18 ms·

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)

by 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.
    - bena 5y ago
      Stop and think about this for a second. College students are residents. The policies of the local government affect them. Regardless of who they'd vote for, they deserve a say. If concealed carry licenses are accepted, student IDs should be as well. That's what he's saying.
      - dmatech 5y ago
        It's actually pretty complicated. https://www.ncsl.org/Documents/Elections/The_Canvass_May_2016.pdf https://www.ncsl.org/Documents/Elections/The_Canvass_May_201...
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
    - tzs 5y ago
      If a sufficient range of state IDs are accepted that everyone who is eligible to vote can freely and easily get one, then it is not biased by definition.
      - exporectomy 5y ago
        Sure, but there is no such range of IDs in America, is there? It seems like a choice from a set of various not-easily-and freely-obtainable-to-everyone IDs.
    - loeg 5y ago
      Are you asserting that it is biased for the successfully-IDed voters to reflect the demographics of the underlying voter population? I don't think that makes sense.
- beecafe 5y ago
  At least there they have the option of voting for the other party, rather than being disenfranchised
- spywaregorilla 5y ago
  No voter id requirements is a pretty neutral option.
voldacar 5y ago
> college students are more likely to vote for the "wrong" party Um, are you aware which party currently controls the presidency, the senate, almost all corporate media, educational institutions, and high-prestige institutions in general? that's the underdog? that's the "wrong party"? your comment reads like it's from a parallel universe or something
- LatteLazy 5y ago
  Isn't it states that control most voter ID laws and aren't "the wrong party" the ones pushing voter ID 99% of the time? I'm a limey Brit, so I'm honestly asking...
- brazzy 5y ago
  Are you aware that these vote restriction laws are passed on the state, not federal level, that the party that currently controls the presidency is trying to ban ID-based voting restrictions, which the other party is trying to pass in the state legislations it controls? https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/22/us/politics/filibuster-voting-rights.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/22/us/politics/filibuster-vo... https://www.texastribune.org/2021/08/30/texas-voting-restrictions-bill/ https://www.texastribune.org/2021/08/30/texas-voting-restric... Your comment reads like it's either from someone not really familiar with US politics, or someone who is being deliberately dishonest.
- bena 5y ago
  First, they're also the party that isn't looking to enact voter ID laws. Second, he never said either party was the underdog. He just outlined how voter ID laws can only be a first step to disenfranchise voters.
throwoutway 5y ago
> refuse to accept college IDs as valid for voting, even those issued by the state government What state governments issue a college ID? It’s been a while for me but I don’t recall much evidence required for me to get a college ID and even though I went to a public state university, it definitely was not government issued. Nobody would have accepted it as proof of identity besides the college, certainly not for voting
- pseudalopex 5y ago
  Public universities are state agencies. What they require to issue ID and if anyone accepts it are different questions. But state issued photo ID isn't an unusual standard.
  - restingrobot 5y ago
    So only public universities count, but not private ones? School ID's are not considered valid identification for any other government form, (I-9, W2, etc), so I don't think it makes sense to say they count here as well.
    - pseudalopex 5y ago
      What counts depends on the standard. State issued excludes private universities. Form I-9 says school ID card with a photograph is a document that establishes identity.[1] It doesn't say it has to be state issued. Form W-2 is a wage and tax statement from your employer. What identification is involved? [1] https://www.uscis.gov/i-9-central/form-i-9-acceptable-documents https://www.uscis.gov/i-9-central/form-i-9-acceptable-docume...
- teeray 5y ago
  If a state school issues an ID, are they not a government entity issuing identification? Whether it’s acceptable by a third party is another question, of course.
mgarfias 5y ago
So you’re arguing for free hunting licenses? I’m joking of course, a hunting license isn’t a form of ID. Curiously, my CHL isn’t a form of ID, even though it is state issued, has my pic, and I had to be finger printed to get it.
- xxpor 5y ago
  In some states (Texas I think), a concealed carry license is acceptable ID, but a student ID isn't. There is, of course, no bias in the types of people that have one but not the other.
  - _-david-_ 5y ago
    A CCL requires a background check. A student ID does not.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - jlokier 5y ago
      There is, of course, no bias in the types of people who are comfortable with and can easily pass a background check, and those who are not or cannot. In a free and fair election, the right to vote is not be based on your detailed personal history, or whether you have done something that looks off and might cause you trouble with authorities. Even if it's just fear of imagined trouble that puts people off feeling safe to obtain the necessary approvals to vote, that's enough to prevent a free and fair election.
      - _-david-_ 5y ago
        I am not suggesting you should need a background check to vote. All I am saying is we have a good idea that the person with a CCL is that person and they are not a felon (in some states felons cannot vote). Anybody can go to a community college including a noncitizen. There is no background check and no real verification the person is who they say they are. You just show up and have your picture taken. If you are going to trust one of these forms of IDs it is clear that it should be the CCL.
rootusrootus 5y ago
If the issue wasn't fundamentally about putting a thumb on one side of the scale or the other, this would be a relatively easy to solve problem. Make it part of the FEC charter to issue voting ID at no cost, tracking people down like the census does. Fund them appropriately, of course. And make sure that there is adequate opportunity to vote in person (multiple days, lots of locations, etc). In theory, this should make both sides happy.
- taurath 5y ago
  One side doesn’t want a larger number of voters voting, at least historically.
  - coconut08 5y ago
    [flagged]
    - taurath 5y ago
      I had meant to say in recent history :) there’s been plenty of changes over the decades of who’s motivated to suppress voting.
    - munk-a 5y ago
      The side that's currently rushing through legislation to roll out new ID requirements and reduce poll accessibility.
      - coconut08 5y ago
        the group that is doing it today is actually the opposite group of who was doing it in the past. as it turns out it isn't a single side that tries to restrict the voting of people they disagree with. everyone given the opportunity will do this. and in case this isn't obvious. it's always bad no matter who is doing it. i just think its ridiculously stupid to suggest that only 1 group would do it and the other wouldn't given the opportunity.
PaulKeeble 5y ago
Even if on its implementation free and open ID is available and quick to get it might not stay that way into the future. It is a common strategy to under fund institutions to undermine their ability to function. Opening up to ID where there isn't sufficient fraud to warrant it simply opens up another mechanism for abuse by those in power. This sorts of changes should be rejected by default by the populace especially if they aren't shown to be genuinely necessary as political opponents may very well misuse them in the future with little awareness from the public.
- rightbyte 5y ago
  Well, in the rest of the industrialized world the thought of voting with your gas bill as "ID" is laughable.
  - tigershark 5y ago
    In U.K. there is no need of any whatsoever id to vote. I would agree that requiring a gas bill to vote is laughable but probably for reasons at the complete antipodes than yours.
    - rightbyte 5y ago
      Oh, well, I assume too many things I guess.
  - vinay427 5y ago
    What point are you getting at, here? The generalization in your comment isn’t true, for starters [1, 2], and it doesn’t address the premise of the parent comment that there may not be sufficient fraud to warrant stronger ID requirements. From what I can tell (correct me if I’m wrong), that assumption of insecure elections is what underlies the laughability of the situation. [1] https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-9187/ https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-... [2] https://amp.theguardian.com/politics/2021/jul/04/millions-in-uk-face-disenfranchisement-under-voter-id-plans https://amp.theguardian.com/politics/2021/jul/04/millions-in...
chad__homenim 5y ago
> refuse to accept college IDs as valid for voting, even those issued by the state government because it's a state school I mean, yeah, you don't have to be a resident of the state or even a citizen to go to a university in the US.
- ceejayoz 5y ago
  You don't have to be a citizen to have a driver's license, either, but they're accepted. Doesn't matter if you're a resident of the state. https://help.vote.org/article/17-i-am-a-college-student-should-i-register-at-home-or-where-i-go-to-school https://help.vote.org/article/17-i-am-a-college-student-shou... > The choice is legally yours. You have dual residency, so you can register back home or on campus as long as you don't register to vote in both states. You can use our Voter Registration Tool to register to vote in less than 2 minutes.
  - AnthonyMouse 5y ago
    > You don't have to be a citizen to have a driver's license, either, but they're accepted. This is the exact reason that issuing indistinguishable driver's licenses to non-citizens was controversial. > Doesn't matter if you're a resident of the state. The point is that maybe it should. It's reasonable to say that people should vote in the place where they're a permanent resident and not somewhere they're likely not going to reside by the end of the term of office for the election in question. It's not as if they can't vote, they can vote where they're actually from. Or demonstrate the intent to move to the state where they want to vote by getting a state ID there.
    - ceejayoz 5y ago
      > This is the exact reason that issuing indistinguishable driver's licenses to non-citizens was controversial. I don't think it's ever been controversial to permit permanent residents to have drivers' licenses.
    - dragonwriter 5y ago
      > This is the exact reason that issuing indistinguishable driver's licenses to non-citizens was controversial. No, it wasn't. Because nondistinguishable licenses for immigrants had been issued for generations when the controversy, which was about licenses issued to people without valid immigration status, erupted.
fidesomnes 5y ago
that is fine but you pay for it.
tzs 5y ago
> close as many DMV offices as you can in counties where people don't vote your way, restrict the hours on the remaining offices. And make sure those remaining offices are nowhere near any bus lines, so if someone does not have a car they either have to take an expensive cab ride or spend a lot of time walking when they go to get their ID. And make sure that IDs are only issued during work hours in midweek so you can't get your ID on a weekend--which means many minimum wage workers will have to lose a day's pay to get their ID. And once people do have whatever ID you require, there are still ways to make it harder for the "wrong" group to vote. • Restrict absentee/mail-in voting so people have to show up in person, but also greatly reduce the number of polling places in areas with too many of the "wrong" group. • Make it illegal to provide food or water to people waiting in line to vote. The first can result in polling places where people have to stand in line for several hours to get their turn to vote, and can only drink whatever water they happened to bring with them. Of course they could leave the line to go get water, but then might lose their place and have to start all over.
dkdk8283 5y ago
If you don’t have ID you can’t drive, get a job, or open a bank account. Requiring ID to vote is a no brainer. Anything else is violating the integrity of our elections and is just utterly absurd IMO.
- pseudalopex 5y ago
  Large minorities of people eligible to vote don't drive, have jobs, or have bank accounts.
- cm2187 5y ago
  Or can’t go to a place that requires an ID as part of a proof on vaccination. Funny how suddenly requiring an ID stopped being a problem when it is imposed by an authority controlled by the democrats.
barbacoa 5y ago
> 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). Have you ever tried to buy beer with a school ID? There is a reason they aren't accepted as a government issue legal ID.
- blacksmith_tb 5y ago
  It's been a while, but I don't remember my undergrad student ID having my birthdate on it? That would in fact put schools in the position of needing to keep better records...
- pseudalopex 5y ago
  A beer seller looks for a birth date to verify age. People too young to vote can't even register. So a poll worker just has to verify identity. The US federal government and at least some states accept school ID to verify identity.
nonameiguess 5y ago
This was a huge problem in Texas last year, but it really points at another problem with these laws. The difficulty largely wasn't even intentional. The requirements for address verification and citizenship verification were far more onerous than they used to be, to the point I saw no less then three people get sent home with nothing when I was at the DMV, but that wasn't even the state's decision. It was a consequence of the Real ID ACT happening at the same time. And office closures made it take months to get an appointment. I was barely able to get in ahead of the election, in mid October, and I made my appointment in April! But that wasn't malicious, either. The office closures were due to Covid, which wasn't planned by the state of Texas. But it points at the ways in which any additional legal hurdle at all can become far more burdensome than lawmakers expect it to even if no one is intentionally trying to make it hard. It's all levels of government plus nature itself all adding new hurdles at the same time.
zdragnar 5y ago
College ID isn't proof of residence. Driver's licenses are. If you formally have residence in the state you are schooling in, you are required to have that state's driver's license. Allowing college students with an out of state drivers license to vote with their college ID guarantees them TWO votes- because they can legally file a mail in vote to the state they have that driver's license in. Some hunting licenses require residence in the state that issues them. For those that do, provided they have a photo or something similar, there is no reason to not accept them. Odds are though, if you have a hunting license, you also have a driver's license.
- neuronexmachina 5y ago
  > Allowing college students with an out of state drivers license to vote with their college ID guarantees them TWO votes- because they can legally file a mail in vote to the state they have that driver's license in. Isn't that an (easily detectable) felony?
  - zdragnar 5y ago
    It is only detectable if anyone is looking, and getting audits done that cross state lines (each state effectively runs its own election) is not something we are currently equipped to handle.
    - pseudalopex 5y ago
      States track each other's voter registrations and postal change of address forms to detect duplicate registrations. You seem equipped to handle strengthening that. You don't seem equipped to require specific ID documents without disenfranchising people.
    - ModernMech 5y ago
      There are plenty of people looking though. There was a federal commission set up in 2017 to investigate this idea and they disbanded because they couldn’t make any progress in the direction the administration wanted (the finding of fraud). People forget Trump claimed there was fraud in the 2016 election that he won. He said there were people bussed to New England to which caused him to lose there. How did no one witness this massive fraud? How is there no record? Where did the busses come from? Where did the money come from? It should be a cursory issue to verify some of these claims, and yet every effort to do so is scuttled when the evidence doesn’t show. We just went through a 6 months long audit of the results in Arizona’s Maricopa county. The auditors there claimed massive fraud that would have flipped the election occurred. After much fanfare for months, they quietly packed up shop and did everything they could to avoid mentioning their conclusions were that the results of the previous audit were upheld. I’ve been hearing about the voter id debate since I was in high school decades ago, and still no evidence this behavior is occurring. It’s well enough to conjecture this thing might be occurring, but eventually after decades you need to put up the evidence.
throwawaylinux 5y ago
> This will be true provided that states make an effort to assure that all can obtain the required ID I really don't understand why that was not the focus whenever this came up. Not having ID is a huge impediment to constructive participation in society. Need to open a bank account, take out a loan, rent a house, drive a car, fly somewhere, get a job, etc., etc., then you'll almost certainly need ID. Voting once every now and again of course is important, but to people who genuinely don't have the means to get ID for themselves, I'm sure it's a vanishingly small problem compared to their immediate concerns of surviving day to day. It's crazy that the outrage is about the ID requirement for voting and so much effort has gone into that, rather than being outraged about people not being able to get ID and the effort going in to making that easier for them.
- thephyber 5y ago
  People who care about policies are concerned with this. People who care only about politics or skewing power might, but only if fixing this disproportionately helps their base. Generally fixing this issue is done with very time intensive, high-touch non-profit work. States rarely put in the effort to assist the most complicated ID cases. There are lots of old people in the Mississippi Delta who never got birth certificates and who can’t use the most common documents to prove citizenship/ eligibility to vote. IIRC they can try to petition a judge / court, but it is a big hurdle, especially for people who are not highly motivated to vote and are people who don’t drive. Some people are left behind, but I can’t find good stats/estimates of how many are affected.
  - throwawaylinux 5y ago
    > People who care about policies are concerned with this. Certainly not the loudest, party leaders, media, etc who have been telling us the problems they will have if voting required ID for years and years. Pretty terrible that they have been aware of this and have done really nothing to help those poor people except when it may affect them getting votes. Really makes you cynical about their motives and selfishness. I'm sure it's easier said than done, but they're passing trillion dollar budgets, going to war and bombing the brown people in Syria and Libya, bailing out banks that caused housing collapses, etc. They absolutely could solve this problem with a tiny modicum of effort in comparison. The really sad thing now with results like this is that they're likely to just stop caring about the problem entirely and forget these people if it doesn't actually affect their vote.
hattmall 5y ago
Are both major parties the wrong party? Because college students skew Democrat but married women are more likely to vote Republican. Honestly if there are people without ID and an inability to acquire one that's a bigger issue because of the many things you can't do without an ID voting is pretty low on the list.
hammock 5y ago
Other ways to put your thumb on the scale: https://nypost.com/2021/10/13/mark-zuckerberg-spent-419m-on-nonprofits-ahead-of-2020-election-and-got-out-the-dem-vote/ https://nypost.com/2021/10/13/mark-zuckerberg-spent-419m-on-...
pandaman 5y ago
I am curious what state takes hunting licenses and does not take college ID as an ID for voting? This seems ridiculous as the hunting licenses are just receipts on paying a fee and usually don't even have a picture. Please let me know which state does this, if this is an actual example.
batch12 5y ago
A college ID seems much easier to fake than a state issued ID card to me.
snomad 5y ago
* 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. --- Do you have studies/papers/numbers for any of these groups?
djsbs 5y ago
You’re aware GA issues free ID for voting, right? https://dds.georgia.gov/identification-cards-fees https://dds.georgia.gov/identification-cards-fees
throwaway0a5e 5y ago
I'm torn about the college voting thing. I voted for some stupid shit in college and then left the state to deal with the fallout. I think we should just make it trivially easy for college students to vote absentee in their home states. If they satisfy the residency requirements of wherever they go to school then fine, but many don't.
- School-Cotton 5y ago
  Why is somewhere you live for nine months of the year not your “home state” ?

by not2b 5y ago

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.
  - bena 5y ago
    Stop and think about this for a second. College students are residents. The policies of the local government affect them. Regardless of who they'd vote for, they deserve a say. If concealed carry licenses are accepted, student IDs should be as well. That's what he's saying.
    - dmatech 5y ago
      It's actually pretty complicated. https://www.ncsl.org/Documents/Elections/The_Canvass_May_2016.pdf https://www.ncsl.org/Documents/Elections/The_Canvass_May_201...
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
  - tzs 5y ago
    If a sufficient range of state IDs are accepted that everyone who is eligible to vote can freely and easily get one, then it is not biased by definition.
    - exporectomy 5y ago
      Sure, but there is no such range of IDs in America, is there? It seems like a choice from a set of various not-easily-and freely-obtainable-to-everyone IDs.
  - loeg 5y ago
    Are you asserting that it is biased for the successfully-IDed voters to reflect the demographics of the underlying voter population? I don't think that makes sense.
beecafe 5y ago
At least there they have the option of voting for the other party, rather than being disenfranchised
spywaregorilla 5y ago
No voter id requirements is a pretty neutral option.

voldacar 5y ago

> college students are more likely to vote for the "wrong" party Um, are you aware which party currently controls the presidency, the senate, almost all corporate media, educational institutions, and high-prestige institutions in general? that's the underdog? that's the "wrong party"? your comment reads like it's from a parallel universe or something

LatteLazy 5y ago
Isn't it states that control most voter ID laws and aren't "the wrong party" the ones pushing voter ID 99% of the time? I'm a limey Brit, so I'm honestly asking...
brazzy 5y ago
Are you aware that these vote restriction laws are passed on the state, not federal level, that the party that currently controls the presidency is trying to ban ID-based voting restrictions, which the other party is trying to pass in the state legislations it controls? https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/22/us/politics/filibuster-voting-rights.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/22/us/politics/filibuster-vo... https://www.texastribune.org/2021/08/30/texas-voting-restrictions-bill/ https://www.texastribune.org/2021/08/30/texas-voting-restric... Your comment reads like it's either from someone not really familiar with US politics, or someone who is being deliberately dishonest.
bena 5y ago
First, they're also the party that isn't looking to enact voter ID laws. Second, he never said either party was the underdog. He just outlined how voter ID laws can only be a first step to disenfranchise voters.

throwoutway 5y ago

> refuse to accept college IDs as valid for voting, even those issued by the state government What state governments issue a college ID? It’s been a while for me but I don’t recall much evidence required for me to get a college ID and even though I went to a public state university, it definitely was not government issued. Nobody would have accepted it as proof of identity besides the college, certainly not for voting

pseudalopex 5y ago
Public universities are state agencies. What they require to issue ID and if anyone accepts it are different questions. But state issued photo ID isn't an unusual standard.
- restingrobot 5y ago
  So only public universities count, but not private ones? School ID's are not considered valid identification for any other government form, (I-9, W2, etc), so I don't think it makes sense to say they count here as well.
  - pseudalopex 5y ago
    What counts depends on the standard. State issued excludes private universities. Form I-9 says school ID card with a photograph is a document that establishes identity.[1] It doesn't say it has to be state issued. Form W-2 is a wage and tax statement from your employer. What identification is involved? [1] https://www.uscis.gov/i-9-central/form-i-9-acceptable-documents https://www.uscis.gov/i-9-central/form-i-9-acceptable-docume...
teeray 5y ago
If a state school issues an ID, are they not a government entity issuing identification? Whether it’s acceptable by a third party is another question, of course.

mgarfias 5y ago

So you’re arguing for free hunting licenses? I’m joking of course, a hunting license isn’t a form of ID. Curiously, my CHL isn’t a form of ID, even though it is state issued, has my pic, and I had to be finger printed to get it.

xxpor 5y ago
In some states (Texas I think), a concealed carry license is acceptable ID, but a student ID isn't. There is, of course, no bias in the types of people that have one but not the other.
- _-david-_ 5y ago
  A CCL requires a background check. A student ID does not.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - jlokier 5y ago
    There is, of course, no bias in the types of people who are comfortable with and can easily pass a background check, and those who are not or cannot. In a free and fair election, the right to vote is not be based on your detailed personal history, or whether you have done something that looks off and might cause you trouble with authorities. Even if it's just fear of imagined trouble that puts people off feeling safe to obtain the necessary approvals to vote, that's enough to prevent a free and fair election.
    - _-david-_ 5y ago
      I am not suggesting you should need a background check to vote. All I am saying is we have a good idea that the person with a CCL is that person and they are not a felon (in some states felons cannot vote). Anybody can go to a community college including a noncitizen. There is no background check and no real verification the person is who they say they are. You just show up and have your picture taken. If you are going to trust one of these forms of IDs it is clear that it should be the CCL.

rootusrootus 5y ago

If the issue wasn't fundamentally about putting a thumb on one side of the scale or the other, this would be a relatively easy to solve problem. Make it part of the FEC charter to issue voting ID at no cost, tracking people down like the census does. Fund them appropriately, of course. And make sure that there is adequate opportunity to vote in person (multiple days, lots of locations, etc). In theory, this should make both sides happy.

taurath 5y ago
One side doesn’t want a larger number of voters voting, at least historically.
- coconut08 5y ago
  [flagged]
  - taurath 5y ago
    I had meant to say in recent history :) there’s been plenty of changes over the decades of who’s motivated to suppress voting.
  - munk-a 5y ago
    The side that's currently rushing through legislation to roll out new ID requirements and reduce poll accessibility.
    - coconut08 5y ago
      the group that is doing it today is actually the opposite group of who was doing it in the past. as it turns out it isn't a single side that tries to restrict the voting of people they disagree with. everyone given the opportunity will do this. and in case this isn't obvious. it's always bad no matter who is doing it. i just think its ridiculously stupid to suggest that only 1 group would do it and the other wouldn't given the opportunity.

PaulKeeble 5y ago

Even if on its implementation free and open ID is available and quick to get it might not stay that way into the future. It is a common strategy to under fund institutions to undermine their ability to function. Opening up to ID where there isn't sufficient fraud to warrant it simply opens up another mechanism for abuse by those in power. This sorts of changes should be rejected by default by the populace especially if they aren't shown to be genuinely necessary as political opponents may very well misuse them in the future with little awareness from the public.

rightbyte 5y ago
Well, in the rest of the industrialized world the thought of voting with your gas bill as "ID" is laughable.
- tigershark 5y ago
  In U.K. there is no need of any whatsoever id to vote. I would agree that requiring a gas bill to vote is laughable but probably for reasons at the complete antipodes than yours.
  - rightbyte 5y ago
    Oh, well, I assume too many things I guess.
- vinay427 5y ago
  What point are you getting at, here? The generalization in your comment isn’t true, for starters [1, 2], and it doesn’t address the premise of the parent comment that there may not be sufficient fraud to warrant stronger ID requirements. From what I can tell (correct me if I’m wrong), that assumption of insecure elections is what underlies the laughability of the situation. [1] https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-9187/ https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-... [2] https://amp.theguardian.com/politics/2021/jul/04/millions-in-uk-face-disenfranchisement-under-voter-id-plans https://amp.theguardian.com/politics/2021/jul/04/millions-in...

chad__homenim 5y ago

> refuse to accept college IDs as valid for voting, even those issued by the state government because it's a state school I mean, yeah, you don't have to be a resident of the state or even a citizen to go to a university in the US.

ceejayoz 5y ago
You don't have to be a citizen to have a driver's license, either, but they're accepted. Doesn't matter if you're a resident of the state. https://help.vote.org/article/17-i-am-a-college-student-should-i-register-at-home-or-where-i-go-to-school https://help.vote.org/article/17-i-am-a-college-student-shou... > The choice is legally yours. You have dual residency, so you can register back home or on campus as long as you don't register to vote in both states. You can use our Voter Registration Tool to register to vote in less than 2 minutes.
- AnthonyMouse 5y ago
  > You don't have to be a citizen to have a driver's license, either, but they're accepted. This is the exact reason that issuing indistinguishable driver's licenses to non-citizens was controversial. > Doesn't matter if you're a resident of the state. The point is that maybe it should. It's reasonable to say that people should vote in the place where they're a permanent resident and not somewhere they're likely not going to reside by the end of the term of office for the election in question. It's not as if they can't vote, they can vote where they're actually from. Or demonstrate the intent to move to the state where they want to vote by getting a state ID there.
  - ceejayoz 5y ago
    > This is the exact reason that issuing indistinguishable driver's licenses to non-citizens was controversial. I don't think it's ever been controversial to permit permanent residents to have drivers' licenses.
  - dragonwriter 5y ago
    > This is the exact reason that issuing indistinguishable driver's licenses to non-citizens was controversial. No, it wasn't. Because nondistinguishable licenses for immigrants had been issued for generations when the controversy, which was about licenses issued to people without valid immigration status, erupted.

fidesomnes 5y ago

that is fine but you pay for it.

tzs 5y ago

> close as many DMV offices as you can in counties where people don't vote your way, restrict the hours on the remaining offices. And make sure those remaining offices are nowhere near any bus lines, so if someone does not have a car they either have to take an expensive cab ride or spend a lot of time walking when they go to get their ID. And make sure that IDs are only issued during work hours in midweek so you can't get your ID on a weekend--which means many minimum wage workers will have to lose a day's pay to get their ID. And once people do have whatever ID you require, there are still ways to make it harder for the "wrong" group to vote. • Restrict absentee/mail-in voting so people have to show up in person, but also greatly reduce the number of polling places in areas with too many of the "wrong" group. • Make it illegal to provide food or water to people waiting in line to vote. The first can result in polling places where people have to stand in line for several hours to get their turn to vote, and can only drink whatever water they happened to bring with them. Of course they could leave the line to go get water, but then might lose their place and have to start all over.

dkdk8283 5y ago

If you don’t have ID you can’t drive, get a job, or open a bank account. Requiring ID to vote is a no brainer. Anything else is violating the integrity of our elections and is just utterly absurd IMO.

pseudalopex 5y ago
Large minorities of people eligible to vote don't drive, have jobs, or have bank accounts.
cm2187 5y ago
Or can’t go to a place that requires an ID as part of a proof on vaccination. Funny how suddenly requiring an ID stopped being a problem when it is imposed by an authority controlled by the democrats.

barbacoa 5y ago

> 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). Have you ever tried to buy beer with a school ID? There is a reason they aren't accepted as a government issue legal ID.

blacksmith_tb 5y ago
It's been a while, but I don't remember my undergrad student ID having my birthdate on it? That would in fact put schools in the position of needing to keep better records...
pseudalopex 5y ago
A beer seller looks for a birth date to verify age. People too young to vote can't even register. So a poll worker just has to verify identity. The US federal government and at least some states accept school ID to verify identity.

nonameiguess 5y ago

This was a huge problem in Texas last year, but it really points at another problem with these laws. The difficulty largely wasn't even intentional. The requirements for address verification and citizenship verification were far more onerous than they used to be, to the point I saw no less then three people get sent home with nothing when I was at the DMV, but that wasn't even the state's decision. It was a consequence of the Real ID ACT happening at the same time. And office closures made it take months to get an appointment. I was barely able to get in ahead of the election, in mid October, and I made my appointment in April! But that wasn't malicious, either. The office closures were due to Covid, which wasn't planned by the state of Texas. But it points at the ways in which any additional legal hurdle at all can become far more burdensome than lawmakers expect it to even if no one is intentionally trying to make it hard. It's all levels of government plus nature itself all adding new hurdles at the same time.

zdragnar 5y ago

College ID isn't proof of residence. Driver's licenses are. If you formally have residence in the state you are schooling in, you are required to have that state's driver's license. Allowing college students with an out of state drivers license to vote with their college ID guarantees them TWO votes- because they can legally file a mail in vote to the state they have that driver's license in. Some hunting licenses require residence in the state that issues them. For those that do, provided they have a photo or something similar, there is no reason to not accept them. Odds are though, if you have a hunting license, you also have a driver's license.

neuronexmachina 5y ago
> Allowing college students with an out of state drivers license to vote with their college ID guarantees them TWO votes- because they can legally file a mail in vote to the state they have that driver's license in. Isn't that an (easily detectable) felony?
- zdragnar 5y ago
  It is only detectable if anyone is looking, and getting audits done that cross state lines (each state effectively runs its own election) is not something we are currently equipped to handle.
  - pseudalopex 5y ago
    States track each other's voter registrations and postal change of address forms to detect duplicate registrations. You seem equipped to handle strengthening that. You don't seem equipped to require specific ID documents without disenfranchising people.
  - ModernMech 5y ago
    There are plenty of people looking though. There was a federal commission set up in 2017 to investigate this idea and they disbanded because they couldn’t make any progress in the direction the administration wanted (the finding of fraud). People forget Trump claimed there was fraud in the 2016 election that he won. He said there were people bussed to New England to which caused him to lose there. How did no one witness this massive fraud? How is there no record? Where did the busses come from? Where did the money come from? It should be a cursory issue to verify some of these claims, and yet every effort to do so is scuttled when the evidence doesn’t show. We just went through a 6 months long audit of the results in Arizona’s Maricopa county. The auditors there claimed massive fraud that would have flipped the election occurred. After much fanfare for months, they quietly packed up shop and did everything they could to avoid mentioning their conclusions were that the results of the previous audit were upheld. I’ve been hearing about the voter id debate since I was in high school decades ago, and still no evidence this behavior is occurring. It’s well enough to conjecture this thing might be occurring, but eventually after decades you need to put up the evidence.

throwawaylinux 5y ago

> This will be true provided that states make an effort to assure that all can obtain the required ID I really don't understand why that was not the focus whenever this came up. Not having ID is a huge impediment to constructive participation in society. Need to open a bank account, take out a loan, rent a house, drive a car, fly somewhere, get a job, etc., etc., then you'll almost certainly need ID. Voting once every now and again of course is important, but to people who genuinely don't have the means to get ID for themselves, I'm sure it's a vanishingly small problem compared to their immediate concerns of surviving day to day. It's crazy that the outrage is about the ID requirement for voting and so much effort has gone into that, rather than being outraged about people not being able to get ID and the effort going in to making that easier for them.

thephyber 5y ago
People who care about policies are concerned with this. People who care only about politics or skewing power might, but only if fixing this disproportionately helps their base. Generally fixing this issue is done with very time intensive, high-touch non-profit work. States rarely put in the effort to assist the most complicated ID cases. There are lots of old people in the Mississippi Delta who never got birth certificates and who can’t use the most common documents to prove citizenship/ eligibility to vote. IIRC they can try to petition a judge / court, but it is a big hurdle, especially for people who are not highly motivated to vote and are people who don’t drive. Some people are left behind, but I can’t find good stats/estimates of how many are affected.
- throwawaylinux 5y ago
  > People who care about policies are concerned with this. Certainly not the loudest, party leaders, media, etc who have been telling us the problems they will have if voting required ID for years and years. Pretty terrible that they have been aware of this and have done really nothing to help those poor people except when it may affect them getting votes. Really makes you cynical about their motives and selfishness. I'm sure it's easier said than done, but they're passing trillion dollar budgets, going to war and bombing the brown people in Syria and Libya, bailing out banks that caused housing collapses, etc. They absolutely could solve this problem with a tiny modicum of effort in comparison. The really sad thing now with results like this is that they're likely to just stop caring about the problem entirely and forget these people if it doesn't actually affect their vote.

hattmall 5y ago

Are both major parties the wrong party? Because college students skew Democrat but married women are more likely to vote Republican. Honestly if there are people without ID and an inability to acquire one that's a bigger issue because of the many things you can't do without an ID voting is pretty low on the list.

hammock 5y ago

Other ways to put your thumb on the scale: https://nypost.com/2021/10/13/mark-zuckerberg-spent-419m-on-nonprofits-ahead-of-2020-election-and-got-out-the-dem-vote/ https://nypost.com/2021/10/13/mark-zuckerberg-spent-419m-on-...

pandaman 5y ago

I am curious what state takes hunting licenses and does not take college ID as an ID for voting? This seems ridiculous as the hunting licenses are just receipts on paying a fee and usually don't even have a picture. Please let me know which state does this, if this is an actual example.

batch12 5y ago

A college ID seems much easier to fake than a state issued ID card to me.

snomad 5y ago

* 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. --- Do you have studies/papers/numbers for any of these groups?

djsbs 5y ago

You’re aware GA issues free ID for voting, right? https://dds.georgia.gov/identification-cards-fees https://dds.georgia.gov/identification-cards-fees

throwaway0a5e 5y ago

I'm torn about the college voting thing. I voted for some stupid shit in college and then left the state to deal with the fallout. I think we should just make it trivially easy for college students to vote absentee in their home states. If they satisfy the residency requirements of wherever they go to school then fine, but many don't.

School-Cotton 5y ago
Why is somewhere you live for nine months of the year not your “home state” ?