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Not to be a downer, but the current top story is "Thousands of Native voters in North Dakota getting free IDs". The reason that's necessary is not not depressin

Not to be a downer, but the current top story is "Thousands of Native voters in North Dakota getting free IDs". The reason that's necessary is not not depressing. It's sort of like "Man who fell off click only broke both legs".

mooseburger 8y ago
Nothing wrong with voter ID, nearly all developed countries do it.
- js2 8y ago
  The U.S. has a long history of voter suppression, of which using IDs to limit who can vote is one tactic. For some of us, that's depressing. This is off-topic though so I won't comment further.
- tbrownaw 8y ago
  In theory, sure. The problem comes in when a detectable amount of people don't have and can't easily get accepted IDs.
- aptwebapps 8y ago
  In theory, sure, sounds good. But the facts on the ground matter more than theory. The first fact is that there is precious little voter fraud of the type that can be stopped by voter ID laws. Did you hear about the woman from Texas who was recently convicted and sentenced to prison for it? You know why it was in the news? Because it's that rare. So whatever the costs of more stringent restrictions at the ballot box are, they have to be borne by some pretty slim benefits. And the costs are pretty severe. Thousands of the Native Americans in North Dakota don't have the kind of residential address required by the law, passed by Republicans shortly after a Democrat one her Senate race by 3,000 votes with strong Native American support. And for many of the ones who do have a residential address, the address the state has on record for them is off by enough to theoretically trigger the provisions of the law, making it unlawful to cast their ballots. I.e., their actual address doesn't match what the government thinks it is, so either they illegally provide the matching address or legally provide the correct address and get their ballot rejected. Some sort of voter registration obviously makes sense, but do you think this particular law is a good one? Further, do you think it was passed with good intentions?
- amanaplanacanal 8y ago
  Nearly all developed countries use a national ID of some sort to do it though. Plus elections are usually run nationally. We don't have a national ID in the US. And the elections are run locally. Which means local politicians get to meddle in both of those areas. It get ugly pretty quickly.

mooseburger 8y ago

Nothing wrong with voter ID, nearly all developed countries do it.

js2 8y ago
The U.S. has a long history of voter suppression, of which using IDs to limit who can vote is one tactic. For some of us, that's depressing. This is off-topic though so I won't comment further.
tbrownaw 8y ago
In theory, sure. The problem comes in when a detectable amount of people don't have and can't easily get accepted IDs.
aptwebapps 8y ago
In theory, sure, sounds good. But the facts on the ground matter more than theory. The first fact is that there is precious little voter fraud of the type that can be stopped by voter ID laws. Did you hear about the woman from Texas who was recently convicted and sentenced to prison for it? You know why it was in the news? Because it's that rare. So whatever the costs of more stringent restrictions at the ballot box are, they have to be borne by some pretty slim benefits. And the costs are pretty severe. Thousands of the Native Americans in North Dakota don't have the kind of residential address required by the law, passed by Republicans shortly after a Democrat one her Senate race by 3,000 votes with strong Native American support. And for many of the ones who do have a residential address, the address the state has on record for them is off by enough to theoretically trigger the provisions of the law, making it unlawful to cast their ballots. I.e., their actual address doesn't match what the government thinks it is, so either they illegally provide the matching address or legally provide the correct address and get their ballot rejected. Some sort of voter registration obviously makes sense, but do you think this particular law is a good one? Further, do you think it was passed with good intentions?
amanaplanacanal 8y ago
Nearly all developed countries use a national ID of some sort to do it though. Plus elections are usually run nationally. We don't have a national ID in the US. And the elections are run locally. Which means local politicians get to meddle in both of those areas. It get ugly pretty quickly.