6 ms·

There’s a real risk that voter ID laws could bar more legitimate voters than illegitimate. If you feel there were, say, 1000 fraudulent votes but that voter ID

There’s a real risk that voter ID laws could bar more legitimate voters than illegitimate. If you feel there were, say, 1000 fraudulent votes but that voter ID legislation would prevent 10000 legitimate votes, would that be an acceptable trade off? I say no. And from what I have read in the past the ratio is far worse.

throwaway0a5e 5y ago
>would that be an acceptable trade off? Depends on the margins of victory perception of the fraud among the other voters. If people widely consider the elections to be illegitimate high participation doesn't do anything to solve that.
- notreallyserio 5y ago
  People that believe that are substituting feelings for evidence, so passing laws to assuage their concerns doesn’t make sense. That’d be like requiring drug testing for people to get public assistance, but worse because voting is so fundamental.
throwawayboise 5y ago
I mean, I have needed ID to vote for 30 years. I don't understand the objection to making some effort to verify that the person presenting himself as J. Random Voter is actually who he says he is.
- ceejayoz 5y ago
  https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/getting-a-photo-id-so-you-can-vote-is-easy-unless-youre-poor-black-latino-or-elderly/2016/05/23/8d5474ec-20f0-11e6-8690-f14ca9de2972_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/getting-a... > For Settles to get one of those, his name has to match his birth certificate — and it doesn’t. In 1964, when he was 14, his mother married and changed his last name. After Texas passed a new voter-ID law, officials told Settles he had to show them his name-change certificate from 1964 to qualify for a new identification card to vote. > So with the help of several lawyers, Settles tried to find it, searching records in courthouses in the D.C. area, where he grew up. But they could not find it. To obtain a new document changing his name to the one he has used for 51 years, Settles has to go to court, a process that would cost him more than $250 — more than he is willing to pay. That's a pretty clear illegal poll tax, if you ask me.
  - singlow 5y ago
    Can he not vote using the name the State does recognize?
    - notreallyserio 5y ago
      Wouldn’t that be fraud under voter ID law, providing a false name?
      - singlow 5y ago
        How would it be fraud if the name is his, legally?
    - ceejayoz 5y ago
      The article is pretty clear on that point. > What he does not have is the one thing that he needs to vote this presidential election: a current Texas photo ID. He can't get one without the proper documents, which he can't obtain. Texas's list of requirements is at https://www.dps.texas.gov/internetforms/Forms/DL-15.pdf https://www.dps.texas.gov/internetforms/Forms/DL-15.pdf; he'll need proof of residence, which is likely all under the name he's been using for half a century.
  - isoskeles 5y ago
    Pretty clear not an illegal poll tax since this man is an edge case who uses a name with no proof. It’s sad that this is ultimately his mother’s fault, and he can’t ask her for the $250 to fix this.
    - _jal 5y ago
      Always nice to see people willing to write off other peoples' disenfranchisement as a rounding error or 'worth it' (whatever 'it' is.) That is exactly the attitude the authoritarians are counting on. This is how you lose your own representation.
      - isoskeles 5y ago
- Miner49er 5y ago
  Why make voting harder and more expensive then it already is?
  - andrew_ 5y ago
    Apologies for replying to your question with a question. What is hard and expensive about voting today? I'm interested in your experiences on the topic, as I've personally not had a voting experience that was hard or expensive. For what it's worth, I'm considered a minority in the U.S.
    - cmh89 5y ago
      It depends on where you are. In my state (Oregon), voting is easy and secure. We vote by mail as a default and if you move and don't get your ballot, you can go to any voting office and request all the way up until when polls close on election day. Now, if you are in republican held states like Alabama or Georgia, it's going to be a different story. republicans use several methods to disenfranchise voters, voter ID is just one of them. 1. republicans always aim to have the shortest polling hours possible. This benefits them because their base tends to be older and more time/ability to vote during the day. Working-class voters are especially impacted by this because if they can even get time off during the day, they probably will have to pay for the privilege of voting in the form of sacrificing hours at work and getting a reduced paycheck. 2. The second thing republicans do is close polling stations in areas they don't expect a lot of support. This creates massive wait times for folks who are more likely to vote Democrat. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/smartphone-data-show-voters-in-black-neighborhoods-wait-longer1/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/smartphone-data-s... Those hourly workers who are already sacrificing money to vote have to take even more time off to cast their ballot. 3. Another tactic is voter roll purges. A lot of folks don't know that they've been unenrolled from the voter rolls till they show up on election day. This particularly effects renters who might not realize they aren't registered at their current address, and miss mail regarding it because its sent to their former address. 4. republicans will also just shamelessly attempt to discourage Democratic turnout. For example, Georgia got rid of voting early Sunday morning to put a damper on the 'Souls to Polls' movement. There is no rationalization for this. They didn't even bother to lie about it. They just wanted to squash a successful Black get-out-the-vote initiative.
the_snooze 5y ago
When it comes to voter ID, the devil is in the details. I'm a poll worker in Virginia and think our ID laws are pretty fair. We accept driver's licenses and passports, sure, but we also take employer photo ID, any current Virginia school ID, and even old Virginia driver's licenses up to a year after expiration. If a state gives affordances like these to make it easy for people to fulfill the ID requirement, I don't see what the problem is. And I don't think fraud is a particularly good reason to be for voter ID. The ID requirement seems to speed the line along. We don't need people to spell out their names, especially for non-native English speakers with uncommon or foreign names. The security argument for voter ID strikes me as bogus, but it has a place for efficiency and accessibility.
- runako 5y ago
  The problem is not at the point of acceptance, it's at the point of issuance. An egregious violator is Alabama, which systematically closed DMVs in Black counties [1]. The point of modern voting suppression is it's designed such that each hurdle on its own looks reasonable to people new to the issue. But the aggregate is intended to suppress voters in a targeted way. The architects of these programs even publicly say as much, it's not a secret. Without making the direct comparison, it's worth noting that the Jim Crow voter suppression laws similarly evolved from humble beginnings. That's why it's important to watch the trend line, and these laws do not trend in the direction of more voter participation. 1 - https://www.governing.com/archive/alabama-demands-voter-id--then-closes-drivers-license-offices-in-clack-counties.html https://www.governing.com/archive/alabama-demands-voter-id--...
  - Frondo 5y ago
    This is also why, until the Roberts court gutted the VRA, the courts looked at outcomes of policies and not just intent -- anyone can say the intent was to stop fraud, but if the outcomes are suppression, that used to matter. No more, and that's why state legislatures have jumped at the chance to enact so many laws that "stop fraud" (a problem for which there has not been, and still does not have, any evidence.)
  - the_snooze 5y ago

throwaway0a5e 5y ago

>would that be an acceptable trade off? Depends on the margins of victory perception of the fraud among the other voters. If people widely consider the elections to be illegitimate high participation doesn't do anything to solve that.

notreallyserio 5y ago
People that believe that are substituting feelings for evidence, so passing laws to assuage their concerns doesn’t make sense. That’d be like requiring drug testing for people to get public assistance, but worse because voting is so fundamental.

throwawayboise 5y ago

I mean, I have needed ID to vote for 30 years. I don't understand the objection to making some effort to verify that the person presenting himself as J. Random Voter is actually who he says he is.

ceejayoz 5y ago
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/getting-a-photo-id-so-you-can-vote-is-easy-unless-youre-poor-black-latino-or-elderly/2016/05/23/8d5474ec-20f0-11e6-8690-f14ca9de2972_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/getting-a... > For Settles to get one of those, his name has to match his birth certificate — and it doesn’t. In 1964, when he was 14, his mother married and changed his last name. After Texas passed a new voter-ID law, officials told Settles he had to show them his name-change certificate from 1964 to qualify for a new identification card to vote. > So with the help of several lawyers, Settles tried to find it, searching records in courthouses in the D.C. area, where he grew up. But they could not find it. To obtain a new document changing his name to the one he has used for 51 years, Settles has to go to court, a process that would cost him more than $250 — more than he is willing to pay. That's a pretty clear illegal poll tax, if you ask me.
- singlow 5y ago
  Can he not vote using the name the State does recognize?
  - notreallyserio 5y ago
    Wouldn’t that be fraud under voter ID law, providing a false name?
    - singlow 5y ago
      How would it be fraud if the name is his, legally?
  - ceejayoz 5y ago
    The article is pretty clear on that point. > What he does not have is the one thing that he needs to vote this presidential election: a current Texas photo ID. He can't get one without the proper documents, which he can't obtain. Texas's list of requirements is at https://www.dps.texas.gov/internetforms/Forms/DL-15.pdf https://www.dps.texas.gov/internetforms/Forms/DL-15.pdf; he'll need proof of residence, which is likely all under the name he's been using for half a century.
- isoskeles 5y ago
  Pretty clear not an illegal poll tax since this man is an edge case who uses a name with no proof. It’s sad that this is ultimately his mother’s fault, and he can’t ask her for the $250 to fix this.
  - _jal 5y ago
    Always nice to see people willing to write off other peoples' disenfranchisement as a rounding error or 'worth it' (whatever 'it' is.) That is exactly the attitude the authoritarians are counting on. This is how you lose your own representation.
    - isoskeles 5y ago
Miner49er 5y ago
Why make voting harder and more expensive then it already is?
- andrew_ 5y ago
  Apologies for replying to your question with a question. What is hard and expensive about voting today? I'm interested in your experiences on the topic, as I've personally not had a voting experience that was hard or expensive. For what it's worth, I'm considered a minority in the U.S.
  - cmh89 5y ago
    It depends on where you are. In my state (Oregon), voting is easy and secure. We vote by mail as a default and if you move and don't get your ballot, you can go to any voting office and request all the way up until when polls close on election day. Now, if you are in republican held states like Alabama or Georgia, it's going to be a different story. republicans use several methods to disenfranchise voters, voter ID is just one of them. 1. republicans always aim to have the shortest polling hours possible. This benefits them because their base tends to be older and more time/ability to vote during the day. Working-class voters are especially impacted by this because if they can even get time off during the day, they probably will have to pay for the privilege of voting in the form of sacrificing hours at work and getting a reduced paycheck. 2. The second thing republicans do is close polling stations in areas they don't expect a lot of support. This creates massive wait times for folks who are more likely to vote Democrat. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/smartphone-data-show-voters-in-black-neighborhoods-wait-longer1/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/smartphone-data-s... Those hourly workers who are already sacrificing money to vote have to take even more time off to cast their ballot. 3. Another tactic is voter roll purges. A lot of folks don't know that they've been unenrolled from the voter rolls till they show up on election day. This particularly effects renters who might not realize they aren't registered at their current address, and miss mail regarding it because its sent to their former address. 4. republicans will also just shamelessly attempt to discourage Democratic turnout. For example, Georgia got rid of voting early Sunday morning to put a damper on the 'Souls to Polls' movement. There is no rationalization for this. They didn't even bother to lie about it. They just wanted to squash a successful Black get-out-the-vote initiative.

the_snooze 5y ago

When it comes to voter ID, the devil is in the details. I'm a poll worker in Virginia and think our ID laws are pretty fair. We accept driver's licenses and passports, sure, but we also take employer photo ID, any current Virginia school ID, and even old Virginia driver's licenses up to a year after expiration. If a state gives affordances like these to make it easy for people to fulfill the ID requirement, I don't see what the problem is. And I don't think fraud is a particularly good reason to be for voter ID. The ID requirement seems to speed the line along. We don't need people to spell out their names, especially for non-native English speakers with uncommon or foreign names. The security argument for voter ID strikes me as bogus, but it has a place for efficiency and accessibility.

runako 5y ago
The problem is not at the point of acceptance, it's at the point of issuance. An egregious violator is Alabama, which systematically closed DMVs in Black counties [1]. The point of modern voting suppression is it's designed such that each hurdle on its own looks reasonable to people new to the issue. But the aggregate is intended to suppress voters in a targeted way. The architects of these programs even publicly say as much, it's not a secret. Without making the direct comparison, it's worth noting that the Jim Crow voter suppression laws similarly evolved from humble beginnings. That's why it's important to watch the trend line, and these laws do not trend in the direction of more voter participation. 1 - https://www.governing.com/archive/alabama-demands-voter-id--then-closes-drivers-license-offices-in-clack-counties.html https://www.governing.com/archive/alabama-demands-voter-id--...
- Frondo 5y ago
  This is also why, until the Roberts court gutted the VRA, the courts looked at outcomes of policies and not just intent -- anyone can say the intent was to stop fraud, but if the outcomes are suppression, that used to matter. No more, and that's why state legislatures have jumped at the chance to enact so many laws that "stop fraud" (a problem for which there has not been, and still does not have, any evidence.)
- the_snooze 5y ago