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On the same coin, there are those saying that requiring id to vote is racist because of an extremely low bar of expectations that they have set for that demogra

• claudeganon 6y ago
  Nobody argues that requiring IDs to vote is “racist,” but that the availability of such IDs is implemented in a patchwork, uneven fashion, with the result being the disenfranchisement of many eligible voters, were new, stricter laws put in place. Were identification to be provided universally and freely, with corresponding automatic voter registration, none of this debate would exist. Strangely enough, those who like to go on and on about voter IDs tend to oppose such universal access to them.
  • greedo 6y ago
    I argue that it's clearly racist. The intent is to disenfranchise one the poorest communities in America. The GOP knows that the more people who vote, the worst their results are.
    • dr_dshiv 6y ago
      As a compromise, require IDs. And pay everyone $10 to vote.
      • greedo 6y ago
        What do IDs solve? Voter fraud is negligible. And getting an ID, even if it's free is a pain for some people. Plus the ID of paying everyone to vote is a non-starter.
        • kaffeemitsahne 6y ago
          >Voter fraud is negligible Well, how do you know this if there are no IDs?
          • greedo 6y ago
            Most studies of voter fraud have shown it's negligible. Compared to the disenfranchisement of minorities and the poor caused by requiring voter ID, I'll take that risk. This is the same argument being wielded against Vote by Mail. Yet fraud in VBM is rare as well, and VBM works extremely well for servicemembers deployed overseas. And Trump even votes by mail... The GOP just knows that if more people vote, the GOP candidates will do worse.
            • kaffeemitsahne 6y ago
              >Most studies of voter fraud have shown it's negligible. Source? If I were going to commit fraud I sure as hell wouldn't do it while taking part in a study. Curious how that is dealt with. Of course I know about the related talking points of the other side, I just think it's curious that people regard "double spending" votes so casually.
              • greedo 6y ago
                http://voterfraudfacts.com/ http://voterfraudfacts.com/ has a pretty extensive list of sources and explanations.
                • 9HZZRfNlpR 6y ago
                  Not even an American but this number is convicted people for voter fraud. It's not even a study or some intelligence agency estimate, so you're dishonest here.
                  • greedo 6y ago
                    Did you mean to reply to a different post? The link I included has reports from the Department of Justice, as well as by numerous independent sources.
        • jeltz 6y ago
          It would remove a lot of bureaucracy by having one ID which can be used almost everywhere. In my country we do not have to register to vote.
          • greedo 6y ago
            That doesn't scale well for a country the size of the US, where local voting is determined by residency. For national elections, sure, no registration would be fine. But how would you keep people from voting for elections outside of their region?
            • LudwigNagasena 6y ago
              This is not really a hard problem to solve as is evidenced by literally every other country. Moreover, in almost every country it is possible to vote even outside of the country. I can't comprehend why people try to insist that ID is racist and impossible to implement. It is so bizzare my only explanation is propaganda.
              • greedo 6y ago
                The US, unlike many other countries, doesn't have a national ID card issued to citizens. So to obtain an ID, citizens need to usually have either a passport, which costs $85, or a certified birth certificate, which can cost up to $45. And ironically, you often need valid ID to request a birth certificate. So for lower income citizens, the cost can be prohibitive. This then becomes the equivalent of a poll tax, which historically was used to disenfranchise minorities. So I'm not saying it's impossible to implement. If the Federal government wants to start issuing free national ID cards, then that would be acceptable in my opinion. However, this would trigger a huge part of the population that doesn't want government tracking etc.
    • jeltz 6y ago
      I think you missed his point. Requiring ID to vote is not inherently racist, what is racist is requiring ID while knowing IDs are hard to obtain for some groups. Most countries require ID to vote, but in those countries almost everyone has an ID.
      • 9HZZRfNlpR 6y ago
        You still need to renew it every 8 yrs or so, pay a small tax and no you can't get it from a small rural place. Talking of Europe here, I believe both types or Americans have distorted view how things are arranged here.
    • LyndsySimon 6y ago
      Honest question - because the same ID requirements are in place for purchasing a firearm, are those requirements racist as well?
      • gregimba 6y ago
        Slightly off topic but I always found the fact you are required to add race and ethnicity to the federal firearms transaction record 4473 surprising. The official reasoning is to aid law enforcement tracing firearms in crimes. https://www.atf.gov/firearms/qa/why-does-atf-form-4473-ask-race-and-ethnicity https://www.atf.gov/firearms/qa/why-does-atf-form-4473-ask-r...
      • greedo 6y ago
        That's a bit of whataboutism in my opinion. A vote isn't a lethal weapon. If the underlying intent of requiring an ID for a firearm purchase from a gun dealer was to limit or discourage minorities from buying, then yes it would be racist.
        • LyndsySimon 6y ago
          How so? I would argue that because government is predicated on force, a vote is nothing more than an act of delegation - asking others to use force on your behalf. Less complex would be the legal argument, though: in the US, personal possession of arms is an enumerated Constitutional right. There is no such enumerated right to vote. From a purely legal perspective, why would it be racist to place an ID requirement on an act that is merely generally understood to be a right but not racist when applied to an act that is explicitly protected by the state’s charter itself?
          • greedo 6y ago
            Both the 14th and the 15th Amendment enumerate voting rights.
            • LyndsySimon 6y ago
• newleaf 6y ago
  The problem is that IDs aren’t free, therefore requiring one is the equivalent of a poll tax. Even if poll taxes didn’t have a racist history, it still seems wrong to charge to vote. I don’t think people are generally opposed to IDs for voting if they are free (voters registration cards currently serve this purpose).
  • toomuchtodo 6y ago
    What does it take to make IDs free?
    • 12xo 6y ago
      You have to look at the most rural and poor communities in the nation to understand why it can be both expensive and difficult. Birth certificates for instance, are often not present or available, nor are the agencies that provide the necessary documents accessible. Many times they are hundreds of miles from the person in need and the costs, and necessary steps can be extreme to a person with very little funds or resources.
      • LudwigNagasena 6y ago
        Yet these people have SSN, driver's license, credit cards, benefit transfer ID
        • deleted 6y ago
          [deleted]
    • giovannibonetti 6y ago
      I guess we can't escape the cost to implement that, even if that cost is subsided by the government. However, once it is in place there should be enough saving from increased efficiency to compensate that cost.
    • shadowgovt 6y ago
      To make them free enough that they don't impose a burden on people's right to vote, we'd probably need to collect an amount of identifying information in a central location rivaling anything attempted previously by the US government. Enough biometrics to recognize a person regardless of whether they have any paperwork, paired with a system to update those biometrics when people's situations change (If you identify people by fingerprint for example you can't deny their right to vote if they lose both arms).
• Frondo 6y ago
  It's not just the ID having a cost, like someone else mentioned, it's things that, without context, sound innocuous yet have a disparate impact on certain communities. Like, I've read about in some southern states, where the state will, as a cost-cutting measure, close DMV branches (i.e. the places where you'd go to get an ID for voting) but close mostly branches in majority-black communities. So, while the nearby white community still has their 5 DMV offices, the majority-black community now has 1. The result? Much longer lines, less availability of services. Thing is, this kind of impact is hard to draw connections to, but it's a pattern you see played out again and again: 1) Require certain IDs to vote, 2) Make it harder for certain communities to get those IDs, 3) Make it cost something for those poorer communities to get IDs, 4) Now you've got an effective kind of voter suppression without there being one single act that does it. Like that guy said, "you can't say n-word, n-word, n-word anymore," so you drape it in a series of actions that, taken individually, seem benign or can be easily argued for. Here's the solution you won't see implemented: if you want to require an ID to vote, make it free and make it something you can obtain at anywhere, i.e. post offices, grocery stores, convenience stores, without requiring hard-to-obtain documents like birth certificates.
• BurningFrog 6y ago
  This is a uniquely American argument. AFAIK, showing an ID to vote is uncontroversial in most or all western democracies, including the nordic welfare states the left sees as a model in so many ways.
  • eisa01 6y ago
    Yup. The first time I voted 15 years ago I didn't have to show any ID and was quite puzzled. A friend of mine actually considered voting under my name when he found out :) The OSCE (? not quite sure) vote observers commented on this in their election monitoring report, and the next election the government had acted on the advice and you had to show ID
  • supernova87a 6y ago
    I agree, and I'm even fairly liberal. Showing proof of who you are, to be allowed to vote in the most fundamental process in a democracy is not a dumb idea. Why would you not want the most rudimentary election security? The only reason that it's a ridiculous situation here is that (and you can debate whether widespread or not, or believed or not) some people use it as a means to make voting difficult for others. And we tolerate / compromise on the situation because we have no good (or widely believed) stats to document the frequency of the risks. My question there is, why don't we simply make getting an ID easier for everyone and this will no longer be an issue. Take one year to have roaming DMV offices, voter ID, licensing stations, and take care of this stupid problem once and for all. No more arguments or patches to look the other way. And I will say also, it's a fucking sad situation when the people you want to be voting can't get it together in their lives to get an ID renewed once every 5 years. You don't even have to go in person in most cases. If that's the issue, I don't think you would've gotten their vote even if they had ID.
    • mullen 6y ago
      > I agree, and I'm even fairly liberal. Showing proof of who you are, to be allowed to vote in the most fundamental process in a democracy is not a dumb idea. Why would you not want the most rudimentary election security? Because in America, voter fraud is so low that it is a non-issue. Personally, the only cases I know of are people committing voter fraud to prove how easy voter fraud is. The other point against Voter ID is that it is also a tool to keep people certain people from voting. Voter ID is just really a tool to keep "those people" from voting.
• adrr 6y ago
  You need to verify you identity at time of registration which includes photo Id and other documents to verify where you live. This is all governed at the federal level with the "Help America Vote Act". Why do I need to show an ID at the polls every time i vote? They have my signature on file and can check that but there isn't a problem with people voting with someone's registration. Voter ID is all about voter suppression, in Texas you don't need an ID to vote if you over 65. Only in person voting in Texas requires ID but you can do mail-in if your over 65.