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Strict Id Laws Don’t Stop Voters: Evidence from a U.S. Nationwide Panel

209 points by johntfella 5y ago

davidw 5y ago
If people wanted to encourage voting, it's hard to beat Oregon's system in the US. There is very little fraud.
- cowpig 5y ago
  There is no evidence that there is significant voter fraud anywhere in the US
  - School-Cotton 5y ago
    Is there evidence that there isn’t ? How would you tell? (Anecdotally, from talking to my friends and acquaintances from Arizona, I think at least one type of voter fraud is extremely widespread: remaining registered there even after you’ve moved away, because you want your vote to be in a purple state and therefore count more. Most people don’t even think of this as fraud.)
    - jayd16 5y ago
      It would need to be incredibly good. So good that we never see failed wide spread fraud.
      - School-Cotton 5y ago
        For the example I mentioned, there is nobody really bothering to enforce the requirement, AFAICT.
        ModernMech 5y ago
        Didn’t Arizona just undergo a very thorough audit from people very determined to find alleged fraud? Why didn’t they find the fraud you describe? I mean, they very loudly claimed they were going to prove fraud occurred and then went through a very public humiliation when they couldn’t after 6 months. I would think if there were a mountain of easily provable voter fraud just waiting to be found for anyone willing to look, they would have found it. Or is it your contention that even they didn’t think to investigate this? It’s just very frustrating to me that these kinds of claims have been made for decades, and actual laws are being passed predicated on these claims being true. Yet every time evidence is requested, it never turns up. Either this widespread, endemic fraud is so nefarious and perfectly executed that it can’t be detected, or it doesn’t exist at this point. Why isn’t it incumbent upon the people making these claims to prove them in court? Why can’t they do that? Massive fraud has been alleged at the highest levels of government and they can’t go in front of a federal judge and say that plainly. A lot of people are quick to make claims of fraud in front of cameras, but in front of a judge the word ‘fraud’ doesn’t leave their lips? Why? Until they argue a full-throated systematic voter fraud case on the scale they claim openly in a court of law, I don’t see why anyone should entertain these ideas anymore. It’s time to put up or shut up with the evidence. Millions of dollars spent, an entire party singularly devoted to finding and preventing fraud above any other legislative agenda, private corporations have been paid millions in taxpayer money to investigate this fraud. Privacy and voting rights are being trampled on in there name of finding and preventing this fraud. It’s not enough anymore to sit back and humor the people making these claims. Millions of people believe it exists and that has been perpetrated on a grand, international scale. There should be mountains of evidence that this kind of activity occurred but hardly a scintilla can be found. Why? because no one is looking hard enough? No. It’s not found because it is not there.
option 5y ago
there is an obvious compromise here - require voter ID but only in counties where enough registered voters (say over 95%) have one. Regardless of voting, people not having an ID is a serious problem local governments must solve.
- switch007 5y ago
  This would be somewhat sensible: start a program to provide the free ID, wait a few years, measure what % of people have it, take it from there. That won't happen of course (here in the UK). The free ID will be bundled with the legislation to require voter ID, with some pathetic head-start of maybe a few months to a year or so.
Upvoter33 5y ago
Doesn't pass the smell test. There is a group spending a lot of time doing this. Do you think it's because it makes no difference, and they're just having fun?
- elliekelly 5y ago
  What’s odd about the title of the paper is the conclusion reached by the authors: voter ID laws are a waste of time and resources.
addicted 5y ago
This makes sense for many reasons. Yet, it makes completely sense for the Democrats to highlight that the Republicans are the ones who are trying to prevent absolutely legitimate citizens from voting because they are an anti Democratic Party. Because between 2 groups, one which prefers more citizens voting and one which tries to win by preventing citizens from voting, it’s good that the group that encourages citizens to vote wins.
smokey_circles 5y ago
It truly boggles my mind that the US has such a backwards stance on government issued IDs. Whatever argument you have about why this is a good thing is utterly lacking in substance, because the US has a defacto ID and it's horrendously bad (talking about that SSN). Just issue a proper ID system for goodness sake, what a stupid set of problems to have in the modern era :/
ravenstine 5y ago
Why have IDs for anything?
varelse 5y ago
Already got forbidden from the URL.
Ancapistani 5y ago
I'd love to read the actual paper, not just the abstract. The statement near the end of the abstract - "Finally, strict ID requirements have no effect on fraud, actual or perceived." - seems surprising to me, and I'd like to see how they arrived at that conclusion.
- johntfella 5y ago
  pdf: https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w25522/w25522.pdf https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w25522/w255...
- jedimastert 5y ago
  > The statement near the end of the abstract - "Finally, strict ID requirements have no effect on fraud, actual or perceived." - seems surprising to me, and I'd like to see how they arrived at that conclusion. If I had to take a guess, I'd say that voter fraud was already very low to begin with, and the rare occurrences that do happen wouldn't be helped with ID laws.
  - mywittyname 5y ago
    It's the "perceived" part that I am suspicious of (and I assume the GP too). It makes sense to me that strict ID laws don't do much to fight actual fraud because the systems in place are pretty effective (moreso than ID laws, I'd think, since I've personally rarely had an up-to-date state ID). But how does it not have an effect on perceived fraud, when all of the people perceiving fraud are arguing for strict ID requirements? I think I know the answer (these people perceive fraud in response to their "team's" loss, regardless). But it would be interesting to read what the authors say.
    - Kranar 5y ago
      One hypothesis is that the motivation behind voter fraud never had anything to do with evidence suggesting that voter fraud occurs. Voter fraud is an excuse to enact legislation that makes it harder for certain demographics to vote. If that hypothesis is true, then people will never stop believing in voter fraud until said demographics no longer have any significant representation in politics.
egberts1 5y ago
A pastebin, please.
- jedimastert 5y ago
  https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w25522/w25522.pdf https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w25522/w255...
antonvs 5y ago
What this doesn't take into account is the degree to which introducing such requirements can more easily be exploited in future to introduce barriers to voting. We've already seen how far some people are willing to go to undermine the integrity of elections. This means the real question is, to what extent does the current system contribute to integrity issues? So far, there doesn't seem to be much evidence that it does. So, what is the rationale for introducing additional ID requirements, beyond what already exists via voter registration, matching at the polls, etc.?
- chestertn 5y ago
  Most european countries require some sort of government ID before voting. I don't see what the big deal is.
  - triceratops 5y ago
    They also provide ID for free. A lot of these countries have some form of government-sponsored health care, for which people already have ID by default.
    - xdennis 5y ago
      Not all European states provide free IDs, and some US states which require IDs provide them for free.
      - triceratops 5y ago
        Can you give me examples of European countries where there are no forms of ID that are free and accepted at the polls?
        HotHotLava 5y ago
        In Germany the ID card costs 37 EUR and is valid for 10 years, reduced to 22.80 EUR and 6 years of validity if you're under 24. A passport is even more expensive. No other forms of identification are accepted, but it's also not really necessary since you're required to get an ID card anyways.
titzer 5y ago
The title should have been "Strong mobilization efforts needed to neutralize voter turnout reduction of ID laws", because that's what the data in their abstract actually says.
- unclebucknasty 5y ago
  Exactly this. In fact, the current title is actually refuted by the abstract.
  - tessierashpool 5y ago
    that's a pretty significant title error
    - bena 5y ago
      It's not quite an error. The poster's other submissions are not surprising given the editorializing of this abstract.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- elil17 5y ago
  Even then, there was a 0.1% reduction in voter turnout, but the reduction was primarily among white voters. Although this isn’t the negative outcome that myself and other opponents of voter ID laws were worried about, any policy that reduces voter engagement is bad - even if it doesn’t lead to racial inequality.
  - nverno 5y ago
    I agree, but there needs to be some compromise between integrity and ease. As programmers, we all know how easily systems can be compromised. Having effectively zero barrier to getting proper ID seems like a simple, inexpensive solution, especially given you already need ID for so many other essentials
jimbob45 5y ago
ID laws aren't really a debate at this point. The overwhelming majority of Americans are in favor of showing some sort of ID to vote as long as said ID is free (i.e. being poor isn't a possible impediment to voting). By 'free', that means free or reasonably free of time as well. People working multiple jobs with children simply don't have time to wait down at the DMV for three hours (if you're lucky) to be able to vote.
- djrogers 5y ago
  > People working multiple jobs with children simply don't have time to wait down at the DMV for three hours (if you're lucky) to be able to vote. Malarkey. I just got my first RealID in California last month, and I was in the DMV for around 20 minutes. And this wasn't in some bougie city with a special DMV. Make a reservation, show up, done.
  - Kique 5y ago
    How nice of you to live in a state that wants people to get an ID and vote, it's not like that everywhere... Older article but wouldn't be surprised if more states are doing similar things today. "Many ID-issuing offices maintain limited business hours. For example, the office in Sauk City, Wisconsin is open only on the fifth Wednesday of any month. But only four months in 2012 — February, May, August, and October — have five Wednesdays. In other states — Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, and Texas — many part-time ID-issuing offices are in the rural regions with the highest concentrations of people of color and people in poverty" https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/challenge-obtaining-voter-identification https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/chal...
  - tgb 5y ago
    I got mine in April and it involved standing in line for an hour before being let into the DMV to sit in line inside. It cost something like $50, too. I wouldn't call it convenient.
  - nemothekid 5y ago
    >I just got my first RealID in California last month >Make a reservation, show up, done. California has already done the work in making voting accessible and it isn't califronia politicans arguing for voter ID laws. California isn't a battleground state and is run by people who have pushed to make voting as seamless as possible. Alabama, after passing voter ID laws, then turned around and made it more difficult for people to obtain IDs. [1] [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-10-01/alabama-closes-dmv-offices-a-year-after-voter-id-law-kicks-in https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-10-01/alabama-c...
zwieback 5y ago
Voter ID laws don't deter voters and vote suppression schemes can hurt the constituency of whoever is doing the suppressing. That makes me wonder what endgame current proponents of tightening laws and auditing results have in mind.
- mywittyname 5y ago
  The goal is to poke holes in the 15th and 24th amendments, which they can wallow out over time. The SC is more than happy to put limits and exceptions on Constitutional protections. The hardest part is getting that first exception in place. Once it's there, you can slowly bring forth more cases that expand that exception ever more.
  - IncRnd 5y ago
    Not really. People think the Constitution says things about voiting that is does not say. For example, states could pass laws that people between the ages of 25 and 35 could not vote for President. That is constitutional. I'm not saying it would be accepted, but don't say things are unconstitutional just because you disagree.
    - pseudalopex 5y ago
      "The right of citizens of the United States, who are eighteen years of age or older, to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of age."[1] [1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-26/section-1 https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-26/...
not2b 5y ago
This will be true provided that states make an effort to assure that all can obtain the required ID, for free (any fee to vote would violate the 24th Amendment) and don't play games to try to make it harder for some groups than others. Examples of ways to put your thumb on the scale: * refuse to accept college IDs as valid for voting, even those issued by the state government because it's a state school (college students are more likely to vote for the "wrong" party). Hunting licenses? Cool (people with hunting licenses are more likely to vote for the "right" party). * prevent college students who live most of the year in-state, and can prove it, but have an out-of-state driver's license, from voting. * place extra hoops on people whose name doesn't match their birth certificate, make them produce every document with every change and toss their registration if there's a typo (this mainly affects married women, who are more likely to vote for the "wrong" party). This is an effective way to disenfranchise a lot of older women who don't have a current driver's license. * close as many DMV offices as you can in counties where people don't vote your way, restrict the hours on the remaining offices.
- exporectomy 5y ago
  > refuse to accept college IDs [...] more likely to vote for the "wrong" party How is that different from accepting college IDs because students are more likely to vote for the "right" party? Seems like both options are biased one way or another.
  - loeg 5y ago
    The point is that all state-issued IDs should be accepted.
    - exporectomy 5y ago
      But how is that less biased? That will still be biased one way or another (eg. more college students than gun licensees, or whatever) so regardless of whether they allow all of them or none of them or an arbitrary subset of them, it will still be biased and I don't think there's any objective set of acceptable IDs that isn't biased.
unclebucknasty 5y ago
>...and +1.4 percentage points for the effect on the turnout of nonwhite voters relative to whites >the likelihood that nonwhite voters were contacted by a campaign increases by 4.7 percentage points, suggesting that parties’ mobilization might have offset modest effects of the laws on the participation of ethnic minorities. So, what they're saying here is that increased efforts to contact minority voters (ostensibly endeavored because the laws were interpreted as punitive towards that group) may have resulted in a slight increase in turnout sufficient to overcome suppressed numbers. There is also anecdotal evidence that these laws make some in groups who feel targeted by them more determined to vote as a matter of principle (irrespective of campaign outreach efforts). At the end of the day, however, the requirement that some voters wield outsized determination is not exculpatory for those who seek to disenfranchise them, and these efforts don't stop with voter ID laws. Poll location closures leading to massive overcrowding and long waits in select areas; outlawing efforts to make those who wait more comfortable by, for example, providing water; attenuated hours at select locations; weekend closings; outlawing Sunday/church-sponsored efforts to vote; curtailing of mail-in ballots, etc are just some of the surgically targeted tactics employed.
akomtu 5y ago
Oh, I've just read on axios about the new "voting rights" bill. As expected, the bill is a book-worth of boilerplate that obscures the important details, but if you search for "identification", you'll see what they're trying to do there. Again, if this is how software was developed, this bill would be a pull request with 5000 changed files and a million changed lines, mostly refactoring, but there will be a few tiny changes that break the security model. Of course, when you try to point this out, they try to shout you down.
Zigurd 5y ago
They don't stop fraud, either. A common form of double voting is among voters who have multiple homes voting in more than one place.
- klyrs 5y ago
  How common?
  - Zigurd 5y ago
    In absolute terms, it's a subset of a rare event.
  - BitwiseFool 5y ago
    It's a good question but I doubt any good analysis has been done on this. The two different districts / jurisdictions would have to share voter roll data. And, most importantly, there would actually have to be a reason to go looking / do an investigation. Do you think a state like Indiana (for example) asks New Hampshire for voter roll data to make sure citizens who moved between the two states aren't double voting?
cletus 5y ago
We can only see the abstract, sadly, so it's hard to say what it's actually found. But, I disagree with the headline, for several reasons. 1. Requiring ID to vote requires definition. The various laws hastily passed in the wake of the 2020 election are not all the same. For example, Texas allows you to use a gun club membership as ID but not a student ID [1]. Other states have different requirements for allowed IDs; 2. There's absolutely no evidence this is even necessary. Example: less than two dozen cases of voter fraud from 2020 [2]. Different states have different numbers but over the years we're talking about possibly hundreds of cases; 3. Strict ID requirements are merely one aspect of an overall and coordinated effort of voter suppression by GOP-led state governments aimed at people who tend to vote Democrat. 4. Voter suppression is endemic within the GOP. Example: the Ballot Security Task Force [3] that resulted in a consent decree with the Federal government to try and curb voter suppression. There is a long history, particularly in the southern states in the post-slavery era of denying the right to vote to African Americans through requirements such as owning property or literacy tests not required by white voters; 5. The GOP is by far the biggest source of voter suppression but it doesn't have a monopoly. Example: efforts by the Gore campaign in Florida in 2000 to invalidate military ballots [4]. Note that such efforts are generally wildly unpopular even in the Demoratic voter base. 6. Margins of error in the effects of voter suppression being well less than 1% doesn't mean they aren't significant. That can swing elections. 7. The rush by GOP-led state houses to pass voter suppression bills under the guise of election integrity should be taken as evidence of the effectiveness of the measures; 8. The intangible part of these voter suppression efforts is to deter minority voters from going to the polls and also as virtue signaling to the Republican base; 9. Even though state IDs themselves can be free the supporting documentation might not be. There are a significant number of Americans who don't, say, have a valid birth certificate. Getting such documents if you were born, say, on a Native American reservation can be extremely difficult. Even if you can get all that, it's often painful to even get various forms of IDs. You might have to travel far out of your way and spend half a day or more to get such ID. Some people have the flexibility with work. Some do not; and 9. Poll access isn't universal. Certain areas may have limited polling places that mean queueing for hours whereas others might allow you to vote within minutes. All of this is why mandatory voting is so important. It fundamentally undermines democracies if the election process itself is politicized. You see this as some states have given the authority to overturn election results by a political figure (eg the Secretary of State). Denying the right to vote to convicted felons is an example of something that sounds noble but is nothing more than a form of legal voter suppression. In Australia, elections are organized by a quasi-government body, the Australian Electoral Commission ("AEC"). You vote on a Saturday so polling places are easy to find (ie schools). In your registered district your name will be in a book and when you show up they just cross off your name. Voting out of district doesn't require any special procedure. You simply fill out your details and these are consolidated later to ensure you didn't vote twice. It's worth repeating that Democrats aren't necessarily against any form of voter ID as this straw man argument is used a lot. There are degrees of voter ID and allowing a gun club membership card while disallowing a university student ID is clearly intended to target Democratic-leaning voters so it should be exposed for what it is. [1]: https://www.statesman.com/news/20160923/politifact-take-gun-license-but-not-student-id-to-texas-polls https://www.statesman.com/news/20160923/politifact-take-gun-... [2]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/05/04/despite-gop-rhetoric-there-have-been-fewer-than-two-dozen-charged-cases-voter-fraud-since-election/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/05/04/despite-g... [3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballot_Security_Task_Force https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballot_Security_Task_Force [4]: https://www.cnn.com/2015/11/02/politics/bush-gore-military-ballots/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2015/11/02/politics/bush-gore-military-b...
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
tonfreed 5y ago
Honestly, that's not even the biggest problem. Here in Australia, there are so many checks and balances when it comes to counting votes that it actually disgusted me when I heard some of the games various entities were playing in your last presidential election. The fact that the number of votes cast wasn't released until results were tallied and they kept "finding" more to count was perplexing. That partisan orgs like unions were given the contract to do the counting was also a really strange thing to do. And that scrutineers were kicked out in places was a disgusting act, here they by law must be allowed to watch everything regardless of political affiliation. We also do not let counters out of the room until everything has been counted and accounted for and have multiple checks along the way to make sure nothing has been lost or added. Seems statistically unlikely to me that individual fraud would make any difference in US elections given how decentralised it is, if anything was happening it'd be powerful players controlling who is counting and how they are deciding which votes count and which don't.
- ceejayoz 5y ago
  > We also do not let counters out of the room until everything has been counted... "Under the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918, the cut-off for receipt of mailed postal votes is 13 days after election day." - https://www.aec.gov.au/media/media-releases/2019/05-17b.htm https://www.aec.gov.au/media/media-releases/2019/05-17b.htm That sounds like an unpleasant experience for the counters. (The same happens in the States. Provisional ballots. Mail-ins. Ballots that wouldn't feed properly and need hand examination.)
- adrianmonk 5y ago
  > And that scrutineers were kicked out in places was a disgusting act I'm not aware of that actually happening. Here are some details on some allegations that were made, but the gist is that nothing improper actually did happen: https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/nov/12/donald-trump/trumps-wrong-claim-election-observers-were-barred-/ https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/nov/12/donald-tru...
  - ravel-bar-foo 5y ago
    In context it seems like that paragraph may be referring to Australia.
newbie789 5y ago
This seems like a bit of a departure from one of the authors’ papers from 2017(1). I wonder what the big differences are that somehow the US is immune to disenfranchisement but France isn’t. 1. https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=author:%22Pons%20Vincent%22#d=gs_qabs&u=%23p%3DKq0AbvN5fUMJ https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=author:%22Pons%20Vincen...
sharemywin 5y ago
To me the much bigger problem is this idea of putting inside people on the certification boards, saying the results are laced with fraud and flipping the election to the state legislators. How do you fix that?
- elliekelly 5y ago
  “Jury duty” for ballot counting and election certification?
  - christkv 5y ago
    In Spain you are a potentially draftee for election duty, especially if you are unemployed.
  - sharemywin 5y ago
    I guess thats better then my idea of locking them up until they come to a consensus.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- KennyBlanken 5y ago
  Not just putting insider people on the boards. A whole lot of state legislatures this year tried to hand themselves authority to override election results https://www.politifact.com/article/2021/jul/14/are-state-legislators-really-seeking-power-overrul/ https://www.politifact.com/article/2021/jul/14/are-state-leg...
brightball 5y ago
It’s as if opposing voter ID has never made any sense and only increased suspicion of the people who oppose it.
mmarq 5y ago
We already knew that: everywhere in the West, bar English speaking countries, you must show an ID to vote.
drno123 5y ago
I am amazed about low level od voter authentication in the USA. Living in Europe, we get national ID card when we turn 18. Everyone gets it. It is not hard to get it, it does not cost anything, even mentally challenged people get it. When there is an election, you need to show up with your ID card on voting place close to your residence - you cannot show in any voting place but one assigned to you. There they have a printed list with names of all eligible voters in the area, they check your ID card and you vote. When the votes are counted, any ordinary citizen can be present and verify the counts, providing he has registered in advance to be present at vote counting. Empty ballots are counted and verified against number od people that did not show up. American elections seem like a joke.
- gremloni 5y ago
  Americans do everything possible to prevent universal, forced identification. I think this is a good thing. It sucks that the GOP are tricking their base into supporting it.
- Y_Y 5y ago
  This, of course, depends on where you are. Not every country in Europe has a national ID. Countries which do have one often charge for issuing them. In some cases it is sufficient just to bring your ballot paper to the polling station.
  - vimy 5y ago
    I think UK is the only one without an ID.
    - switch007 5y ago
      It’s not. Denmark, Iceland and Ireland (though they have “passport cards”)
- School-Cotton 5y ago
  In general the US is much more incompetently and inefficiently administered than many European countries. It shouldn’t surprise anyone that the authorities are incapable of setting up a system like the one you describe.
godmode2019 5y ago
In New Zealand you have to register months in advanced, you receive a voting ID in the mail and you use this to vote in person along with (from memory one form of ID) You can register on the spot but you need both ID and proof of address. Also telling anyone who you voted for on the day is illegal. You can not post about it, because all party voting advertising is banned on the day. I find this funny when Americans argue about things we figured out in the 90s. We also have MMP which means you have more than one party so for example Bernie would have his own party.
- kevin_thibedeau 5y ago
  Not everyone has a mailing address. Some sensible states don't bother with ID at the time of voting. You provide proof of identity when registering and your signature goes into a book. You sign in on voting day and any challenger can compare against the registered copy.
nebula8804 5y ago
I recall in the 2016 election here in NJ I went to vote (we are in a deep red town). Despite the fact that I voted in multiple cycles in the same town and polling place and the ladies working at the polling station remain unchanged over the years, because my signature was slightly off from the ones in their records they started saying out loud "hey wait a minute this does not seem legit". They started getting visibly angry and I started getting terrified because I am not white and there were a bunch of semi angry looking Trump people in the room with us. They asked me for another form of ID so I showed them my drivers license and then they were like "OK all is well" and calmed down. But still that experience of fear is what I imagine is going to prevent people from coming out to vote, especially in districts where Democrats haven't provided any meaningful reform when they have been in office(see rural areas getting killed under Clinton/Obama). If you combine an electorate that is already discouraged + the fear of altercation it spells doom in the long term. This culture of fear is what the Republicans want and its what they need to hold on to power amid changing demographics. They will strip the government of every last thing they possibly can on their way out of relevance. I won't ever give up my right to vote but would I have fought back if they continued pressing the issue? Would I accepted a provisional ballot that may result in my vote being thrown into the trash or becoming ineffective on election day? I don't really know.
- post_from_work 5y ago
  >>>This culture of fear is what the Republicans want and its what they need to hold on to power amid changing demographics. They will strip the government of every last thing they possibly can on their way out of relevance. You do know that there are Republicans who aren't white, and that some of them are very much in favor of improving voter registration? https://www.facebook.com/KimberlyNKlacik/videos/3035599606714428/ https://www.facebook.com/KimberlyNKlacik/videos/303559960671...
  - nebula8804 5y ago
    Eh yeah but their actions have been hostile to minorities since I started paying attention near the end of middle school. The fact that you have a small handful of public figures that try to put on a happy face for the party don't really jive with their actions. Furthermore are you really going to make this argument that the party apparatus operates in good faith after Trump? You could barely make this argument after Bush.
jayd16 5y ago
This doesn't really gel with the observed increase in voter turnout in states with mail in voting. Anyone want to square that circle?
- staysafeanon 5y ago
  Two completely different concepts. You can vote at home at your leisure. You have to find a block of time and physically appear somewhere to vote in person. Voter ID laws are immaterial to that point.
  - jayd16 5y ago
    Voter ID laws would block you from voting at home, so I don't see how its immaterial at all.
pyuser583 5y ago
I lived in a state that made it insanely difficult to register to vote, but easy to vote. Registration required two forms of ID, one with your picture, both with address. A while ago, the state changed the rules so that one form of ID was required to register (photo required) and one form of ID required to vote (photo required). This made registering much, much easier, which made voting much much easier, especially for young people. There was national freak out over this. HOLY FUCKING SHIT THE REPUBLICANS ARE REQUIRING IDS TO VOTE! YOUNG PEOPLE AND MINORITIES WONT BE ABLE TO VOTE! Voting rates went up, especially among the young. The only people who had problems were very elderly people who had lived at the same address for long time (no need to register) and we’re had stopped driving. Most were Republican. Partisan organizations released non-peer reviewed studies showing the vote was superseded. Partisan publications (for example, Mother Jones) treated these press releases as fact, but mainstream fact checkers pointed out they were bullshit. They have since been largely scrubbed from the Internet. I can’t imagine why it’s OK to require two forms of ID to register (a consensus position as of 2007 or so), but requiring a single ID to register and vote is a human rights violation.
- unanswered 5y ago
  I'm not sure what to believe myself, but... One explanation which is just barely plausible, but by default is unfortunately the most plausible explanation, is that there is widespread fraud and powerful parties want it to remain in place. What other reason could there be given the overwhelming evidence that no legitimate voter is stopped by these laws?
someonehere 5y ago
If third world nations can have national voter IDs (some mandate you vote as well), then there’s no excuse that we can’t do the same: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_identification_laws https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_identification_laws You need an ID to drive, buy alcohol/tobacco, get on an airplane, get state/federal benefits, apply for a bank account or loan, but somehow you aren’t required to prove your identity when voting everywhere in this country.
mbg721 5y ago
When push comes to shove, this whole ID argument is just shenanigans of blue vs. red, and everyone knows it. Nobody trusts their vote, and nobody even cares about their vote--it's the party they least dislike.
perceptronas 5y ago
As a person not from States: It is insane to see elections without ID verification. If having a document to verify your identity is "too big of a hassle" to vote - not sure that qualifies voter too choose future for their country
- switch007 5y ago
  This comment is left on every post about voter ID. Why is it insane? Because your country does a thing and another doesn’t? I don’t find it “insane” that countries speak different languages or drive on the other side of the road

209 points by johntfella 5y ago

davidw 5y ago

If people wanted to encourage voting, it's hard to beat Oregon's system in the US. There is very little fraud.

cowpig 5y ago
There is no evidence that there is significant voter fraud anywhere in the US
- School-Cotton 5y ago
  Is there evidence that there isn’t ? How would you tell? (Anecdotally, from talking to my friends and acquaintances from Arizona, I think at least one type of voter fraud is extremely widespread: remaining registered there even after you’ve moved away, because you want your vote to be in a purple state and therefore count more. Most people don’t even think of this as fraud.)
  - jayd16 5y ago
    It would need to be incredibly good. So good that we never see failed wide spread fraud.
    - School-Cotton 5y ago
      For the example I mentioned, there is nobody really bothering to enforce the requirement, AFAICT.
      - ModernMech 5y ago
        Didn’t Arizona just undergo a very thorough audit from people very determined to find alleged fraud? Why didn’t they find the fraud you describe? I mean, they very loudly claimed they were going to prove fraud occurred and then went through a very public humiliation when they couldn’t after 6 months. I would think if there were a mountain of easily provable voter fraud just waiting to be found for anyone willing to look, they would have found it. Or is it your contention that even they didn’t think to investigate this? It’s just very frustrating to me that these kinds of claims have been made for decades, and actual laws are being passed predicated on these claims being true. Yet every time evidence is requested, it never turns up. Either this widespread, endemic fraud is so nefarious and perfectly executed that it can’t be detected, or it doesn’t exist at this point. Why isn’t it incumbent upon the people making these claims to prove them in court? Why can’t they do that? Massive fraud has been alleged at the highest levels of government and they can’t go in front of a federal judge and say that plainly. A lot of people are quick to make claims of fraud in front of cameras, but in front of a judge the word ‘fraud’ doesn’t leave their lips? Why? Until they argue a full-throated systematic voter fraud case on the scale they claim openly in a court of law, I don’t see why anyone should entertain these ideas anymore. It’s time to put up or shut up with the evidence. Millions of dollars spent, an entire party singularly devoted to finding and preventing fraud above any other legislative agenda, private corporations have been paid millions in taxpayer money to investigate this fraud. Privacy and voting rights are being trampled on in there name of finding and preventing this fraud. It’s not enough anymore to sit back and humor the people making these claims. Millions of people believe it exists and that has been perpetrated on a grand, international scale. There should be mountains of evidence that this kind of activity occurred but hardly a scintilla can be found. Why? because no one is looking hard enough? No. It’s not found because it is not there.

option 5y ago

there is an obvious compromise here - require voter ID but only in counties where enough registered voters (say over 95%) have one. Regardless of voting, people not having an ID is a serious problem local governments must solve.

switch007 5y ago
This would be somewhat sensible: start a program to provide the free ID, wait a few years, measure what % of people have it, take it from there. That won't happen of course (here in the UK). The free ID will be bundled with the legislation to require voter ID, with some pathetic head-start of maybe a few months to a year or so.

Upvoter33 5y ago

Doesn't pass the smell test. There is a group spending a lot of time doing this. Do you think it's because it makes no difference, and they're just having fun?

elliekelly 5y ago
What’s odd about the title of the paper is the conclusion reached by the authors: voter ID laws are a waste of time and resources.

addicted 5y ago

This makes sense for many reasons. Yet, it makes completely sense for the Democrats to highlight that the Republicans are the ones who are trying to prevent absolutely legitimate citizens from voting because they are an anti Democratic Party. Because between 2 groups, one which prefers more citizens voting and one which tries to win by preventing citizens from voting, it’s good that the group that encourages citizens to vote wins.

smokey_circles 5y ago

It truly boggles my mind that the US has such a backwards stance on government issued IDs. Whatever argument you have about why this is a good thing is utterly lacking in substance, because the US has a defacto ID and it's horrendously bad (talking about that SSN). Just issue a proper ID system for goodness sake, what a stupid set of problems to have in the modern era :/

ravenstine 5y ago

Why have IDs for anything?

varelse 5y ago

Already got forbidden from the URL.

Ancapistani 5y ago

I'd love to read the actual paper, not just the abstract. The statement near the end of the abstract - "Finally, strict ID requirements have no effect on fraud, actual or perceived." - seems surprising to me, and I'd like to see how they arrived at that conclusion.

johntfella 5y ago
pdf: https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w25522/w25522.pdf https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w25522/w255...
jedimastert 5y ago
> The statement near the end of the abstract - "Finally, strict ID requirements have no effect on fraud, actual or perceived." - seems surprising to me, and I'd like to see how they arrived at that conclusion. If I had to take a guess, I'd say that voter fraud was already very low to begin with, and the rare occurrences that do happen wouldn't be helped with ID laws.
- mywittyname 5y ago
  It's the "perceived" part that I am suspicious of (and I assume the GP too). It makes sense to me that strict ID laws don't do much to fight actual fraud because the systems in place are pretty effective (moreso than ID laws, I'd think, since I've personally rarely had an up-to-date state ID). But how does it not have an effect on perceived fraud, when all of the people perceiving fraud are arguing for strict ID requirements? I think I know the answer (these people perceive fraud in response to their "team's" loss, regardless). But it would be interesting to read what the authors say.
  - Kranar 5y ago
    One hypothesis is that the motivation behind voter fraud never had anything to do with evidence suggesting that voter fraud occurs. Voter fraud is an excuse to enact legislation that makes it harder for certain demographics to vote. If that hypothesis is true, then people will never stop believing in voter fraud until said demographics no longer have any significant representation in politics.

egberts1 5y ago

A pastebin, please.

jedimastert 5y ago
https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w25522/w25522.pdf https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w25522/w255...

antonvs 5y ago

What this doesn't take into account is the degree to which introducing such requirements can more easily be exploited in future to introduce barriers to voting. We've already seen how far some people are willing to go to undermine the integrity of elections. This means the real question is, to what extent does the current system contribute to integrity issues? So far, there doesn't seem to be much evidence that it does. So, what is the rationale for introducing additional ID requirements, beyond what already exists via voter registration, matching at the polls, etc.?

chestertn 5y ago
Most european countries require some sort of government ID before voting. I don't see what the big deal is.
- triceratops 5y ago
  They also provide ID for free. A lot of these countries have some form of government-sponsored health care, for which people already have ID by default.
  - xdennis 5y ago
    Not all European states provide free IDs, and some US states which require IDs provide them for free.
    - triceratops 5y ago
      Can you give me examples of European countries where there are no forms of ID that are free and accepted at the polls?
      - HotHotLava 5y ago
        In Germany the ID card costs 37 EUR and is valid for 10 years, reduced to 22.80 EUR and 6 years of validity if you're under 24. A passport is even more expensive. No other forms of identification are accepted, but it's also not really necessary since you're required to get an ID card anyways.

titzer 5y ago

The title should have been "Strong mobilization efforts needed to neutralize voter turnout reduction of ID laws", because that's what the data in their abstract actually says.

unclebucknasty 5y ago
Exactly this. In fact, the current title is actually refuted by the abstract.
- tessierashpool 5y ago
  that's a pretty significant title error
  - bena 5y ago
    It's not quite an error. The poster's other submissions are not surprising given the editorializing of this abstract.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
elil17 5y ago
Even then, there was a 0.1% reduction in voter turnout, but the reduction was primarily among white voters. Although this isn’t the negative outcome that myself and other opponents of voter ID laws were worried about, any policy that reduces voter engagement is bad - even if it doesn’t lead to racial inequality.
- nverno 5y ago
  I agree, but there needs to be some compromise between integrity and ease. As programmers, we all know how easily systems can be compromised. Having effectively zero barrier to getting proper ID seems like a simple, inexpensive solution, especially given you already need ID for so many other essentials

jimbob45 5y ago

ID laws aren't really a debate at this point. The overwhelming majority of Americans are in favor of showing some sort of ID to vote as long as said ID is free (i.e. being poor isn't a possible impediment to voting). By 'free', that means free or reasonably free of time as well. People working multiple jobs with children simply don't have time to wait down at the DMV for three hours (if you're lucky) to be able to vote.

djrogers 5y ago
> People working multiple jobs with children simply don't have time to wait down at the DMV for three hours (if you're lucky) to be able to vote. Malarkey. I just got my first RealID in California last month, and I was in the DMV for around 20 minutes. And this wasn't in some bougie city with a special DMV. Make a reservation, show up, done.
- Kique 5y ago
  How nice of you to live in a state that wants people to get an ID and vote, it's not like that everywhere... Older article but wouldn't be surprised if more states are doing similar things today. "Many ID-issuing offices maintain limited business hours. For example, the office in Sauk City, Wisconsin is open only on the fifth Wednesday of any month. But only four months in 2012 — February, May, August, and October — have five Wednesdays. In other states — Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, and Texas — many part-time ID-issuing offices are in the rural regions with the highest concentrations of people of color and people in poverty" https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/challenge-obtaining-voter-identification https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/chal...
- tgb 5y ago
  I got mine in April and it involved standing in line for an hour before being let into the DMV to sit in line inside. It cost something like $50, too. I wouldn't call it convenient.
- nemothekid 5y ago
  >I just got my first RealID in California last month >Make a reservation, show up, done. California has already done the work in making voting accessible and it isn't califronia politicans arguing for voter ID laws. California isn't a battleground state and is run by people who have pushed to make voting as seamless as possible. Alabama, after passing voter ID laws, then turned around and made it more difficult for people to obtain IDs. [1] [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-10-01/alabama-closes-dmv-offices-a-year-after-voter-id-law-kicks-in https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-10-01/alabama-c...

zwieback 5y ago

Voter ID laws don't deter voters and vote suppression schemes can hurt the constituency of whoever is doing the suppressing. That makes me wonder what endgame current proponents of tightening laws and auditing results have in mind.

mywittyname 5y ago
The goal is to poke holes in the 15th and 24th amendments, which they can wallow out over time. The SC is more than happy to put limits and exceptions on Constitutional protections. The hardest part is getting that first exception in place. Once it's there, you can slowly bring forth more cases that expand that exception ever more.
- IncRnd 5y ago
  Not really. People think the Constitution says things about voiting that is does not say. For example, states could pass laws that people between the ages of 25 and 35 could not vote for President. That is constitutional. I'm not saying it would be accepted, but don't say things are unconstitutional just because you disagree.
  - pseudalopex 5y ago
    "The right of citizens of the United States, who are eighteen years of age or older, to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of age."[1] [1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-26/section-1 https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-26/...

not2b 5y ago

This will be true provided that states make an effort to assure that all can obtain the required ID, for free (any fee to vote would violate the 24th Amendment) and don't play games to try to make it harder for some groups than others. Examples of ways to put your thumb on the scale: * refuse to accept college IDs as valid for voting, even those issued by the state government because it's a state school (college students are more likely to vote for the "wrong" party). Hunting licenses? Cool (people with hunting licenses are more likely to vote for the "right" party). * prevent college students who live most of the year in-state, and can prove it, but have an out-of-state driver's license, from voting. * place extra hoops on people whose name doesn't match their birth certificate, make them produce every document with every change and toss their registration if there's a typo (this mainly affects married women, who are more likely to vote for the "wrong" party). This is an effective way to disenfranchise a lot of older women who don't have a current driver's license. * close as many DMV offices as you can in counties where people don't vote your way, restrict the hours on the remaining offices.

exporectomy 5y ago
> refuse to accept college IDs [...] more likely to vote for the "wrong" party How is that different from accepting college IDs because students are more likely to vote for the "right" party? Seems like both options are biased one way or another.
- loeg 5y ago
  The point is that all state-issued IDs should be accepted.
  - exporectomy 5y ago
    But how is that less biased? That will still be biased one way or another (eg. more college students than gun licensees, or whatever) so regardless of whether they allow all of them or none of them or an arbitrary subset of them, it will still be biased and I don't think there's any objective set of acceptable IDs that isn't biased.

unclebucknasty 5y ago

>...and +1.4 percentage points for the effect on the turnout of nonwhite voters relative to whites >the likelihood that nonwhite voters were contacted by a campaign increases by 4.7 percentage points, suggesting that parties’ mobilization might have offset modest effects of the laws on the participation of ethnic minorities. So, what they're saying here is that increased efforts to contact minority voters (ostensibly endeavored because the laws were interpreted as punitive towards that group) may have resulted in a slight increase in turnout sufficient to overcome suppressed numbers. There is also anecdotal evidence that these laws make some in groups who feel targeted by them more determined to vote as a matter of principle (irrespective of campaign outreach efforts). At the end of the day, however, the requirement that some voters wield outsized determination is not exculpatory for those who seek to disenfranchise them, and these efforts don't stop with voter ID laws. Poll location closures leading to massive overcrowding and long waits in select areas; outlawing efforts to make those who wait more comfortable by, for example, providing water; attenuated hours at select locations; weekend closings; outlawing Sunday/church-sponsored efforts to vote; curtailing of mail-in ballots, etc are just some of the surgically targeted tactics employed.

akomtu 5y ago

Oh, I've just read on axios about the new "voting rights" bill. As expected, the bill is a book-worth of boilerplate that obscures the important details, but if you search for "identification", you'll see what they're trying to do there. Again, if this is how software was developed, this bill would be a pull request with 5000 changed files and a million changed lines, mostly refactoring, but there will be a few tiny changes that break the security model. Of course, when you try to point this out, they try to shout you down.

Zigurd 5y ago

They don't stop fraud, either. A common form of double voting is among voters who have multiple homes voting in more than one place.

klyrs 5y ago
How common?
- Zigurd 5y ago
  In absolute terms, it's a subset of a rare event.
- BitwiseFool 5y ago
  It's a good question but I doubt any good analysis has been done on this. The two different districts / jurisdictions would have to share voter roll data. And, most importantly, there would actually have to be a reason to go looking / do an investigation. Do you think a state like Indiana (for example) asks New Hampshire for voter roll data to make sure citizens who moved between the two states aren't double voting?

cletus 5y ago

We can only see the abstract, sadly, so it's hard to say what it's actually found. But, I disagree with the headline, for several reasons. 1. Requiring ID to vote requires definition. The various laws hastily passed in the wake of the 2020 election are not all the same. For example, Texas allows you to use a gun club membership as ID but not a student ID [1]. Other states have different requirements for allowed IDs; 2. There's absolutely no evidence this is even necessary. Example: less than two dozen cases of voter fraud from 2020 [2]. Different states have different numbers but over the years we're talking about possibly hundreds of cases; 3. Strict ID requirements are merely one aspect of an overall and coordinated effort of voter suppression by GOP-led state governments aimed at people who tend to vote Democrat. 4. Voter suppression is endemic within the GOP. Example: the Ballot Security Task Force [3] that resulted in a consent decree with the Federal government to try and curb voter suppression. There is a long history, particularly in the southern states in the post-slavery era of denying the right to vote to African Americans through requirements such as owning property or literacy tests not required by white voters; 5. The GOP is by far the biggest source of voter suppression but it doesn't have a monopoly. Example: efforts by the Gore campaign in Florida in 2000 to invalidate military ballots [4]. Note that such efforts are generally wildly unpopular even in the Demoratic voter base. 6. Margins of error in the effects of voter suppression being well less than 1% doesn't mean they aren't significant. That can swing elections. 7. The rush by GOP-led state houses to pass voter suppression bills under the guise of election integrity should be taken as evidence of the effectiveness of the measures; 8. The intangible part of these voter suppression efforts is to deter minority voters from going to the polls and also as virtue signaling to the Republican base; 9. Even though state IDs themselves can be free the supporting documentation might not be. There are a significant number of Americans who don't, say, have a valid birth certificate. Getting such documents if you were born, say, on a Native American reservation can be extremely difficult. Even if you can get all that, it's often painful to even get various forms of IDs. You might have to travel far out of your way and spend half a day or more to get such ID. Some people have the flexibility with work. Some do not; and 9. Poll access isn't universal. Certain areas may have limited polling places that mean queueing for hours whereas others might allow you to vote within minutes. All of this is why mandatory voting is so important. It fundamentally undermines democracies if the election process itself is politicized. You see this as some states have given the authority to overturn election results by a political figure (eg the Secretary of State). Denying the right to vote to convicted felons is an example of something that sounds noble but is nothing more than a form of legal voter suppression. In Australia, elections are organized by a quasi-government body, the Australian Electoral Commission ("AEC"). You vote on a Saturday so polling places are easy to find (ie schools). In your registered district your name will be in a book and when you show up they just cross off your name. Voting out of district doesn't require any special procedure. You simply fill out your details and these are consolidated later to ensure you didn't vote twice. It's worth repeating that Democrats aren't necessarily against any form of voter ID as this straw man argument is used a lot. There are degrees of voter ID and allowing a gun club membership card while disallowing a university student ID is clearly intended to target Democratic-leaning voters so it should be exposed for what it is. [1]: https://www.statesman.com/news/20160923/politifact-take-gun-license-but-not-student-id-to-texas-polls https://www.statesman.com/news/20160923/politifact-take-gun-... [2]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/05/04/despite-gop-rhetoric-there-have-been-fewer-than-two-dozen-charged-cases-voter-fraud-since-election/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/05/04/despite-g... [3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballot_Security_Task_Force https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballot_Security_Task_Force [4]: https://www.cnn.com/2015/11/02/politics/bush-gore-military-ballots/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2015/11/02/politics/bush-gore-military-b...

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

tonfreed 5y ago

Honestly, that's not even the biggest problem. Here in Australia, there are so many checks and balances when it comes to counting votes that it actually disgusted me when I heard some of the games various entities were playing in your last presidential election. The fact that the number of votes cast wasn't released until results were tallied and they kept "finding" more to count was perplexing. That partisan orgs like unions were given the contract to do the counting was also a really strange thing to do. And that scrutineers were kicked out in places was a disgusting act, here they by law must be allowed to watch everything regardless of political affiliation. We also do not let counters out of the room until everything has been counted and accounted for and have multiple checks along the way to make sure nothing has been lost or added. Seems statistically unlikely to me that individual fraud would make any difference in US elections given how decentralised it is, if anything was happening it'd be powerful players controlling who is counting and how they are deciding which votes count and which don't.

ceejayoz 5y ago
> We also do not let counters out of the room until everything has been counted... "Under the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918, the cut-off for receipt of mailed postal votes is 13 days after election day." - https://www.aec.gov.au/media/media-releases/2019/05-17b.htm https://www.aec.gov.au/media/media-releases/2019/05-17b.htm That sounds like an unpleasant experience for the counters. (The same happens in the States. Provisional ballots. Mail-ins. Ballots that wouldn't feed properly and need hand examination.)
adrianmonk 5y ago
> And that scrutineers were kicked out in places was a disgusting act I'm not aware of that actually happening. Here are some details on some allegations that were made, but the gist is that nothing improper actually did happen: https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/nov/12/donald-trump/trumps-wrong-claim-election-observers-were-barred-/ https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/nov/12/donald-tru...
- ravel-bar-foo 5y ago
  In context it seems like that paragraph may be referring to Australia.

newbie789 5y ago

This seems like a bit of a departure from one of the authors’ papers from 2017(1). I wonder what the big differences are that somehow the US is immune to disenfranchisement but France isn’t. 1. https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=author:%22Pons%20Vincent%22#d=gs_qabs&u=%23p%3DKq0AbvN5fUMJ https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=author:%22Pons%20Vincen...

sharemywin 5y ago

To me the much bigger problem is this idea of putting inside people on the certification boards, saying the results are laced with fraud and flipping the election to the state legislators. How do you fix that?

elliekelly 5y ago
“Jury duty” for ballot counting and election certification?
- christkv 5y ago
  In Spain you are a potentially draftee for election duty, especially if you are unemployed.
- sharemywin 5y ago
  I guess thats better then my idea of locking them up until they come to a consensus.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
KennyBlanken 5y ago
Not just putting insider people on the boards. A whole lot of state legislatures this year tried to hand themselves authority to override election results https://www.politifact.com/article/2021/jul/14/are-state-legislators-really-seeking-power-overrul/ https://www.politifact.com/article/2021/jul/14/are-state-leg...

brightball 5y ago

It’s as if opposing voter ID has never made any sense and only increased suspicion of the people who oppose it.

mmarq 5y ago

We already knew that: everywhere in the West, bar English speaking countries, you must show an ID to vote.

drno123 5y ago

I am amazed about low level od voter authentication in the USA. Living in Europe, we get national ID card when we turn 18. Everyone gets it. It is not hard to get it, it does not cost anything, even mentally challenged people get it. When there is an election, you need to show up with your ID card on voting place close to your residence - you cannot show in any voting place but one assigned to you. There they have a printed list with names of all eligible voters in the area, they check your ID card and you vote. When the votes are counted, any ordinary citizen can be present and verify the counts, providing he has registered in advance to be present at vote counting. Empty ballots are counted and verified against number od people that did not show up. American elections seem like a joke.

gremloni 5y ago
Americans do everything possible to prevent universal, forced identification. I think this is a good thing. It sucks that the GOP are tricking their base into supporting it.
Y_Y 5y ago
This, of course, depends on where you are. Not every country in Europe has a national ID. Countries which do have one often charge for issuing them. In some cases it is sufficient just to bring your ballot paper to the polling station.
- vimy 5y ago
  I think UK is the only one without an ID.
  - switch007 5y ago
    It’s not. Denmark, Iceland and Ireland (though they have “passport cards”)
School-Cotton 5y ago
In general the US is much more incompetently and inefficiently administered than many European countries. It shouldn’t surprise anyone that the authorities are incapable of setting up a system like the one you describe.

godmode2019 5y ago

In New Zealand you have to register months in advanced, you receive a voting ID in the mail and you use this to vote in person along with (from memory one form of ID) You can register on the spot but you need both ID and proof of address. Also telling anyone who you voted for on the day is illegal. You can not post about it, because all party voting advertising is banned on the day. I find this funny when Americans argue about things we figured out in the 90s. We also have MMP which means you have more than one party so for example Bernie would have his own party.

kevin_thibedeau 5y ago
Not everyone has a mailing address. Some sensible states don't bother with ID at the time of voting. You provide proof of identity when registering and your signature goes into a book. You sign in on voting day and any challenger can compare against the registered copy.

nebula8804 5y ago

I recall in the 2016 election here in NJ I went to vote (we are in a deep red town). Despite the fact that I voted in multiple cycles in the same town and polling place and the ladies working at the polling station remain unchanged over the years, because my signature was slightly off from the ones in their records they started saying out loud "hey wait a minute this does not seem legit". They started getting visibly angry and I started getting terrified because I am not white and there were a bunch of semi angry looking Trump people in the room with us. They asked me for another form of ID so I showed them my drivers license and then they were like "OK all is well" and calmed down. But still that experience of fear is what I imagine is going to prevent people from coming out to vote, especially in districts where Democrats haven't provided any meaningful reform when they have been in office(see rural areas getting killed under Clinton/Obama). If you combine an electorate that is already discouraged + the fear of altercation it spells doom in the long term. This culture of fear is what the Republicans want and its what they need to hold on to power amid changing demographics. They will strip the government of every last thing they possibly can on their way out of relevance. I won't ever give up my right to vote but would I have fought back if they continued pressing the issue? Would I accepted a provisional ballot that may result in my vote being thrown into the trash or becoming ineffective on election day? I don't really know.

post_from_work 5y ago
>>>This culture of fear is what the Republicans want and its what they need to hold on to power amid changing demographics. They will strip the government of every last thing they possibly can on their way out of relevance. You do know that there are Republicans who aren't white, and that some of them are very much in favor of improving voter registration? https://www.facebook.com/KimberlyNKlacik/videos/3035599606714428/ https://www.facebook.com/KimberlyNKlacik/videos/303559960671...
- nebula8804 5y ago
  Eh yeah but their actions have been hostile to minorities since I started paying attention near the end of middle school. The fact that you have a small handful of public figures that try to put on a happy face for the party don't really jive with their actions. Furthermore are you really going to make this argument that the party apparatus operates in good faith after Trump? You could barely make this argument after Bush.

jayd16 5y ago

This doesn't really gel with the observed increase in voter turnout in states with mail in voting. Anyone want to square that circle?

staysafeanon 5y ago
Two completely different concepts. You can vote at home at your leisure. You have to find a block of time and physically appear somewhere to vote in person. Voter ID laws are immaterial to that point.
- jayd16 5y ago
  Voter ID laws would block you from voting at home, so I don't see how its immaterial at all.

pyuser583 5y ago

I lived in a state that made it insanely difficult to register to vote, but easy to vote. Registration required two forms of ID, one with your picture, both with address. A while ago, the state changed the rules so that one form of ID was required to register (photo required) and one form of ID required to vote (photo required). This made registering much, much easier, which made voting much much easier, especially for young people. There was national freak out over this. HOLY FUCKING SHIT THE REPUBLICANS ARE REQUIRING IDS TO VOTE! YOUNG PEOPLE AND MINORITIES WONT BE ABLE TO VOTE! Voting rates went up, especially among the young. The only people who had problems were very elderly people who had lived at the same address for long time (no need to register) and we’re had stopped driving. Most were Republican. Partisan organizations released non-peer reviewed studies showing the vote was superseded. Partisan publications (for example, Mother Jones) treated these press releases as fact, but mainstream fact checkers pointed out they were bullshit. They have since been largely scrubbed from the Internet. I can’t imagine why it’s OK to require two forms of ID to register (a consensus position as of 2007 or so), but requiring a single ID to register and vote is a human rights violation.

unanswered 5y ago
I'm not sure what to believe myself, but... One explanation which is just barely plausible, but by default is unfortunately the most plausible explanation, is that there is widespread fraud and powerful parties want it to remain in place. What other reason could there be given the overwhelming evidence that no legitimate voter is stopped by these laws?

someonehere 5y ago

If third world nations can have national voter IDs (some mandate you vote as well), then there’s no excuse that we can’t do the same: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_identification_laws https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_identification_laws You need an ID to drive, buy alcohol/tobacco, get on an airplane, get state/federal benefits, apply for a bank account or loan, but somehow you aren’t required to prove your identity when voting everywhere in this country.

mbg721 5y ago

When push comes to shove, this whole ID argument is just shenanigans of blue vs. red, and everyone knows it. Nobody trusts their vote, and nobody even cares about their vote--it's the party they least dislike.

perceptronas 5y ago

As a person not from States: It is insane to see elections without ID verification. If having a document to verify your identity is "too big of a hassle" to vote - not sure that qualifies voter too choose future for their country

switch007 5y ago
This comment is left on every post about voter ID. Why is it insane? Because your country does a thing and another doesn’t? I don’t find it “insane” that countries speak different languages or drive on the other side of the road