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I don't understand why voter ID is such a big deal in the United States. In my country (Sweden) you cannot vote without identifying yourself with a state-issued

by Qasaur 6y ago

I don't understand why voter ID is such a big deal in the United States. In my country (Sweden) you cannot vote without identifying yourself with a state-issued ID card or passport, no exceptions. If you for some reason lack both you need to have someone that can affirm your identity (and they need to show their own identification papers). Nobody complains about it because it is a necessary precondition for a fair and rigorous democratic system and everyone implicitly agrees upon this. If you don't like it then don't participate. I don't buy the argument that it disenfranchises voters. Even the poorest in my country are able to vote despite having these voter ID restrictions. India also has some form of voter ID too, and their population is almost triple the American population and substantially poorer. I can't help but think that there is some kind of malicious intent behind the opposition to voter ID, but it is unfortunately very difficult to prove.

glofish 6y ago
Democrats believe that people without an ID will vote for then since these people are most likely living off government programs hence Democrats ought to be (though not guaranteed) their choice. It is not malicious inasmuch they are pushing for it solely because they think they will benefit from this process. If it were the other way around they would oppose it.
- evan_ 6y ago
  Republicans know that requiring ID to vote will prevent poor people who are legally eligible to vote from voting If it costs $15 to get an ID and you need an ID to vote, then it costs $15 to vote. Poll taxes are illegal.
  - ThA0x2 6y ago
    The IDs that are required to vote in Republican states are either free of charge, or they allow alternative ID documents. Texas being a fine example: https://www.votetexas.gov/mobile/id-faqs.htm https://www.votetexas.gov/mobile/id-faqs.htm
    - runako 6y ago
      Poor people are the least likely to have the time and means to get any of these free IDs. To add to that, states like Alabama strategically place offices to make it even more difficult for e.g. people who do not have access to a car to get said ID. The Social Security Card is a free document. They mail it to you without you having to present yourself anywhere. There would be far less objection to voter ID if this type of system was being proposed by proponents of voter ID.
      - ThA0x2 6y ago
        >Poor people are the least likely to have the time and means to get any of these free IDs. I'd say it's the opposite. Employed middle class working 9-to-5 with 2 kids have less time and means. There's a Hitchen's quote somewhere here... Voter ID laws have not been show to reduce turn out. >To add to that, states like Alabama strategically place offices to make it even more difficult for e.g. people who do not have access to a car to get said ID. That's not a problem with voter ID laws though. This is a red herring. >The Social Security Card is a free document. They mail it to you without you having to present yourself anywhere. This is patently false. I just personally went through this. You absolutely have to show up to a SSA office and bring documentation.
        runako 6y ago
        > Employed middle class working 9-to-5 with 2 kids have less time and means. "Employed middle class" typically reads as "mobile" and "9-5" frequently reads as "white-collar". Those folks feel time constrained, but they are also very likely to have e.g. PTO/flexible work schedules and access to transportation. It's worse for (say) unemployed people with no transportation. This is to say nothing of the disabled, bedridden, etc. There are significant numbers of people for whom this is an unnecessary burden. And again -- this burden is significantly higher than the requirement placed on residents who wish to carry shotguns into restaurants. > Voter ID laws have not been show to reduce turn out. Voter ID laws have not been shown to reduce voter fraud. At best, they add cost and bureaucracy without any proven benefit. > That's not a problem with voter ID laws though. This is a red herring. A common argument against voter ID laws is that they are of a lineage with historic disenfranchisement mechanisms in the US. Strategically making it difficult to get a newly-required voter ID is a direct descendant of the voter suppression schemes our parents fought against. It's absolutely relevant to bring in recent history. > This is patently false. I just personally went through this. You absolutely have to show up to a SSA office and bring documentation. Did you lose your card, or need a replacement in a hurry? For decades, newborns have been able to be issued cards without anyone showing up at an SSA office. (Yes, I have personally done this for an infant. I can confirm that you fill out a form and they mail you a card, just like you'd expect.) SSA also has a site where residents of many states can request a replacement card online if they have state ID: https://www.ssa.gov/myaccount/replacement-card.html https://www.ssa.gov/myaccount/replacement-card.html. [Edit: The SSA forms indicate that even replacements for adult citizens can be done via mail. It would be fair for you to mention that you had an atypical situation that required you to go in to get a card, but that this is not required.] If voter ID proponents start advocating for Social Security cards or other 100% free-by-mail IDs as voter documents, a lot of the opposition would go away. But then, so would the perceived partisan benefit, so that's not in the cards.
  - blisseyGo 6y ago
    The sheer amounts of non-factual talking points being spouted on this voter ID issue is outstanding. It's like people treat us minorities and poor people as some dumb and incapable population who can't even get a single ID for voting. I come from a country with over 900 million eligible voters where 600 million votes were cast and counted all with strict VOTER ID. People keep buying into this nonsensical argument about voter id suppressing poor people, minorities etc but all they do is patronize and virtue signal. Why don't you admit the real reason - that Democrats won't be able to cheat if there were voter ID? Just like now they are trying to even remove signature verification from the mail in votes. It's all for cheating to gain as much power while calling the other side names. It's so obvious but people keep lying.
- spbaar 6y ago
  Why do you think this? I've only ever seen Democrats push more people to vote and republicans less so. | if it were the other way around they would oppose it. ?
- baddox 6y ago
  I think that decreasing disenfranchisement is good even if one political party might benefit from it. The other way of phrasing this looks a lot worse: that another political party benefits from policies which disenfranchise voters.
- logicslave 6y ago
  Honestly, I cant understand why people wont just admit this to themselves/the public.
  - rootusrootus 6y ago
    The republican party holds the opposite view, that disenfranchising voters is essential to winning, and they are completely open about it.
- rtkwe 6y ago
  Or alternatively everyone should be able to vote, otherwise the government is an illegitimate joke, and we have the receipts from Republican groups intentionally trying to block targeted groups using voter ID and changing other voting conditions (polling places, early election days, etc). Insomuch as it will increase the number of Democratic voters those voters are entirely up for grabs if Republicans want to court them. If the US wants to remain an actual representative democracy/republic [0] we have to treat attempts at keeping voters out of the polls as the threat they are. These voter ID law pushes never come with a commensurate program to find, ID, and register groups without IDs and I think that gives the game away even before the emails came out explicitly saying these were targeted attacks at legitimate voters. [0] Just heading off the pedantic "ThEy'Re NoT a DeMoCrAcY" crowd
commandlinefan 6y ago
How many places _don't_ require voter ID? Is the U.S. the only one?
- huonpine 6y ago
  Australia you just show up and say your name, but we have compulsory voting so fraud is easier to identify.
- blisseyGo 6y ago
  Pretty much every sane country requires Voter ID. India has strict voter ID and just counted over 600 million (67%) votes in 2019. Anyone claiming voter id is somehow suppressing and racist etc is lying because they want to cheat. You can downvote me all you want but can't run away from the truth.
  - heavyset_go 6y ago
    Voting licenses are free in India, you can get them online, and by law, the Indian government must have offices to register to vote for free every few miles from a village. When the US implements voting licenses, they shut down DMVs and make people buy in to their right to vote.
spbaar 6y ago
There is no federal id (except for DC drivers licenses). Drivers licenses are not proof of citizenship, Social Security card is not proof, university id card is not proof. Passports are expensive and time consuming to get
- Qasaur 6y ago
  Then perhaps the federal authorities should push for federal ID cards so people can actually identify themselves when voting. It is beyond me how the State can enforce a non-voluntary tax liability on a citizen but has no way of reliably identifying said citizen - it doesn't make any sense whatsoever. ID cards in Sweden cost roughly 350 crowns, which is around 40 USD. If people can't be bothered to get one of those cards to vote in an election then I see no reason to accommodate them as the fee is so low and 99.9% of people can afford it. If they can't, they can ask a friend or election official to validate their identity at the election booth. I'm sure the government could provide ID cards free of charge cross-referenced with biometric data to avoid duplicates. This isn't a difficult problem to solve but it seems like the Democrats are trying to stonewall it any chance they get.
  - evan_ 6y ago
    There are millions of eligible voters in the US for whom a $40 fee would be impossible to overcome. You don't understand how deep and how widespread poverty is in the US. If you think the Republicans are pushing for a national ID and the Democrats are blocking them, you also don't understand the US political parties.
    - Qasaur 6y ago
      Seems like India does this well and they are the world's largest democracy and much poorer than the average American. Poverty is not an excuse for government incompetence (or even malice). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_ID_(India) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_ID_(India)
      - evan_ 6y ago
darkwizard42 6y ago
The malicious intent behind any Voter ID law is that they generally don't include enough funding or accessibility to get a Voter ID itself. In the USA this generally disenfranchises minorities, people from lower socioeconomic status, or those for whom English (and navigating complex information in English) is not a primary language. If the government would MANDATE voter ID but then also gave 4 years for everyone to get one and made it nearly free, then I think much of the opposition would be gone.
- rootusrootus 6y ago
  I would stop my opposition to voter ID immediately if everyone could agree that the FEC had a new job, to make sure every eligible voter had valid ID, it was free, and the FEC was properly staffed and funded to make it happen. I'm not worried that my position is going to change anytime soon.
  - darkwizard42 6y ago
    I think that would be a great way to increase scope of a government agency in a way that makes real sense and value to people.
cbhl 6y ago
I think that this is a fair question, especially if you don't live in the US. The context is that certain populations in the US are known to be disenfranchised from getting ID. Here's an example from the Washington Post in 2016: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/getting-a-photo-id-so-you-can-vote-is-easy-unless-youre-poor-black-latino-or-elderly/2016/05/23/8d5474ec-20f0-11e6-8690-f14ca9de2972_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/getting-a... I actually really like the process that Elections Canada uses. They verified that most Canadians have ID (86% have Driver's Licenses). They identified the most common issue (proof of address) and added a mitigating process (mailing Voter Information Cards). And finally, they have a fallback: as a third option, a person's identity can be vouched for by a person who does have ID. https://www.elections.ca/content.aspx?section=med&dir=c76/id&document=index&lang=e https://www.elections.ca/content.aspx?section=med&dir=c76/id... https://www.elections.ca/content.aspx?section=res&dir=poli/rep1&document=index&lang=e https://www.elections.ca/content.aspx?section=res&dir=poli/r...
- Qasaur 6y ago
  I can see why a tiny minority of people would be disenfranchised, but unfortunately compromises have to be made to have a fair and rigorous election system. Edgecases exist where people slip through the bureaucratic cracks but those exist here too and I see no one complaining about it. If you for some reason lack identification papers you'd try to fix it by going through the processes that we have to verify your identity. Nobody ever complains and says that the system is actively disenfranchising them as that is patently ridiculous.
  - rtkwe 6y ago
    The issue problem is it's a solution to a problem that doesn't exist. In person voter fraud is hard to do in large numbers and there's only a handful of cases where people have voted more than once. Trump tried to create a panel to find voter fraud and found either nothing or basically nothing. So on the one hand we have a solution to fraud that doesn't happen vs explicit and intentional voter disenfranchisement. [0] https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/north-carolina-voter-id/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/north-carolina-voter-id/
superjan 6y ago
In the Netherlands we also require ID. But everybody already has an Id card because you need it to travel abroad. In the US, a lot of people dont have a passport, especcially the less wealthy ones.
- the-dude 6y ago
  In NL, you are required to have an ID to be in the public space. Although there is no requirement to carry, there is a requirement to show under certain circumstances ( for non Dutchies, this is classical Dutch consensus, the Poldermodel ). Also, if I am not mistaken, is an ID not mandatory when using public transport? I lived without an ID for quite some time.
- dane-pgp 6y ago
  > But everybody already has an Id card because you need it to travel abroad. You mean outside of the Schengen area, right? Are you sure that "everybody" does that?
pavel_lishin 6y ago
> I don't buy the argument that it disenfranchises voters. It sure did back in Alabama in 2015: https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/12/12/16767426/alabama-voter-suppression-senate-moore-jones https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/12/12/16767426/... (ctrl-f for "But the stories getting attention were almost all from 2015".) > Even the poorest in my country are able to vote despite having these voter ID restrictions. Good for them, but I'm not sure what bearing that has on the poorest in an entirely different country.
baddox 6y ago
> I don't buy the argument that it disenfranchises voters. There is already significant voter disenfranchisement in the United States. Adding an additional requirement (which likely costs money and time) surely will not reduce disenfranchisement. What do you not buy?
bitbckt 6y ago
There is strong opposition to any sort of national registry which might be used to "categorize" citizens for any purpose. That distrust is further compounded by general distrust in a strong federal government. The whole concept of a federal personnummer/identitetskort - in their Swedish incarnations - and any benefits/conveniences offered by that sort of system is ideologically abhorrent to a (large?) portion of the US population.
rtkwe 6y ago
It's hard to understand from other countries but voter ID laws and a lot of voting changes (eg: eliminating voting days and polling places) have been specifically [0] targeted at minority populations and by proxy at the Democratic party. [1] There's a long history of this happening and when the Supreme Court removed a law requiring some states (in the south) with a long history of extremely racist voter suppression to get approval for changes a few years ago there were suddenly large reductions in voting sites, days, and attempts at instating voter ID laws. [0] As in we have emails where they talk about specifically eliminating Sunday as an early voting day because it's heavily black and disproportionately Democratic. [1] https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/north-carolina-voter-id/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/north-carolina-voter-id/
tzs 6y ago
In Sweden, does getting your state-issued ID so you can vote require visiting a government office that is only open during business hours on weekdays, in a place very poorly served by public transit and far away from poor neighborhoods, so that poor people without cars will have to take a whole day off from work to travel there? Is the office understaffed so it might take two or three visits to actually get your ID? In Sweden, when the government reduces the number of places you can get ID or cuts hours under the guise of cost cutting, does almost all that cutting only come from offices that serve high minority areas? In Sweden, are there limited protections for worked so that many poor workers won't have any paid days off they can use for such a trip, so it will cost them a day or two of pay to get their ID, and perhaps their job if their boss doesn't approve of them taking time off from work? In Sweden, are the politicians who instituted the voter ID policies the same politicians that have drastically reduced the number of polling places per capita in minority neighborhoods so that actually voting there can require hours of standing in line (and missing work if your employer doesn't give you a paid day off to vote), while not cutting or even increasing polling places per capita in white neighborhoods so that it is a breeze for whites to quickly and easily vote? Have they cut back early voting programs that opened the polling places during the weekend before election day, so people could vote on their days off? If the answer to all of the above is "no", then what you see in Sweden is pretty much irrelevant when it comes to understanding voting in the US. The fact is that the people enacting voter ID laws in the United States (1) are generally the same people who have been working hard to limit minority voting, (2) cannot demonstrate that it solves any actual problem, (3) try to make it hard for poor and minorities to get the ID that they pick for their system while making it easy for white people. That's why there is plenty of opposition to voter ID--the politicians pushing for it are not acting in good faith. If someone proposed a voter ID system in good faith--one in which it was free to get ID, could be obtained quickly and without the need for a lot of travel, and was easy for minorities to get as for white people, there would mostly only be objections from those who oppose national ID system in general.
- osrec 6y ago
  I'm new to US politics, however I'm extremely surprised at how frequently the concept of voter suppression comes up. It seems completely anti-democracy. I've never really come across this phrase in UK politics. If it was to come up, I'm certain it would be met with extreme outrage. Why is it just accepted in the US?!
adrr 6y ago
Is impersonating another voter a really an issue? It would be very trivial to catch if the real voter went to vote and couldnt because someone else had voted for them. But that doesn’t happen. What does happen is states require voter id and then shut down the DMV offices in minority communities making hard to get an ID. https://thehill.com/policy/transportation/312055-feds-closing-driver-license-offices-in-alabama-violates-civil-rights https://thehill.com/policy/transportation/312055-feds-closin...
cltby 6y ago
There's an amusing class of videos online in which conservative trolls ask young American liberals why voter ID laws are racist. The replies are invariably some version of "minorities can't obtain them." The troll will then play back these responses to random black passerby--who invariably have ID and are dismayed to find what liberals think of them. The disenfranchisement argument is one of the worst-sourced claims floating around the public sphere. And it's transparently bogus. Photo IDs are essentially mandatory for participation in civic life in the US. Everyone has them.
- macintux 6y ago
  I'm going with studies over anecdata, and also with the long-term track record that the South has earned of placing obstacles in the path of minorities voting. * https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2012/08/voter-id-laws-why-do-minorities-lack-id-to-show-at-the-polls.html https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2012/08/voter-id-laws-wh... * https://www.npr.org/2012/01/28/146006217/why-new-photo-id-laws-mean-some-wont-vote https://www.npr.org/2012/01/28/146006217/why-new-photo-id-la... * https://rewire.news/ablc/2014/10/16/well-actually-pretty-hard-people-get-photo-id-just-vote/ https://rewire.news/ablc/2014/10/16/well-actually-pretty-har... Voting is enshrined in the constitution as a fundamental right. Not everyone can get a photo ID, especially when the state doesn't want them to.
  - blisseyGo 6y ago
    > Not everyone can get a photo ID, especially when the state doesn't want them to That's such an asinine and patronizing comment. People need to stop treating us minorities as some stupid and incapable people. Every single adult is capable of getting a photo ID - if they can be bothered to vote, they can be bothered to spend a few minutes getting a photo ID. The real reason people oppose voter ID is because democrats won't be able to cheat. Voting is enshrined in the constitution as a fundamental right but cheating is not enshrined. Also interesting how all 3 sources you linked are from radical left to left leaning sources.
    - qtk8 6y ago

by Qasaur 6y ago

glofish 6y ago

Democrats believe that people without an ID will vote for then since these people are most likely living off government programs hence Democrats ought to be (though not guaranteed) their choice. It is not malicious inasmuch they are pushing for it solely because they think they will benefit from this process. If it were the other way around they would oppose it.

evan_ 6y ago
Republicans know that requiring ID to vote will prevent poor people who are legally eligible to vote from voting If it costs $15 to get an ID and you need an ID to vote, then it costs $15 to vote. Poll taxes are illegal.
- ThA0x2 6y ago
  The IDs that are required to vote in Republican states are either free of charge, or they allow alternative ID documents. Texas being a fine example: https://www.votetexas.gov/mobile/id-faqs.htm https://www.votetexas.gov/mobile/id-faqs.htm
  - runako 6y ago
    Poor people are the least likely to have the time and means to get any of these free IDs. To add to that, states like Alabama strategically place offices to make it even more difficult for e.g. people who do not have access to a car to get said ID. The Social Security Card is a free document. They mail it to you without you having to present yourself anywhere. There would be far less objection to voter ID if this type of system was being proposed by proponents of voter ID.
    - ThA0x2 6y ago
      >Poor people are the least likely to have the time and means to get any of these free IDs. I'd say it's the opposite. Employed middle class working 9-to-5 with 2 kids have less time and means. There's a Hitchen's quote somewhere here... Voter ID laws have not been show to reduce turn out. >To add to that, states like Alabama strategically place offices to make it even more difficult for e.g. people who do not have access to a car to get said ID. That's not a problem with voter ID laws though. This is a red herring. >The Social Security Card is a free document. They mail it to you without you having to present yourself anywhere. This is patently false. I just personally went through this. You absolutely have to show up to a SSA office and bring documentation.
      - runako 6y ago
        > Employed middle class working 9-to-5 with 2 kids have less time and means. "Employed middle class" typically reads as "mobile" and "9-5" frequently reads as "white-collar". Those folks feel time constrained, but they are also very likely to have e.g. PTO/flexible work schedules and access to transportation. It's worse for (say) unemployed people with no transportation. This is to say nothing of the disabled, bedridden, etc. There are significant numbers of people for whom this is an unnecessary burden. And again -- this burden is significantly higher than the requirement placed on residents who wish to carry shotguns into restaurants. > Voter ID laws have not been show to reduce turn out. Voter ID laws have not been shown to reduce voter fraud. At best, they add cost and bureaucracy without any proven benefit. > That's not a problem with voter ID laws though. This is a red herring. A common argument against voter ID laws is that they are of a lineage with historic disenfranchisement mechanisms in the US. Strategically making it difficult to get a newly-required voter ID is a direct descendant of the voter suppression schemes our parents fought against. It's absolutely relevant to bring in recent history. > This is patently false. I just personally went through this. You absolutely have to show up to a SSA office and bring documentation. Did you lose your card, or need a replacement in a hurry? For decades, newborns have been able to be issued cards without anyone showing up at an SSA office. (Yes, I have personally done this for an infant. I can confirm that you fill out a form and they mail you a card, just like you'd expect.) SSA also has a site where residents of many states can request a replacement card online if they have state ID: https://www.ssa.gov/myaccount/replacement-card.html https://www.ssa.gov/myaccount/replacement-card.html. [Edit: The SSA forms indicate that even replacements for adult citizens can be done via mail. It would be fair for you to mention that you had an atypical situation that required you to go in to get a card, but that this is not required.] If voter ID proponents start advocating for Social Security cards or other 100% free-by-mail IDs as voter documents, a lot of the opposition would go away. But then, so would the perceived partisan benefit, so that's not in the cards.
- blisseyGo 6y ago
  The sheer amounts of non-factual talking points being spouted on this voter ID issue is outstanding. It's like people treat us minorities and poor people as some dumb and incapable population who can't even get a single ID for voting. I come from a country with over 900 million eligible voters where 600 million votes were cast and counted all with strict VOTER ID. People keep buying into this nonsensical argument about voter id suppressing poor people, minorities etc but all they do is patronize and virtue signal. Why don't you admit the real reason - that Democrats won't be able to cheat if there were voter ID? Just like now they are trying to even remove signature verification from the mail in votes. It's all for cheating to gain as much power while calling the other side names. It's so obvious but people keep lying.
spbaar 6y ago
Why do you think this? I've only ever seen Democrats push more people to vote and republicans less so. | if it were the other way around they would oppose it. ?
baddox 6y ago
I think that decreasing disenfranchisement is good even if one political party might benefit from it. The other way of phrasing this looks a lot worse: that another political party benefits from policies which disenfranchise voters.
logicslave 6y ago
Honestly, I cant understand why people wont just admit this to themselves/the public.
- rootusrootus 6y ago
  The republican party holds the opposite view, that disenfranchising voters is essential to winning, and they are completely open about it.
rtkwe 6y ago
Or alternatively everyone should be able to vote, otherwise the government is an illegitimate joke, and we have the receipts from Republican groups intentionally trying to block targeted groups using voter ID and changing other voting conditions (polling places, early election days, etc). Insomuch as it will increase the number of Democratic voters those voters are entirely up for grabs if Republicans want to court them. If the US wants to remain an actual representative democracy/republic [0] we have to treat attempts at keeping voters out of the polls as the threat they are. These voter ID law pushes never come with a commensurate program to find, ID, and register groups without IDs and I think that gives the game away even before the emails came out explicitly saying these were targeted attacks at legitimate voters. [0] Just heading off the pedantic "ThEy'Re NoT a DeMoCrAcY" crowd

commandlinefan 6y ago

How many places _don't_ require voter ID? Is the U.S. the only one?

huonpine 6y ago
Australia you just show up and say your name, but we have compulsory voting so fraud is easier to identify.
blisseyGo 6y ago
Pretty much every sane country requires Voter ID. India has strict voter ID and just counted over 600 million (67%) votes in 2019. Anyone claiming voter id is somehow suppressing and racist etc is lying because they want to cheat. You can downvote me all you want but can't run away from the truth.
- heavyset_go 6y ago
  Voting licenses are free in India, you can get them online, and by law, the Indian government must have offices to register to vote for free every few miles from a village. When the US implements voting licenses, they shut down DMVs and make people buy in to their right to vote.

spbaar 6y ago

There is no federal id (except for DC drivers licenses). Drivers licenses are not proof of citizenship, Social Security card is not proof, university id card is not proof. Passports are expensive and time consuming to get

Qasaur 6y ago
Then perhaps the federal authorities should push for federal ID cards so people can actually identify themselves when voting. It is beyond me how the State can enforce a non-voluntary tax liability on a citizen but has no way of reliably identifying said citizen - it doesn't make any sense whatsoever. ID cards in Sweden cost roughly 350 crowns, which is around 40 USD. If people can't be bothered to get one of those cards to vote in an election then I see no reason to accommodate them as the fee is so low and 99.9% of people can afford it. If they can't, they can ask a friend or election official to validate their identity at the election booth. I'm sure the government could provide ID cards free of charge cross-referenced with biometric data to avoid duplicates. This isn't a difficult problem to solve but it seems like the Democrats are trying to stonewall it any chance they get.
- evan_ 6y ago
  There are millions of eligible voters in the US for whom a $40 fee would be impossible to overcome. You don't understand how deep and how widespread poverty is in the US. If you think the Republicans are pushing for a national ID and the Democrats are blocking them, you also don't understand the US political parties.
  - Qasaur 6y ago
    Seems like India does this well and they are the world's largest democracy and much poorer than the average American. Poverty is not an excuse for government incompetence (or even malice). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_ID_(India) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_ID_(India)
    - evan_ 6y ago

darkwizard42 6y ago

The malicious intent behind any Voter ID law is that they generally don't include enough funding or accessibility to get a Voter ID itself. In the USA this generally disenfranchises minorities, people from lower socioeconomic status, or those for whom English (and navigating complex information in English) is not a primary language. If the government would MANDATE voter ID but then also gave 4 years for everyone to get one and made it nearly free, then I think much of the opposition would be gone.

rootusrootus 6y ago
I would stop my opposition to voter ID immediately if everyone could agree that the FEC had a new job, to make sure every eligible voter had valid ID, it was free, and the FEC was properly staffed and funded to make it happen. I'm not worried that my position is going to change anytime soon.
- darkwizard42 6y ago
  I think that would be a great way to increase scope of a government agency in a way that makes real sense and value to people.

cbhl 6y ago

I think that this is a fair question, especially if you don't live in the US. The context is that certain populations in the US are known to be disenfranchised from getting ID. Here's an example from the Washington Post in 2016: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/getting-a-photo-id-so-you-can-vote-is-easy-unless-youre-poor-black-latino-or-elderly/2016/05/23/8d5474ec-20f0-11e6-8690-f14ca9de2972_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/getting-a... I actually really like the process that Elections Canada uses. They verified that most Canadians have ID (86% have Driver's Licenses). They identified the most common issue (proof of address) and added a mitigating process (mailing Voter Information Cards). And finally, they have a fallback: as a third option, a person's identity can be vouched for by a person who does have ID. https://www.elections.ca/content.aspx?section=med&dir=c76/id&document=index&lang=e https://www.elections.ca/content.aspx?section=med&dir=c76/id... https://www.elections.ca/content.aspx?section=res&dir=poli/rep1&document=index&lang=e https://www.elections.ca/content.aspx?section=res&dir=poli/r...

Qasaur 6y ago
I can see why a tiny minority of people would be disenfranchised, but unfortunately compromises have to be made to have a fair and rigorous election system. Edgecases exist where people slip through the bureaucratic cracks but those exist here too and I see no one complaining about it. If you for some reason lack identification papers you'd try to fix it by going through the processes that we have to verify your identity. Nobody ever complains and says that the system is actively disenfranchising them as that is patently ridiculous.
- rtkwe 6y ago
  The issue problem is it's a solution to a problem that doesn't exist. In person voter fraud is hard to do in large numbers and there's only a handful of cases where people have voted more than once. Trump tried to create a panel to find voter fraud and found either nothing or basically nothing. So on the one hand we have a solution to fraud that doesn't happen vs explicit and intentional voter disenfranchisement. [0] https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/north-carolina-voter-id/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/north-carolina-voter-id/

superjan 6y ago

In the Netherlands we also require ID. But everybody already has an Id card because you need it to travel abroad. In the US, a lot of people dont have a passport, especcially the less wealthy ones.

the-dude 6y ago
In NL, you are required to have an ID to be in the public space. Although there is no requirement to carry, there is a requirement to show under certain circumstances ( for non Dutchies, this is classical Dutch consensus, the Poldermodel ). Also, if I am not mistaken, is an ID not mandatory when using public transport? I lived without an ID for quite some time.
dane-pgp 6y ago
> But everybody already has an Id card because you need it to travel abroad. You mean outside of the Schengen area, right? Are you sure that "everybody" does that?

pavel_lishin 6y ago

> I don't buy the argument that it disenfranchises voters. It sure did back in Alabama in 2015: https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/12/12/16767426/alabama-voter-suppression-senate-moore-jones https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/12/12/16767426/... (ctrl-f for "But the stories getting attention were almost all from 2015".) > Even the poorest in my country are able to vote despite having these voter ID restrictions. Good for them, but I'm not sure what bearing that has on the poorest in an entirely different country.

baddox 6y ago

> I don't buy the argument that it disenfranchises voters. There is already significant voter disenfranchisement in the United States. Adding an additional requirement (which likely costs money and time) surely will not reduce disenfranchisement. What do you not buy?

bitbckt 6y ago

There is strong opposition to any sort of national registry which might be used to "categorize" citizens for any purpose. That distrust is further compounded by general distrust in a strong federal government. The whole concept of a federal personnummer/identitetskort - in their Swedish incarnations - and any benefits/conveniences offered by that sort of system is ideologically abhorrent to a (large?) portion of the US population.

rtkwe 6y ago

It's hard to understand from other countries but voter ID laws and a lot of voting changes (eg: eliminating voting days and polling places) have been specifically [0] targeted at minority populations and by proxy at the Democratic party. [1] There's a long history of this happening and when the Supreme Court removed a law requiring some states (in the south) with a long history of extremely racist voter suppression to get approval for changes a few years ago there were suddenly large reductions in voting sites, days, and attempts at instating voter ID laws. [0] As in we have emails where they talk about specifically eliminating Sunday as an early voting day because it's heavily black and disproportionately Democratic. [1] https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/north-carolina-voter-id/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/north-carolina-voter-id/

tzs 6y ago

In Sweden, does getting your state-issued ID so you can vote require visiting a government office that is only open during business hours on weekdays, in a place very poorly served by public transit and far away from poor neighborhoods, so that poor people without cars will have to take a whole day off from work to travel there? Is the office understaffed so it might take two or three visits to actually get your ID? In Sweden, when the government reduces the number of places you can get ID or cuts hours under the guise of cost cutting, does almost all that cutting only come from offices that serve high minority areas? In Sweden, are there limited protections for worked so that many poor workers won't have any paid days off they can use for such a trip, so it will cost them a day or two of pay to get their ID, and perhaps their job if their boss doesn't approve of them taking time off from work? In Sweden, are the politicians who instituted the voter ID policies the same politicians that have drastically reduced the number of polling places per capita in minority neighborhoods so that actually voting there can require hours of standing in line (and missing work if your employer doesn't give you a paid day off to vote), while not cutting or even increasing polling places per capita in white neighborhoods so that it is a breeze for whites to quickly and easily vote? Have they cut back early voting programs that opened the polling places during the weekend before election day, so people could vote on their days off? If the answer to all of the above is "no", then what you see in Sweden is pretty much irrelevant when it comes to understanding voting in the US. The fact is that the people enacting voter ID laws in the United States (1) are generally the same people who have been working hard to limit minority voting, (2) cannot demonstrate that it solves any actual problem, (3) try to make it hard for poor and minorities to get the ID that they pick for their system while making it easy for white people. That's why there is plenty of opposition to voter ID--the politicians pushing for it are not acting in good faith. If someone proposed a voter ID system in good faith--one in which it was free to get ID, could be obtained quickly and without the need for a lot of travel, and was easy for minorities to get as for white people, there would mostly only be objections from those who oppose national ID system in general.

osrec 6y ago
I'm new to US politics, however I'm extremely surprised at how frequently the concept of voter suppression comes up. It seems completely anti-democracy. I've never really come across this phrase in UK politics. If it was to come up, I'm certain it would be met with extreme outrage. Why is it just accepted in the US?!

adrr 6y ago

Is impersonating another voter a really an issue? It would be very trivial to catch if the real voter went to vote and couldnt because someone else had voted for them. But that doesn’t happen. What does happen is states require voter id and then shut down the DMV offices in minority communities making hard to get an ID. https://thehill.com/policy/transportation/312055-feds-closing-driver-license-offices-in-alabama-violates-civil-rights https://thehill.com/policy/transportation/312055-feds-closin...

cltby 6y ago

There's an amusing class of videos online in which conservative trolls ask young American liberals why voter ID laws are racist. The replies are invariably some version of "minorities can't obtain them." The troll will then play back these responses to random black passerby--who invariably have ID and are dismayed to find what liberals think of them. The disenfranchisement argument is one of the worst-sourced claims floating around the public sphere. And it's transparently bogus. Photo IDs are essentially mandatory for participation in civic life in the US. Everyone has them.

macintux 6y ago
I'm going with studies over anecdata, and also with the long-term track record that the South has earned of placing obstacles in the path of minorities voting. * https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2012/08/voter-id-laws-why-do-minorities-lack-id-to-show-at-the-polls.html https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2012/08/voter-id-laws-wh... * https://www.npr.org/2012/01/28/146006217/why-new-photo-id-laws-mean-some-wont-vote https://www.npr.org/2012/01/28/146006217/why-new-photo-id-la... * https://rewire.news/ablc/2014/10/16/well-actually-pretty-hard-people-get-photo-id-just-vote/ https://rewire.news/ablc/2014/10/16/well-actually-pretty-har... Voting is enshrined in the constitution as a fundamental right. Not everyone can get a photo ID, especially when the state doesn't want them to.
- blisseyGo 6y ago
  > Not everyone can get a photo ID, especially when the state doesn't want them to That's such an asinine and patronizing comment. People need to stop treating us minorities as some stupid and incapable people. Every single adult is capable of getting a photo ID - if they can be bothered to vote, they can be bothered to spend a few minutes getting a photo ID. The real reason people oppose voter ID is because democrats won't be able to cheat. Voting is enshrined in the constitution as a fundamental right but cheating is not enshrined. Also interesting how all 3 sources you linked are from radical left to left leaning sources.
  - qtk8 6y ago