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I'm not asking about prevention or why voter ID makes sense in general; I'm asking how it enables measurement of voter fraud. We already have a record of everyo

I'm not asking about prevention or why voter ID makes sense in general; I'm asking how it enables measurement of voter fraud. We already have a record of everyone who voted and their address and identifying information such as driver's license number or social security number. What additional information does an ID provide?

manigandham 7y ago
How do you know that information is accurate and matches the individual? For example, for all those situations I described, why is ID required when you can also just provide the information instead? Can you walk into a bank and provide your info without verification? Requiring ID allows us to measure when fraud is occuring by individuals attempting to submit votes and data that is not theirs. Otherwise, there is no "truth" to compare to. I guess we can always call every single person and verify their vote, but then is that not the same thing as an ID check?
- dragonwriter 7y ago
  > Requiring ID allows us to measure when fraud is occuring by individuals attempting to submit votes and data that is not theirs. No, it doesn't; it is neither necessary (as such fraud can be detected by other means) nor sufficient (as even with an ID requirement fraud can be performed without detection) for that purpose.
  - manigandham 7y ago
    Ok, I guess I still haven't seen any clear details on this so can you please answer the questions I asked in this thread? Why are other situations not an issue for requiring ID but voting is? How can we detect fraud by other means, and why can't these other services also do that? Does the fact that nothing is infallible mean it shouldn't be used? If you didn't vote but someone used your information, how do you catch that without some form of verification?
    - dragonwriter 7y ago
      Because: (1) There is no evidence of an actual existing problem to be addressed by voter ID requirements. (2) Because voter ID requirements in the US, past and present, have a history of being introduced as part of efforts, often by the admission of their own sponsors (though usually in venues they didn't expect to become public) to suppress voting by legal voters of particular demographic groups disfavored by those pushing the measures, particularly African-Americans.
      - manigandham 7y ago
        I'm afraid we've gone in a big circle here and I still haven't gotten any clear answers. Why is voting less important than other services? If someone uses your information, how can we tell without verification of the vote? And if we can't tell, how do we know it didn't happen? And if we don't know, how do we know it's not a problem? If every vote is important then every fraudulent vote is equally important. I'm only talking about ID verification for voting here, not other programs. If those programs are stopping voters then I agree that's bad, but that's a separate topic. And if IDs are required for so many other private and government services outside of voting, then aren't those services discriminating too? Right to bear arms still requires a background check so does that impede on people's rights? How does that reconcile?
        jakelazaroff 7y ago
        Let's say the US enacts nationwide voter ID by 2020, and election day occurs without a single reported incident of voter fraud — i.e. no one tries to vote with an ID that doesn't belong to them. Did it work? Well, maybe. Absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence. In 2016, we were able to identify four cases of voter fraud in retrospect [1]. How does voter ID make this process more accurate? Not having faith in our measurements for 2016 is also problematic. Let's say we uncover 100 cases of voter fraud after the fact with voter ID in 2020. Is this because we're able to better detect voter fraud now, or is there actually more? How do we know we haven't accidentally introduced a loophole that makes the problem worse? I'm not really interested in a general discussion about "why does ID make sense for X but not voting". We can be specific: in what ways does voter ID improve our ability to measure — not deter — fraud? Because as far as we can tell now, it's already exceedingly rare. [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/12/01/0-000002-percent-of-all-the-ballots-cast-in-the-2016-election-were-fraudulent/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/12/01/0-...
- deleted 7y ago
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manigandham 7y ago

How do you know that information is accurate and matches the individual? For example, for all those situations I described, why is ID required when you can also just provide the information instead? Can you walk into a bank and provide your info without verification? Requiring ID allows us to measure when fraud is occuring by individuals attempting to submit votes and data that is not theirs. Otherwise, there is no "truth" to compare to. I guess we can always call every single person and verify their vote, but then is that not the same thing as an ID check?

dragonwriter 7y ago
> Requiring ID allows us to measure when fraud is occuring by individuals attempting to submit votes and data that is not theirs. No, it doesn't; it is neither necessary (as such fraud can be detected by other means) nor sufficient (as even with an ID requirement fraud can be performed without detection) for that purpose.
- manigandham 7y ago
  Ok, I guess I still haven't seen any clear details on this so can you please answer the questions I asked in this thread? Why are other situations not an issue for requiring ID but voting is? How can we detect fraud by other means, and why can't these other services also do that? Does the fact that nothing is infallible mean it shouldn't be used? If you didn't vote but someone used your information, how do you catch that without some form of verification?
  - dragonwriter 7y ago
    Because: (1) There is no evidence of an actual existing problem to be addressed by voter ID requirements. (2) Because voter ID requirements in the US, past and present, have a history of being introduced as part of efforts, often by the admission of their own sponsors (though usually in venues they didn't expect to become public) to suppress voting by legal voters of particular demographic groups disfavored by those pushing the measures, particularly African-Americans.
    - manigandham 7y ago
      I'm afraid we've gone in a big circle here and I still haven't gotten any clear answers. Why is voting less important than other services? If someone uses your information, how can we tell without verification of the vote? And if we can't tell, how do we know it didn't happen? And if we don't know, how do we know it's not a problem? If every vote is important then every fraudulent vote is equally important. I'm only talking about ID verification for voting here, not other programs. If those programs are stopping voters then I agree that's bad, but that's a separate topic. And if IDs are required for so many other private and government services outside of voting, then aren't those services discriminating too? Right to bear arms still requires a background check so does that impede on people's rights? How does that reconcile?
      - jakelazaroff 7y ago
        Let's say the US enacts nationwide voter ID by 2020, and election day occurs without a single reported incident of voter fraud — i.e. no one tries to vote with an ID that doesn't belong to them. Did it work? Well, maybe. Absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence. In 2016, we were able to identify four cases of voter fraud in retrospect [1]. How does voter ID make this process more accurate? Not having faith in our measurements for 2016 is also problematic. Let's say we uncover 100 cases of voter fraud after the fact with voter ID in 2020. Is this because we're able to better detect voter fraud now, or is there actually more? How do we know we haven't accidentally introduced a loophole that makes the problem worse? I'm not really interested in a general discussion about "why does ID make sense for X but not voting". We can be specific: in what ways does voter ID improve our ability to measure — not deter — fraud? Because as far as we can tell now, it's already exceedingly rare. [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/12/01/0-000002-percent-of-all-the-ballots-cast-in-the-2016-election-were-fraudulent/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/12/01/0-...
deleted 7y ago
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