilization in Montana, to the homeless living in camps near San Jose.

tjoff 8y ago
Neither of those points could possibly be a problem.
- dev_dull 8y ago
  You’ve clearly never seen your local government at work.
  - AnimalMuppet 8y ago
    I think tjoff was being sarcastic, but I'm not certain.
avar 8y ago
There's plenty of countries where neither of those is true, but the voting system requires a national ID and has better outcomes by any reasonable metric than the US. So you don't really need those things, but they may be proxy issues for other hard-to-solve issues.
- slg 8y ago
  I am not very familiar with the systems other countries use so I am genuinely curious which ones you are referring to here and whether they are comparable to the US. The US has a centuries long history of laws designed to make it harder for "undesirables" to vote. The US's racial and socioeconomic makeup and its history of oppression of those groups makes this a much more contentious issue than some other countries that historically have been very homogeneous.
  - avar 8y ago
    E.g. in Iceland you can vote with a driver's license, a passport or a national ID. Those cost, respectively, $45, $110 and $40. Although I see now the first national ID you get issued in your life is free, but if you ever lose it you pay the fee to renew it. It's the same sort of thing in most European countries, you need to prove who you are, and usually doing that costs some one-off nominal fee. Voting is always going to carry some cost, whether that's money or in externalities imposed on voters. I'm not saying Iceland and other European countries are "comparable to the US", I'm sure we could spend all day moving that particular goal post. I was just pointing out that there's nothing wrong per-se with requiring ID to vote. I'm somewhat familiar with the US history on the matter, and realize that in practice, and I think uniquely in the US, it's a wedge issue that's historically been motivated by voter disenfranchisement. But it's important to separate that practical concern about particular implementations from the very notion that having a national ID system and using it for things like voting could never work. I'm curious about how this works in practice. If you're a tourist visiting the US during a vote can you just show up to a voting polling station and cast a vote? If you don't have to show your ID what happens from the time you walk up to a polling station until you cast your vote and walk out again?
    - mercutio2 8y ago
      Claiming to be a citizen, or claiming to be someone you’re not, is voter fraud, and can lead to a decade or more in prison. As it happens, essentially no one in the US commits voter fraud of this sort (the go in, vote as someone you’re not, kind. Ballot stuffing may or may not be a thing, or rigging of digital elections may be a thing). The US also makes voting day be on a normal work days, it’s not a holiday or weekend, and people don’t get time off work to vote. There are often very long waiting lines to vote. So telling people they need an ID to vote leads to people actually being disenfranchised, in the US, if they just forgot their ID. And again, actual voter fraud is so rare that it’s national news when someone is convicted of it (and people go looking for it often).

frickinLasers 8y ago

I'm not particularly informed on arguments for and against this, but shouldn't a national ID require some modicum of trust in the national government? In their ability to keep the database safe from bad actors, including Executives that fancy themselves dictators? A national ID sounds like a terrible idea for this country right now.

jniedrauer 8y ago
We already have one. It's called social security and it's a procedurally generated 9 digit number that is vulnerable to series prediction among other things, and essentially can't be (or almost never is) regenerated if it's compromised. It's a very poor system that was never designed for its current use. We have many of the downsides of a poorly implemented national ID and very few of the upsides. We need an actual purpose built national ID.
AnimalMuppet 8y ago
The US doesn't have a national ID at least partly because of a revulsion toward the USSR "papers, please" restrictions on movement. The "lack of trust" in the national government has very little to do with database security.

CocaKoala 8y ago

You can get an ID card that works as legal id but isn't a driver's license, but it still requires going to the DMV and burning at LEAST several hours, which isn't an option available to everybody.

robotrout 8y ago
I'm sure their friendly neighborhood community organizer will charter a bus for them to get their ID cards. If they're citizens, there will be somebody who wants their vote badly enough to walk them through that process and even buy them a sandwich for their trouble. Let's join the rest of the world and make sure that the people voting in our elections are citizens. Community organizers have proven to be extremely effective at getting voters to the polls. If a preliminary step is for them to get them their card, I'm sure they won't flinch from that duty.
- wtallis 8y ago
  Transportation to a DMV office isn't the main limitation. Having the freedom to miss a day or two of work to spend waiting in line is a bigger problem, especially when those offices don't necessarily process non-driver ID cards on all ordinary business days. > Let's join the rest of the world and make sure that the people voting in our elections are citizens. The proper time to verify citizenship is during the registration process, when there's time to be thorough. You can't do a reasonable job of validating ID or checking that a person is only registered to vote in one place at the polling place.
  - robotrout 8y ago
    I will support any system that insures that all voters have verified citizenship.
    - wtallis 8y ago
      At what cost? Are you interested in ensuring that additional voting restrictions actually prevent more illegal votes than they prevent legitimate votes? What makes you think the base rate of non-citizen voting is even high enough to be a problem that can be addressed without invariably causing more harm than good?