5 ms·

Interest article! Not being American I always confused by a lack stronger identity check in voting but I guess it's not a really big issue specially for less i

Interest article! Not being American I always confused by a lack stronger identity check in voting but I guess it's not a really big issue specially for less important elections. That being said, I think my country like others, would gain to improve voters access when they are temporarily away by allowing online voting with the already existing electronic ID cards like many EU countries have.

acdha 4y ago
The thing to remember about voter ID discussions in the US is that it costs money & non-trivial amounts of time to get IDs, and most of the people calling for ID checks aren’t willing to fund improvements there because most of the affected people are not their voters. This makes these conversations hard to follow because they’re not really about voting but access to government ID. If we had universal ID cards, I doubt any serious number of people would oppose checks.
- ubermonkey 4y ago
  Yeah, the GOP has been caught a few times saying the quiet part out loud: Voter ID initiatives are explicitly intended to make it harder to vote for lower-income people, because those people tend to vote for Democrats.
  - refurb 4y ago
    Yet most countries have far stricter voter ID requirements. Weird!
    - acdha 4y ago
      How many of those countries lack freely-available national ID cards?
    - erehweb 4y ago
      Most countries do not have a history of Jim Crow laws and voter suppression like the U.S. does.
      - refurb 4y ago
        That's hyperbole. The US isn't alone in not letting women vote, non-landholders, certain minorities.
        ubermonkey 4y ago
        You should go read up on the history of Jim Crow laws and come back, because it's clear you are lacking a huge chunk of context here.
        refurb 4y ago
        I’m not sure how that matters? Are you saying because there used to be laws suppressing a minority that minority is unable to meet voter ID requirements that every other countries voters can easily meet?
        ubermonkey 4y ago
        America was an apartheid state well into the 1960s. Structures remain in place that make it difficult for people to escape the inter-generational poverty that was enforced by LAW up until that time. The abolition of Jim Crow laws did not magically create socioeconomic equality, nor did the abolition of those laws mean things like redlining, preferential hiring, etc. didn't continue to happen (and, in many cases, still happen). As I mentioned in my other comment, in many states the Republican party has sufficient power that they can (a) reduce polling places in poorer, black areas while also (b) close Department of Motor Vehicles offices in those same areas. This means it's harder to vote even if you have the ID, and also harder to get the ID. So yes, that is exactly what I am saying. You would do well to do some reading on this before you embarrass yourself further, because it's clear you really have no idea what you're talking about.
    - davchana 4y ago
      Many of them, India is the one I know, did a multi year drive to go to every corner & make voter id cards available to every one, for no cost & for no more than 200m walk away.
    - ubermonkey 4y ago
      It feels like you're suggesting the reality of voter ID in the US isn't how I'm describing it. In the US, there is no national ID card. The de facto ID is the driver's license, and those are issued by the individual states -- and for people who don't drive (which, in most places in the US, means "poor people") there's no reason to have one. States DO issue a non-DL ID, but getting one involves a bunch of the same hassles that getting the driver's license involves -- paying a fee, taking time to go to the correct government office, taking time off work to do so (again, a large imposition for lower income non-drivers), etc. The GOP is also infamous for reducing polling places in areas that tend to vote Democratic, and really only gets in trouble when they're super obvious about it. Now, with VoterID, many GOP-run states have also starting closing the driver's license issuing offices in poorer and blacker areas of the state (for example, Alabama). There, you get a snowballing effect: reduce polling places easily accessed by poorer people; require an ID to vote that many of them don't have; and then make it harder to GET the ID in order to vote. This is the new American reality.
- Cyberdog 4y ago
  Anyone who wants to legally drive or buy alcohol already has the required ID. Those that somehow do neither but still want to vote might still have a state-issued ID card for other ID purposes, and if they don't, well, the infrastructure to get them one already exists. The blocker is actually checking those and thus reducing the cheating going on. And you can say the people who are for voting IDs are of a certain ideological bent, but that goes both ways, doesn't it?
  - acdha 4y ago
    Not everyone drives a car or buys alcohol (or gets carded when they’re decades past 21 in a place where everyone knows them), and if they don’t need it regularly it’s not uncommon for older people to let theirs expire. For example, I know someone who spent the last 40 years of her life medically unable to drive a car and unwilling to travel internationally but that doesn’t mean she didn’t have a right to vote. It’s not a huge number of people but it’s consistently on the order of a single digit percentage nationally - millions of people - and higher in certain communities, which is where the fairness question arises: https://www.npr.org/2012/02/01/146204308/why-millions-of-americans-have-no-government-id https://www.npr.org/2012/02/01/146204308/why-millions-of-ame... The solution is easy: require access to state ID to be free, and reverse budget cuts which mean that in some areas of the country you might need to drive for hours to get to a DMV or produce things like utility bills which not everyone has. I will believe anyone talking about voter ID has a goal other than suppressing opposition votes when their bill includes a robust implementation of any of this. It’s also worth remembering that the “cheating going on” is largely an urban legend. Every credible study has found it to be exceedingly rare, nowhere near the level of affecting election results.
    - dementis 4y ago
      That NPR article is from 2012 and as far I can tell they referenced a survey from 2006. "A SURVEY OF AMERICANS ’ POSSESSION OF DOCUMENTARY PROOF OF CITIZENSHIP AND PHOTO IDENTIFICATION" https://www.brennancenter.org/media/6697/download https://www.brennancenter.org/media/6697/download In 2012 the same group said the number was only 500k. Also they mention "Legal precedent requires these states to provide free photo ID to eligible voters who do not have one." in the newer article. https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/challenge-obtaining-voter-identification https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/chal... So in 6 years it went from over 3 million to half a million people without some form of ID that is valid for voting. Looking at it from a larger picture, that's approximately 0.217% of the entire US voting age population a decade ago that didn't have some form of legal ID that was valid for voting. That is a smaller percentage of people than were incarcerated in the entire US in 2012. What I am not able to determine is how people of that half million actually wanted to vote but were not able to for some reason? That missing number is the one I would care about putting the time and effort into making sure they had the opportunity to vote. You can look at the yearly voter turnout in the US to easily see that a significant portion of the US simply didn't vote. And the freedom to choose to not vote is something I strongly support. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_turnout_in_United_States_presidential_elections https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_turnout_in_United_States...
- soitgoes511 4y ago
  Non-trivial amounts of time? When I lived in the US, I would wake up and be at the DL location (Dallas Tx) at 5am. Not fun but doable and I would have my temporary ID the same day. I live in France now. It took me 9 months to receive a DL.. So a few hours waiting in line in the US is not so bad. So for me, the arguement that it is too time consuming to 'access' a form of identification is not reality. It sucks, it isn't fun. But you can get it done same day by sacrificing a little sleep. For a small fee I might add.
  - acdha 4y ago
    Yes, this isn’t an issue for everyone but consider that rural people might have several hours drive - which is a big barrier if they can’t drive themselves – just to get in that line, and people with medical issues aren’t jumping to stay at the DMV for hours either. Again, this isn’t a barrier for most people but there’s a constitutional right to vote so I think it needs to be as easy as possible to meet the requirements.
- dementis 4y ago
  The requirements for Identification to vote even in the states that currently have Voter ID are surprisingly lax for the most part. https://ballotpedia.org/Voter_identification_laws_by_state https://ballotpedia.org/Voter_identification_laws_by_state Most states also have some kind of hardship waivers to help people get a basic government Identification since it's kind of hard to do a lot of things without some form of ID. Some states even have a specific "Election Identification Certificate" process that can only be used for the purpose of voter identification and it's free to get. Hardship Waivers for IDs in Pennsylvania[2015] http://sharedprosperityphila.org/documents/Revised-ID-Waiver-Appendices-5.15.15.pdf http://sharedprosperityphila.org/documents/Revised-ID-Waiver... As far as the time investment required to get an ID to vote; if a person isn't willing to spend some time to make sure they can legally vote, do you think they will spend the time to make an informed vote? It's a pipe dream but I would prefer that everyone who votes does so while making an informed decision about who/what they are voting for. I also support voter ID just because it makes it a little bit harder for foreign agents(A US state vs State example: https://edition.cnn.com/2018/10/16/politics/beto-orourke-contributions-where-was-money-from/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2018/10/16/politics/beto-orourke-con...) to interfere with what should be an internal affair. Although with political action committees (PAC) being a thing and with how hard it is to know where the funds are coming from, it's basically a free pass to have unknown monetary funds being funneled to politicians with questionable moral integrity.
  - acdha 4y ago
    > As far as the time investment required to get an ID to vote; if a person isn't willing to spend some time to make sure they can legally vote, do you think they will spend the time to make an informed vote? It's a pipe dream but I would prefer that everyone who votes does so while making an informed decision about who/what they are voting for. There’s a difference between being uninformed and not having time to potentially travel long distances without a personal car and stand in line for a while. We’re talking about a constitutional right so we can’t just say it’s no big deal because the alternative costs more - it has to work for people who are disabled, have childcare responsibilities, are too poor to own a car, etc. I’m not opposed to a voter ID requirement but there’s no evidence that it would be more than a symbolic gesture. Even so, I’d go for it as long as we pony up the cash to do it fairly by making ID cards easy for anyone to get so the only people without ID would be the religious nuts who think it’s the mark of the beast.
- TechBro8615 4y ago
  "Black people can't get IDs" is a racist trope promoted by the Democrats, famously exposed as ridiculous in this "on the street" video: https://youtube.com/watch?v=yW2LpFkVfYk https://youtube.com/watch?v=yW2LpFkVfYk
  - HyperSane 4y ago
    It is simply a fact that a a much higher percentage of black people do not have a government ID. The GOP know this and it is the reason why they push so hard for voter ID lays despite the fact that their is almost no voter fraud.
- Georgelemental 4y ago
  Personally, I never hear poltiticans say "we need to make IDs easier to obtain." They complain loundly but never pass laws to fix it, preferring instead to weaken election integrity rules. So I suspect ulterior motives

acdha 4y ago

The thing to remember about voter ID discussions in the US is that it costs money & non-trivial amounts of time to get IDs, and most of the people calling for ID checks aren’t willing to fund improvements there because most of the affected people are not their voters. This makes these conversations hard to follow because they’re not really about voting but access to government ID. If we had universal ID cards, I doubt any serious number of people would oppose checks.

ubermonkey 4y ago
Yeah, the GOP has been caught a few times saying the quiet part out loud: Voter ID initiatives are explicitly intended to make it harder to vote for lower-income people, because those people tend to vote for Democrats.
- refurb 4y ago
  Yet most countries have far stricter voter ID requirements. Weird!
  - acdha 4y ago
    How many of those countries lack freely-available national ID cards?
  - erehweb 4y ago
    Most countries do not have a history of Jim Crow laws and voter suppression like the U.S. does.
    - refurb 4y ago
      That's hyperbole. The US isn't alone in not letting women vote, non-landholders, certain minorities.
      - ubermonkey 4y ago
        You should go read up on the history of Jim Crow laws and come back, because it's clear you are lacking a huge chunk of context here.
        refurb 4y ago
        I’m not sure how that matters? Are you saying because there used to be laws suppressing a minority that minority is unable to meet voter ID requirements that every other countries voters can easily meet?
        ubermonkey 4y ago
        America was an apartheid state well into the 1960s. Structures remain in place that make it difficult for people to escape the inter-generational poverty that was enforced by LAW up until that time. The abolition of Jim Crow laws did not magically create socioeconomic equality, nor did the abolition of those laws mean things like redlining, preferential hiring, etc. didn't continue to happen (and, in many cases, still happen). As I mentioned in my other comment, in many states the Republican party has sufficient power that they can (a) reduce polling places in poorer, black areas while also (b) close Department of Motor Vehicles offices in those same areas. This means it's harder to vote even if you have the ID, and also harder to get the ID. So yes, that is exactly what I am saying. You would do well to do some reading on this before you embarrass yourself further, because it's clear you really have no idea what you're talking about.
  - davchana 4y ago
    Many of them, India is the one I know, did a multi year drive to go to every corner & make voter id cards available to every one, for no cost & for no more than 200m walk away.
  - ubermonkey 4y ago
    It feels like you're suggesting the reality of voter ID in the US isn't how I'm describing it. In the US, there is no national ID card. The de facto ID is the driver's license, and those are issued by the individual states -- and for people who don't drive (which, in most places in the US, means "poor people") there's no reason to have one. States DO issue a non-DL ID, but getting one involves a bunch of the same hassles that getting the driver's license involves -- paying a fee, taking time to go to the correct government office, taking time off work to do so (again, a large imposition for lower income non-drivers), etc. The GOP is also infamous for reducing polling places in areas that tend to vote Democratic, and really only gets in trouble when they're super obvious about it. Now, with VoterID, many GOP-run states have also starting closing the driver's license issuing offices in poorer and blacker areas of the state (for example, Alabama). There, you get a snowballing effect: reduce polling places easily accessed by poorer people; require an ID to vote that many of them don't have; and then make it harder to GET the ID in order to vote. This is the new American reality.
Cyberdog 4y ago
Anyone who wants to legally drive or buy alcohol already has the required ID. Those that somehow do neither but still want to vote might still have a state-issued ID card for other ID purposes, and if they don't, well, the infrastructure to get them one already exists. The blocker is actually checking those and thus reducing the cheating going on. And you can say the people who are for voting IDs are of a certain ideological bent, but that goes both ways, doesn't it?
- acdha 4y ago
  Not everyone drives a car or buys alcohol (or gets carded when they’re decades past 21 in a place where everyone knows them), and if they don’t need it regularly it’s not uncommon for older people to let theirs expire. For example, I know someone who spent the last 40 years of her life medically unable to drive a car and unwilling to travel internationally but that doesn’t mean she didn’t have a right to vote. It’s not a huge number of people but it’s consistently on the order of a single digit percentage nationally - millions of people - and higher in certain communities, which is where the fairness question arises: https://www.npr.org/2012/02/01/146204308/why-millions-of-americans-have-no-government-id https://www.npr.org/2012/02/01/146204308/why-millions-of-ame... The solution is easy: require access to state ID to be free, and reverse budget cuts which mean that in some areas of the country you might need to drive for hours to get to a DMV or produce things like utility bills which not everyone has. I will believe anyone talking about voter ID has a goal other than suppressing opposition votes when their bill includes a robust implementation of any of this. It’s also worth remembering that the “cheating going on” is largely an urban legend. Every credible study has found it to be exceedingly rare, nowhere near the level of affecting election results.
  - dementis 4y ago
    That NPR article is from 2012 and as far I can tell they referenced a survey from 2006. "A SURVEY OF AMERICANS ’ POSSESSION OF DOCUMENTARY PROOF OF CITIZENSHIP AND PHOTO IDENTIFICATION" https://www.brennancenter.org/media/6697/download https://www.brennancenter.org/media/6697/download In 2012 the same group said the number was only 500k. Also they mention "Legal precedent requires these states to provide free photo ID to eligible voters who do not have one." in the newer article. https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/challenge-obtaining-voter-identification https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/chal... So in 6 years it went from over 3 million to half a million people without some form of ID that is valid for voting. Looking at it from a larger picture, that's approximately 0.217% of the entire US voting age population a decade ago that didn't have some form of legal ID that was valid for voting. That is a smaller percentage of people than were incarcerated in the entire US in 2012. What I am not able to determine is how people of that half million actually wanted to vote but were not able to for some reason? That missing number is the one I would care about putting the time and effort into making sure they had the opportunity to vote. You can look at the yearly voter turnout in the US to easily see that a significant portion of the US simply didn't vote. And the freedom to choose to not vote is something I strongly support. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_turnout_in_United_States_presidential_elections https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_turnout_in_United_States...
soitgoes511 4y ago
Non-trivial amounts of time? When I lived in the US, I would wake up and be at the DL location (Dallas Tx) at 5am. Not fun but doable and I would have my temporary ID the same day. I live in France now. It took me 9 months to receive a DL.. So a few hours waiting in line in the US is not so bad. So for me, the arguement that it is too time consuming to 'access' a form of identification is not reality. It sucks, it isn't fun. But you can get it done same day by sacrificing a little sleep. For a small fee I might add.
- acdha 4y ago
  Yes, this isn’t an issue for everyone but consider that rural people might have several hours drive - which is a big barrier if they can’t drive themselves – just to get in that line, and people with medical issues aren’t jumping to stay at the DMV for hours either. Again, this isn’t a barrier for most people but there’s a constitutional right to vote so I think it needs to be as easy as possible to meet the requirements.
dementis 4y ago
The requirements for Identification to vote even in the states that currently have Voter ID are surprisingly lax for the most part. https://ballotpedia.org/Voter_identification_laws_by_state https://ballotpedia.org/Voter_identification_laws_by_state Most states also have some kind of hardship waivers to help people get a basic government Identification since it's kind of hard to do a lot of things without some form of ID. Some states even have a specific "Election Identification Certificate" process that can only be used for the purpose of voter identification and it's free to get. Hardship Waivers for IDs in Pennsylvania[2015] http://sharedprosperityphila.org/documents/Revised-ID-Waiver-Appendices-5.15.15.pdf http://sharedprosperityphila.org/documents/Revised-ID-Waiver... As far as the time investment required to get an ID to vote; if a person isn't willing to spend some time to make sure they can legally vote, do you think they will spend the time to make an informed vote? It's a pipe dream but I would prefer that everyone who votes does so while making an informed decision about who/what they are voting for. I also support voter ID just because it makes it a little bit harder for foreign agents(A US state vs State example: https://edition.cnn.com/2018/10/16/politics/beto-orourke-contributions-where-was-money-from/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2018/10/16/politics/beto-orourke-con...) to interfere with what should be an internal affair. Although with political action committees (PAC) being a thing and with how hard it is to know where the funds are coming from, it's basically a free pass to have unknown monetary funds being funneled to politicians with questionable moral integrity.
- acdha 4y ago
  > As far as the time investment required to get an ID to vote; if a person isn't willing to spend some time to make sure they can legally vote, do you think they will spend the time to make an informed vote? It's a pipe dream but I would prefer that everyone who votes does so while making an informed decision about who/what they are voting for. There’s a difference between being uninformed and not having time to potentially travel long distances without a personal car and stand in line for a while. We’re talking about a constitutional right so we can’t just say it’s no big deal because the alternative costs more - it has to work for people who are disabled, have childcare responsibilities, are too poor to own a car, etc. I’m not opposed to a voter ID requirement but there’s no evidence that it would be more than a symbolic gesture. Even so, I’d go for it as long as we pony up the cash to do it fairly by making ID cards easy for anyone to get so the only people without ID would be the religious nuts who think it’s the mark of the beast.
TechBro8615 4y ago
"Black people can't get IDs" is a racist trope promoted by the Democrats, famously exposed as ridiculous in this "on the street" video: https://youtube.com/watch?v=yW2LpFkVfYk https://youtube.com/watch?v=yW2LpFkVfYk
- HyperSane 4y ago
  It is simply a fact that a a much higher percentage of black people do not have a government ID. The GOP know this and it is the reason why they push so hard for voter ID lays despite the fact that their is almost no voter fraud.
Georgelemental 4y ago
Personally, I never hear poltiticans say "we need to make IDs easier to obtain." They complain loundly but never pass laws to fix it, preferring instead to weaken election integrity rules. So I suspect ulterior motives