4 ms·

You don't need an ID to vote in Australia either. It works fine. What's hard to imagine? You get checked off on a list which includes all enrolled voters for th

You don't need an ID to vote in Australia either. It works fine. What's hard to imagine? You get checked off on a list which includes all enrolled voters for that electorate.

gambiting 4y ago
Yeah and how do they verify that you are who you are? You come to a polling place, say you are X, and they just.....trust you? That's the part that's hard to imagine for me.
- sveiss 4y ago
  Yes. You’re ticked off a list, so that you can’t vote twice, and that helps spot anyone who does attempt to impersonate another voter. It’s not 100% foolproof, but it turns out voter fraud by impersonation is very rare, so it’s good enough. When you think in terms of “make sure every vote we count was legitimate”, then “not completely foolproof” becomes a solid argument for voter ID. Instead, if you take a wider view and think in terms of “getting the best quality estimate of the will of the voting population”, the argument against requiring ID (in the US at least) is that it would distort the results of the election far more than a tiny amount of undetected impersonation fraud does. This will vary by country. In the US, there are barriers to getting ID for some groups (you need to go in person during business hours, pay and wait an unknown amount of time, and this needs to happen weeks ahead of election days; this is a barrier to someone without transport juggling multiple jobs and childcare, for instance.) Other countries see the trade off differently, or use different fraud prevention approaches. For example, I know India uses indelible ink stains on fingers to prevent multiple voting, and in the UK, there is no ID requirement (yet) but the ballots are serialised and the secrecy of the ballot can be broken to investigate fraud allegations. Neither of these approaches would be culturally acceptable in the US.
- anko 4y ago
  it's compulsory to vote. If people start rocking up and it says they have already voted, it will be caught pretty quickly. Australians are also fairly trustworthy
deepdriver 4y ago
I don't know about Australia, but in America our lack of voter ID has led to contention in the past: https://www.jstor.org/stable/27550168 https://www.jstor.org/stable/27550168 Personally I think voter ID makes sense even if only to quash allegation of voter fraud. Voter ID enjoys overwhelming (>80%) bipartisan support from regular Americans. The main obstacle to new voter ID laws is the Democratic Party establishment. They calculate a marginal decrease in electoral margins if new voter ID laws were to be enacted. Of course then they wind up faced with fiascos like January 6, but politicians are nothing if not short-term planners. https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/25/politics/voter-id-election-law-voting-rights/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/25/politics/voter-id-election-la...
- frenchy 4y ago
  > They calculate a marginal decrease in electoral margins if new voter ID laws were to be enacted. So what you're saying is that voter ID will result in some citizens not voting. Personally, that seems like a fair reason to oppose the measure.
- tzs 4y ago
  > The main obstacle to new voter ID laws is the Democratic Party establishment. Propose voter ID laws that include provisions to make sure that it is easy and free for eligible voters to obtain the necessary ID and Democrats won't object.
- woodruffw 4y ago
  Support is strong when you ask a one-dimensional question ("do you, in general, support voter ID?"). The poll linked from the CNN article demonstrates this: there's also overwhelming support for making voting easier, but voter IDs (without free and accessible ID services) will make it harder. And that's the crux of the common Democratic position: voter IDs are perfectly fine if we ensure access to IDs. But that needs to happen before or with any restrictions on voting, to prevent disenfranchisement.
  - corrral 4y ago
    Right—I'm for it if we had universal free national IDs and services to ensure everyone had one. It'd actually solve a ton of other problems, too, so yes, please, do that and then check IDs at the polls all you like. But that's a topic the Democrats are very divided on, and the Republicans really don't want, so it's never gonna happen. The result is that I'm not against IDing voters in principle but am in practice, given the current political situation and lack of demonstrated urgency or need that might justify the down-sides of doing it absent universal national IDs.

You don't need an ID to vote in Australia either. It works fine. What's hard to imagine? You get checked off on a list which includes all enrolled voters for that electorate.

gambiting 4y ago

Yeah and how do they verify that you are who you are? You come to a polling place, say you are X, and they just.....trust you? That's the part that's hard to imagine for me.

sveiss 4y ago
Yes. You’re ticked off a list, so that you can’t vote twice, and that helps spot anyone who does attempt to impersonate another voter. It’s not 100% foolproof, but it turns out voter fraud by impersonation is very rare, so it’s good enough. When you think in terms of “make sure every vote we count was legitimate”, then “not completely foolproof” becomes a solid argument for voter ID. Instead, if you take a wider view and think in terms of “getting the best quality estimate of the will of the voting population”, the argument against requiring ID (in the US at least) is that it would distort the results of the election far more than a tiny amount of undetected impersonation fraud does. This will vary by country. In the US, there are barriers to getting ID for some groups (you need to go in person during business hours, pay and wait an unknown amount of time, and this needs to happen weeks ahead of election days; this is a barrier to someone without transport juggling multiple jobs and childcare, for instance.) Other countries see the trade off differently, or use different fraud prevention approaches. For example, I know India uses indelible ink stains on fingers to prevent multiple voting, and in the UK, there is no ID requirement (yet) but the ballots are serialised and the secrecy of the ballot can be broken to investigate fraud allegations. Neither of these approaches would be culturally acceptable in the US.
anko 4y ago
it's compulsory to vote. If people start rocking up and it says they have already voted, it will be caught pretty quickly. Australians are also fairly trustworthy

deepdriver 4y ago

I don't know about Australia, but in America our lack of voter ID has led to contention in the past: https://www.jstor.org/stable/27550168 https://www.jstor.org/stable/27550168 Personally I think voter ID makes sense even if only to quash allegation of voter fraud. Voter ID enjoys overwhelming (>80%) bipartisan support from regular Americans. The main obstacle to new voter ID laws is the Democratic Party establishment. They calculate a marginal decrease in electoral margins if new voter ID laws were to be enacted. Of course then they wind up faced with fiascos like January 6, but politicians are nothing if not short-term planners. https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/25/politics/voter-id-election-law-voting-rights/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/25/politics/voter-id-election-la...

frenchy 4y ago
> They calculate a marginal decrease in electoral margins if new voter ID laws were to be enacted. So what you're saying is that voter ID will result in some citizens not voting. Personally, that seems like a fair reason to oppose the measure.
tzs 4y ago
> The main obstacle to new voter ID laws is the Democratic Party establishment. Propose voter ID laws that include provisions to make sure that it is easy and free for eligible voters to obtain the necessary ID and Democrats won't object.
woodruffw 4y ago
Support is strong when you ask a one-dimensional question ("do you, in general, support voter ID?"). The poll linked from the CNN article demonstrates this: there's also overwhelming support for making voting easier, but voter IDs (without free and accessible ID services) will make it harder. And that's the crux of the common Democratic position: voter IDs are perfectly fine if we ensure access to IDs. But that needs to happen before or with any restrictions on voting, to prevent disenfranchisement.
- corrral 4y ago
  Right—I'm for it if we had universal free national IDs and services to ensure everyone had one. It'd actually solve a ton of other problems, too, so yes, please, do that and then check IDs at the polls all you like. But that's a topic the Democrats are very divided on, and the Republicans really don't want, so it's never gonna happen. The result is that I'm not against IDing voters in principle but am in practice, given the current political situation and lack of demonstrated urgency or need that might justify the down-sides of doing it absent universal national IDs.