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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-issu

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...
  - acdha 4y ago
    Again, voting is a right. If we’re going to add restrictions to that right we need to handle the edge cases. This isn’t a ton of people but it’s enough that we need to have an answer better than “they probably won’t vote for my guy”.
    - agensaequivocum 4y ago
      It is not the same kind of right as the right to free speech or to keep and bear arms. It is a civic rather than a natural right.
      - acdha 4y ago
        Not since after the 15th Amendment (race, color, past status as a slave) and 19th Amendment (sex).
        notch656a 4y ago
        15th and 19th apply explicitly to citizens. US Citizenship is not a world-wide natural right. The natural right is to voting rights in your nation of citizenship to not be prejudiced by your protected class. Verifying votes are made by eligible voters in fact protect the 15 and 19th amendment from infringement -- imagine a scenario where a bunch of Idahoan men made a pact to come into California to [illegally] vote against state-level issues supported by female California voters.
        acdha 4y ago
        How is that relevant? This thread is only about how the right to vote has to be considered when proposing ID requirements which would prevent someone from voting. Nothing about non-citizens, only what constitutes an acceptable burden for citizens.
        notch656a 4y ago
        The non-citizen consideration in inextricably linked to the citizen consideration. If you say something is specifically for citizens you're absolutely saying something about non-citizens. The right for citizens to vote can only meaningfully be preserved by verifying votes are eligible, otherwise you could just bring in busloads of Mexicans or whatever and dilute the citizens votes to the point it was rendered a vote only in name. This is why it is harmful and deceptive to just frame this as a question about burden for citizens; if only citizens showed up to vote then obviously there needn't be any burden at all to verify citizenship. I reject your characterization as it being "nothing about non-citizens." The 'burden' is there precisely to create an impassible, or at least fairly effective, impediment to NON-CITIZENS to stop them from voting. The question isn't what minimizes the burden of citizens (obviously not requiring any evidence would be least burdensome). It is what burden maximizes preservation of the right of the citizens to vote.

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...
- acdha 4y ago
  Again, voting is a right. If we’re going to add restrictions to that right we need to handle the edge cases. This isn’t a ton of people but it’s enough that we need to have an answer better than “they probably won’t vote for my guy”.
  - agensaequivocum 4y ago
    It is not the same kind of right as the right to free speech or to keep and bear arms. It is a civic rather than a natural right.
    - acdha 4y ago
      Not since after the 15th Amendment (race, color, past status as a slave) and 19th Amendment (sex).
      - notch656a 4y ago
        15th and 19th apply explicitly to citizens. US Citizenship is not a world-wide natural right. The natural right is to voting rights in your nation of citizenship to not be prejudiced by your protected class. Verifying votes are made by eligible voters in fact protect the 15 and 19th amendment from infringement -- imagine a scenario where a bunch of Idahoan men made a pact to come into California to [illegally] vote against state-level issues supported by female California voters.
        acdha 4y ago
        How is that relevant? This thread is only about how the right to vote has to be considered when proposing ID requirements which would prevent someone from voting. Nothing about non-citizens, only what constitutes an acceptable burden for citizens.
        notch656a 4y ago
        The non-citizen consideration in inextricably linked to the citizen consideration. If you say something is specifically for citizens you're absolutely saying something about non-citizens. The right for citizens to vote can only meaningfully be preserved by verifying votes are eligible, otherwise you could just bring in busloads of Mexicans or whatever and dilute the citizens votes to the point it was rendered a vote only in name. This is why it is harmful and deceptive to just frame this as a question about burden for citizens; if only citizens showed up to vote then obviously there needn't be any burden at all to verify citizenship. I reject your characterization as it being "nothing about non-citizens." The 'burden' is there precisely to create an impassible, or at least fairly effective, impediment to NON-CITIZENS to stop them from voting. The question isn't what minimizes the burden of citizens (obviously not requiring any evidence would be least burdensome). It is what burden maximizes preservation of the right of the citizens to vote.