5 ms·

One side wants a photo Id to vote. A basic fraud prevention technique. Other side opposes it strongly. Can’t argue about fraud if one won’t even take a basi

One side wants a photo Id to vote. A basic fraud prevention technique. Other side opposes it strongly. Can’t argue about fraud if one won’t even take a basic precaution.

jeffbee 6y ago
Photo ID at the poll is not a "basic precaution" it is an intentional vote suppression tactic. Many people lack government IDs and a significant number of those lack them because the racist regimes into which they were born did not bother documenting their birth.
- MrZongle2 6y ago
  Then how do these people receive aid from social programs, without being able to provide proof of identity? How do they operate motor vehicles to get to or from (or at) jobs, especially in the majority of counties in the United States without substantial public transit systems? How do these people even purchase alcohol without proof of identity? I still get carded and I've been a legal drinker for well over 20 years.
  - stouset 6y ago
    > Then how do these people receive aid from social programs, without being able to provide proof of identity? Many of them don't. I would however like to call out your extremely offensive implicit assertion that anyone who doesn't have ID is likely to be a social aid recipient. > How do they operate motor vehicles to get to or from (or at) jobs, especially in the majority of counties in the United States without substantial public transit systems? Many of them don't. It's extremely common to get rides from friends, family, and/or coworkers. > How do these people even purchase alcohol without proof of identity? I still get carded and I've been a legal drinker for well over 20 years. Many of them don't. And this is locale-dependent. I was carded 100% of the time during a trip to Colorado last year, but I haven't been carded except a handful of times since living in California. I'm 35.
    - treeman79 6y ago
      My much older sister was on welfare in California. It was routine to “borrow” kids from friend to get more benefits. At some point rules changed, and she stared working again.
      - stouset 6y ago
        While I'm enjoying the clever "fraud" twist in the otherwise well-worn trope about welfare queens in left-leaning states, I'm genuinely confused as to where it fits in with a discussion about voter ID requirements.
        treeman79 6y ago
        Welfare fraud was common and easy. My sister was 3rd generation on welfare. It was a bit before my time. But I’m guessing that welfare supporters dismissed concerns at that time as well. Of course I could be wrong, maybe all politicians knew about the fraud and honestly reported on how easy it was.
        jeffbee 6y ago
        I do not choose to doubt your personal story (although, it sounds like fiction) but statistics on welfare fraud show that it is a small fraction of welfare program spending, and that the majority of such fraud is perpetrated by third parties, not beneficiaries. As an example Social Security disburses over a trillion dollars every year but estimates fraud costs them $355 million, much less than one tenth of one percent, basically zero. By contrast retail "shrinkage", or people stealing the inventory, amounts to 1.5% of US retail sales, and compliance with the federal income tax stands at merely 85%. So social spending looks pretty solid by comparison.
- stouset 6y ago
  And further, these same locations make it difficult for those with working-class jobs to acquire IDs. Not everyone can drive long distances, wait in line for several hours during the work day, and/or pay the cost of a government ID. If we allow voting by mail—which doesn't require a photo ID—then we can allow voting at the polls without one either.
  - treeman79 6y ago
    Circular logic. because we have a less secure way to vote. We should make all methods less secure.
  - asquabventured 6y ago
    We shouldn't allow voting by mail either. Absentee voting with a notary public witness signature is fine by voting by mail is ripe for abuse.
    - jeffbee 6y ago
      Not really. It's very simple to prevent abuse in these elections, because the registrar of voters ... registers ... voters ... hence the name. You don't just mail your preference to the election board on a post card. They also perform risk-limiting audits. Every state does them.
      - stouset 6y ago
        Every single person I've seen that claims that vote-by-mail systems are ripe for abuse seems incapable of describing how one could reliably affect the outcome of an election by abusing it. Those who try seem completely unaware of even the most basic steps taken by elections officials to prevent exactly these kind of abuse. It's almost as if the people we tasked with designing these systems weren't completely incompetent, considered how bad actors might try to interfere, and designed these systems with those considerations in mind!
        asquabventured 6y ago
- treeman79 6y ago
  So all these poor undocumented people lack an ID to buy alcohol? Or perhaps a better argument is that millions of foreign undocumented people vote a certain way...
  - klyrs 6y ago
    Between 9% and 21% of adults in US cities don't drink. And that certainly isn't a requirement for voting. https://www.alcohol.org/guides/volume-of-non-drinkers-by-us-city/ https://www.alcohol.org/guides/volume-of-non-drinkers-by-us-... I'm curious about your "better argument" here. Do you have any data to show how, and where, these millions of foreign undocumented people are voting?
- asquabventured 6y ago
  So you're concerned about people who weren't born in the USA not being able to vote because of a ID mandate? If they weren't born in the USA but have become citizens entitling them to a vote I assure you they would need documentation of their birth in order to become citizens.
  - jeffbee 6y ago
    You have incorrectly interpreted what I meant by "racist regime". I'm not talking about India or Egypt. I'm talking about Texas and Mississippi.
MattGaiser 6y ago
Is a national photo ID that is freely provided and easy to obtain (no strange DMV hours) acceptable? As that is where many of the issues with an ID requirement are: https://www.brennancenter.org/sites/default/files/legacy/Democracy/VRE/Challenge_of_Obtaining_Voter_ID.pdf https://www.brennancenter.org/sites/default/files/legacy/Dem...
- treeman79 6y ago
  National id is a good suggestion at least. Passport is a valid ID. Would definitely need to be free with assistance available. Otherwise would cross line from fraud prevention to “poll tax” territory. Also a fan of federal standards where states run Their own ID, but have to have some basic security steps in place.

One side wants a photo Id to vote. A basic fraud prevention technique. Other side opposes it strongly. Can’t argue about fraud if one won’t even take a basic precaution.

jeffbee 6y ago

Photo ID at the poll is not a "basic precaution" it is an intentional vote suppression tactic. Many people lack government IDs and a significant number of those lack them because the racist regimes into which they were born did not bother documenting their birth.

MrZongle2 6y ago
Then how do these people receive aid from social programs, without being able to provide proof of identity? How do they operate motor vehicles to get to or from (or at) jobs, especially in the majority of counties in the United States without substantial public transit systems? How do these people even purchase alcohol without proof of identity? I still get carded and I've been a legal drinker for well over 20 years.
- stouset 6y ago
  > Then how do these people receive aid from social programs, without being able to provide proof of identity? Many of them don't. I would however like to call out your extremely offensive implicit assertion that anyone who doesn't have ID is likely to be a social aid recipient. > How do they operate motor vehicles to get to or from (or at) jobs, especially in the majority of counties in the United States without substantial public transit systems? Many of them don't. It's extremely common to get rides from friends, family, and/or coworkers. > How do these people even purchase alcohol without proof of identity? I still get carded and I've been a legal drinker for well over 20 years. Many of them don't. And this is locale-dependent. I was carded 100% of the time during a trip to Colorado last year, but I haven't been carded except a handful of times since living in California. I'm 35.
  - treeman79 6y ago
    My much older sister was on welfare in California. It was routine to “borrow” kids from friend to get more benefits. At some point rules changed, and she stared working again.
    - stouset 6y ago
      While I'm enjoying the clever "fraud" twist in the otherwise well-worn trope about welfare queens in left-leaning states, I'm genuinely confused as to where it fits in with a discussion about voter ID requirements.
      - treeman79 6y ago
        Welfare fraud was common and easy. My sister was 3rd generation on welfare. It was a bit before my time. But I’m guessing that welfare supporters dismissed concerns at that time as well. Of course I could be wrong, maybe all politicians knew about the fraud and honestly reported on how easy it was.
        jeffbee 6y ago
        I do not choose to doubt your personal story (although, it sounds like fiction) but statistics on welfare fraud show that it is a small fraction of welfare program spending, and that the majority of such fraud is perpetrated by third parties, not beneficiaries. As an example Social Security disburses over a trillion dollars every year but estimates fraud costs them $355 million, much less than one tenth of one percent, basically zero. By contrast retail "shrinkage", or people stealing the inventory, amounts to 1.5% of US retail sales, and compliance with the federal income tax stands at merely 85%. So social spending looks pretty solid by comparison.
stouset 6y ago
And further, these same locations make it difficult for those with working-class jobs to acquire IDs. Not everyone can drive long distances, wait in line for several hours during the work day, and/or pay the cost of a government ID. If we allow voting by mail—which doesn't require a photo ID—then we can allow voting at the polls without one either.
- treeman79 6y ago
  Circular logic. because we have a less secure way to vote. We should make all methods less secure.
- asquabventured 6y ago
  We shouldn't allow voting by mail either. Absentee voting with a notary public witness signature is fine by voting by mail is ripe for abuse.
  - jeffbee 6y ago
    Not really. It's very simple to prevent abuse in these elections, because the registrar of voters ... registers ... voters ... hence the name. You don't just mail your preference to the election board on a post card. They also perform risk-limiting audits. Every state does them.
    - stouset 6y ago
      Every single person I've seen that claims that vote-by-mail systems are ripe for abuse seems incapable of describing how one could reliably affect the outcome of an election by abusing it. Those who try seem completely unaware of even the most basic steps taken by elections officials to prevent exactly these kind of abuse. It's almost as if the people we tasked with designing these systems weren't completely incompetent, considered how bad actors might try to interfere, and designed these systems with those considerations in mind!
      - asquabventured 6y ago
treeman79 6y ago
So all these poor undocumented people lack an ID to buy alcohol? Or perhaps a better argument is that millions of foreign undocumented people vote a certain way...
- klyrs 6y ago
  Between 9% and 21% of adults in US cities don't drink. And that certainly isn't a requirement for voting. https://www.alcohol.org/guides/volume-of-non-drinkers-by-us-city/ https://www.alcohol.org/guides/volume-of-non-drinkers-by-us-... I'm curious about your "better argument" here. Do you have any data to show how, and where, these millions of foreign undocumented people are voting?
asquabventured 6y ago
So you're concerned about people who weren't born in the USA not being able to vote because of a ID mandate? If they weren't born in the USA but have become citizens entitling them to a vote I assure you they would need documentation of their birth in order to become citizens.
- jeffbee 6y ago
  You have incorrectly interpreted what I meant by "racist regime". I'm not talking about India or Egypt. I'm talking about Texas and Mississippi.

MattGaiser 6y ago

Is a national photo ID that is freely provided and easy to obtain (no strange DMV hours) acceptable? As that is where many of the issues with an ID requirement are: https://www.brennancenter.org/sites/default/files/legacy/Democracy/VRE/Challenge_of_Obtaining_Voter_ID.pdf https://www.brennancenter.org/sites/default/files/legacy/Dem...

treeman79 6y ago
National id is a good suggestion at least. Passport is a valid ID. Would definitely need to be free with assistance available. Otherwise would cross line from fraud prevention to “poll tax” territory. Also a fan of federal standards where states run Their own ID, but have to have some basic security steps in place.