4 ms·

And add fingerprint identification, like other countries do.

hx2a 8y ago
You mean like the purple finger thing? I've always wondered why nobody suggests doing that in the US to help prevent or ease people's concerns about potential voter fraud. It's simple, low-tech, and hard to screw up. Unless if I'm missing something, which of course is possible. Can someone tell me what the downsides are to an idea like that?
- adestefan 8y ago
  Because voter fraud is exceedingly rare in the US. Now election fraud is a different issue.
  - bigj0n 8y ago
    There have been lots of reports of non-citizens being registered to vote in the US. It is very rare, but elections are also generally very close races. I dont get how people can just shrug off reports of dead people and non-citizens being registered to vote as a non-issue.
    - dboreham 8y ago
      Perhaps the reports are false?
      - OpenBSD-supreme 8y ago
        Perhaps they're true but since non citizens and dead people vote left overwhelmingly it gets shrugged off by leftist media and leftist tech site commenters?
      - bigj0n 8y ago
        Yeah I'm sure all of them are false, and our voter registration systems with practically zero layers of authentication have proven to be infallible over the years.
    - specialist 8y ago
      Registration errors are not voting errors. How many of those dogs registered to vote showed up and cast a ballot? -- If anyone actually cares enough to have a mostly accurate cost effective voter registration database, they'd reuse any one of our existing national demographic databases. But they don't. Because the recurring drama caused by our existing fragmented poorly funded more error prone system is too useful.
    - eppsilon 8y ago
      Being registered != voting
  - Fjolsvith 8y ago
    When a National Voter ID is required all the big blue states will flip back to red.
- astazangasta 8y ago
  Voter fraud of that form basically doesn't exist. You are already marked as voted at your designated polling place. A purple finger is just for show, even in other countries. Its like a "I Voted" sticker.
- Terr_ 8y ago
  > I've always wondered why nobody suggests doing that in the US In this case, Occam's Razor beats Hanlon's Razor: The simplest explanation is malice, not stupidity. The groups who are the most hysteric about hypothetical voter-fraud are dishonest. Their actual goal is not to prevent vanishingly-rare crime, but to suppress legitimate voters in a partisan fashion. Finger-inking at the poll-site does not offer them a useful tool for skewing the election results. It imposes no special discouragement or advantage to a particular group, and it also does not create a system for arbitrary "enforcement." (In contrast, consider poll-taxes or name-similarity databases with insanely high rates of false-positives.) ___ Some might retort: "I don't suggest finger-inking because it won't stop someone from impersonating another voter." True, it won't stop that from happening the first time, but it limits it to once. This means N improper votes require N humans, and as N gets large the odds of keeping it secret go to zero.
i_am_proteus 8y ago
How will the voters who are (reportedly) unable to obtain ID be able up get their prints into the verification system? I have been informed by social scientists that requiring voter ID is racist, so it seems that fingerprint checks would also be racist via the same logic.
- ams6110 8y ago
  > I have been informed by social scientists that requiring voter ID is racist Do you have a personal opinion on that? I don't see it as racist in any way, because it applies equally to everybody. We have a few basic rules for voters in this country, one is that they are citizens, two is that they are registered. Being able to demonstrate that you are the registered voter you claim to be seems to me to be essential to a fair election process.
  - alasdair_ 8y ago
    >Do you have a personal opinion on that? I don't see it as racist in any way, because it applies equally to everybody. “The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.” In practical terms, there are a lot of people in the US that simply cannot afford to buy an ID - both because of the actual cost and because of the logistics and documentation required. Trying to get a certified birth certificate from another state when you are homeless is, I imagine, pretty damn hard and relatively expensive to do. If the US had a system where ID was available to all completely without cost (and only taking a trivial amount of time) then I’d agree with you more.
    - tropo 8y ago
      Usually you need that ID to exercise your constitutional right to bear arms. If we can demand an ID for a right that is actually listed in our constitution, then surely we can demand one for voting. If requiring the ID is really so discriminatory, then it has to go away for bearing arms as well. Is this something you want? BTW, in terms of potential hazard, voting is a lot worse. Voting can lead to wars.

hx2a 8y ago

You mean like the purple finger thing? I've always wondered why nobody suggests doing that in the US to help prevent or ease people's concerns about potential voter fraud. It's simple, low-tech, and hard to screw up. Unless if I'm missing something, which of course is possible. Can someone tell me what the downsides are to an idea like that?

adestefan 8y ago
Because voter fraud is exceedingly rare in the US. Now election fraud is a different issue.
- bigj0n 8y ago
  There have been lots of reports of non-citizens being registered to vote in the US. It is very rare, but elections are also generally very close races. I dont get how people can just shrug off reports of dead people and non-citizens being registered to vote as a non-issue.
  - dboreham 8y ago
    Perhaps the reports are false?
    - OpenBSD-supreme 8y ago
      Perhaps they're true but since non citizens and dead people vote left overwhelmingly it gets shrugged off by leftist media and leftist tech site commenters?
    - bigj0n 8y ago
      Yeah I'm sure all of them are false, and our voter registration systems with practically zero layers of authentication have proven to be infallible over the years.
  - specialist 8y ago
    Registration errors are not voting errors. How many of those dogs registered to vote showed up and cast a ballot? -- If anyone actually cares enough to have a mostly accurate cost effective voter registration database, they'd reuse any one of our existing national demographic databases. But they don't. Because the recurring drama caused by our existing fragmented poorly funded more error prone system is too useful.
  - eppsilon 8y ago
    Being registered != voting
- Fjolsvith 8y ago
  When a National Voter ID is required all the big blue states will flip back to red.
astazangasta 8y ago
Voter fraud of that form basically doesn't exist. You are already marked as voted at your designated polling place. A purple finger is just for show, even in other countries. Its like a "I Voted" sticker.
Terr_ 8y ago
> I've always wondered why nobody suggests doing that in the US In this case, Occam's Razor beats Hanlon's Razor: The simplest explanation is malice, not stupidity. The groups who are the most hysteric about hypothetical voter-fraud are dishonest. Their actual goal is not to prevent vanishingly-rare crime, but to suppress legitimate voters in a partisan fashion. Finger-inking at the poll-site does not offer them a useful tool for skewing the election results. It imposes no special discouragement or advantage to a particular group, and it also does not create a system for arbitrary "enforcement." (In contrast, consider poll-taxes or name-similarity databases with insanely high rates of false-positives.) ___ Some might retort: "I don't suggest finger-inking because it won't stop someone from impersonating another voter." True, it won't stop that from happening the first time, but it limits it to once. This means N improper votes require N humans, and as N gets large the odds of keeping it secret go to zero.

i_am_proteus 8y ago

How will the voters who are (reportedly) unable to obtain ID be able up get their prints into the verification system? I have been informed by social scientists that requiring voter ID is racist, so it seems that fingerprint checks would also be racist via the same logic.

ams6110 8y ago
> I have been informed by social scientists that requiring voter ID is racist Do you have a personal opinion on that? I don't see it as racist in any way, because it applies equally to everybody. We have a few basic rules for voters in this country, one is that they are citizens, two is that they are registered. Being able to demonstrate that you are the registered voter you claim to be seems to me to be essential to a fair election process.
- alasdair_ 8y ago
  >Do you have a personal opinion on that? I don't see it as racist in any way, because it applies equally to everybody. “The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.” In practical terms, there are a lot of people in the US that simply cannot afford to buy an ID - both because of the actual cost and because of the logistics and documentation required. Trying to get a certified birth certificate from another state when you are homeless is, I imagine, pretty damn hard and relatively expensive to do. If the US had a system where ID was available to all completely without cost (and only taking a trivial amount of time) then I’d agree with you more.
  - tropo 8y ago
    Usually you need that ID to exercise your constitutional right to bear arms. If we can demand an ID for a right that is actually listed in our constitution, then surely we can demand one for voting. If requiring the ID is really so discriminatory, then it has to go away for bearing arms as well. Is this something you want? BTW, in terms of potential hazard, voting is a lot worse. Voting can lead to wars.