8 ms·

'If I Need ID to Buy Cough Syrup, Why Shouldn't I Need ID to Vote?'

26 points by nols 13y ago

mschuster91 13y ago
I don't know what the fuck makes me more sick: 1) that in the US, an electricity bill is sufficient for voting ID purposes (WTF) or 2) that the US don't have mandatory ID cards. Even our new German ID cards only cost €20 apiece, and if you're too poor you can get benefits. Hello, ID fraud.
- aeykie 13y ago
  I don't know if it differs from state to state or even possibly county to county, but I got my first ID (in Florida), recently and it was 36 dollars and some change, so not to far off
- toomuchtodo 13y ago
  I'd argue Germany is ahead democracy-wise than even our most progressive US states.
  - freyfogle 13y ago
    I'm both a German and US citizen, have lived back and forth between the two countries my entire life, and vote in both countries. Germany is definitely far ahead in the mechanics of democracy: ballot design, voter education, voter id, single set of coherent rules across the nation, etc. That's the benefit of having a great reset of the country a mere 70 years ago (or 23 years ago, depending on where in Germany).
  - bananacurve 13y ago
    Yes. You have to register at the Police station when you move and hospitals have to report if patients are illegal aliens. Very advanced.
    - Tomte 13y ago
      You usually register at the town's "citizen's office", where you can also pay for your garbage disposal, get parking passes, apply for your driver's license, have the lost+found, and so on. Registering at the police station is something from the sixties or seventies, I think. "Police" back then had a lot more duties that are now located in other administrative offices. But "police" is a complicated term in Germany, anyway. Legally it's not just "the guys who chase criminals". Elsewhere it's even stranger: To me "Polizei" sounds like a friendly civilian force for order, while "Miliz" sounds paramilitary and dangerous. To Russians it seems to be different.
      - mschuster91 13y ago
        In Croatia (I'm a multi-national) registrations actually do happen at the police office in small-ish towns. It's a culture thing, I believe...
- buckbova 13y ago
  I was given a national ID card, it's call a social security card. That is my unique identifying number as an American.
  - MichaelGG 13y ago
    SSNs are not mandatory.
  - ceejayoz 13y ago
    It's not particularly useful as an ID without an expiration, photo, etc. and you're supposed to keep it somewhere safe, not with you.
  - smsm42 13y ago
    SSN weren't designed as unique identifying numbers - in fact, until 1972 the cards explicitly said it should not be used as such. It is also way too short to be unique ID within imaginable timeframe. The fact that it is used as such is because americans have no choice - no other common ID to use. Some use name + birthdate instead, but that's even worse.
    - buckbova 13y ago
      Add another few digits and we're good, kinda like ipv6.
- viggity 13y ago
  IIRC, most states that have instituted voter id laws have made the cost of an ID free. Also, expired drivers licenses work as identification (for the elderly who have ceased driving).
  - meej 13y ago
    Even if an ID is free, the documentation required to obtain one may not be free (like a registered birth certificate, for example). Expired licenses do not work as ID under Texas' new ID law. There was a particularly egregious example of this earlier this year: http://dfw.cbslocal.com/2013/11/03/former-u-s-house-speaker-wright-denied-voter-id/ http://dfw.cbslocal.com/2013/11/03/former-u-s-house-speaker-...
- clavalle 13y ago
  An electricity bill /and/ being registered in your district. It is not like you can take an electricity bill to any poll location and vote. 20 Euros might not seem like much but if you are making minimum wage it can be significant. And what if you lose your ID? Or you don't have access to the documentation to get an ID right away? Or you are a college student and your residence is with your parents? The fact is that voter fraud is not a big problem. Disenfranchising voters, however, is a problem. There are even 2000 page tomes on exactly how to go about it. That's what makes /me/ sick.
  - zacharytelschow 13y ago
    "It is not like you can take an electricity bill to any poll location and vote." It's exactly like that in 8 states + DC ( Idaho, Iowa, Maine, Minnesota, Montana, New Hampshire, Wisconsin, Wyoming, and Washington DC.): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Election_Day_voter_registration http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Election_Day_voter_registration
    - clavalle 13y ago
      Well, just spot checking Wisconsin (because that is the first state to come up when I googled 'election day voter registration' requires a valid driver's license for same day registration. So, no, not exactly like that.
  - mschuster91 13y ago
    You need those 20€ only every four to eight years IIRC, and as said you can always apply for assistance if you're earning minimum wage.
- cs02rm0 13y ago
  Some people are a little squeamish about Germany's mandatory ID cards. I don't blame them really, I think we could all do with a better way of preventing electoral fraud without requiring people to hold state-issued IDs.
- walshemj 13y ago
  Well plenty of people in the USA and the UK have serious issues with mandatory ID cards. And given Germanys recent past you should be the last Country in Europe to be happy about ID Cards.
- cortesoft 13y ago
  Not being required to have an ID card is something we Americans find to be an important freedom. Many (myself included) feel that requiring people to have an ID card is a slippery slope towards requiring people to show that ID card on demand. The idea of an authority figure being able to 'ask for your papers' is a scary one for us. As the article said, voter fraud is NOT really a problem. No one has ever been able to demonstrate that people illegally voting or voting more than once has happened enough to ever change an election. We want to make it as easy to vote as possible to encourage everyone to vote.
  - mschuster91 13y ago
    I consider the claims of fraud on George W. Bush's elections made by Michael Moore to be pretty sufficient...
    - Jtsummers 13y ago
      IIRC his claims were not about individuals committing voter fraud, but fraud in the procedure of processing the votes. Which voter ID laws do nothing to help with.
  - Tomte 13y ago
    I think it's important to regularly point these issues out, because even though many of "us" intellectually know about them, it's still hard to emotionally grasp for "us", how ID cards could be a slippery slope, why freedom of speech should trump everything else, no matter what, or why home schooling should be allowed at all. Cultures differ wildly, and it's hard to really accept that the other guy might have a valid point of view.
dragonwriter 13y ago
Citing the War on (selected) Drugs to justify the War on Democracy! Yay!
- zacharytelschow 13y ago
  If that doesn't appease you, how about... Driving a car. Renting a car. Staying in a hotel room. Flying on a plane. Opening a bank account. Many, many things in life require photo ID. It's amazing how that's accepted as normal but somehow outrageous when voting is involved.
  - djur 13y ago
    None of those things are fundamental elements of democracy. Voting is.
  - raganwald 13y ago
    Driving a car. Renting a car. Staying in a hotel room. Flying on a plane. Opening a bank account. Many, many things in life require having money. It's amazing how that's accepted as normal but somehow outrageous when voting is involved.
  - dragonwriter 13y ago
    > Many, many things in life require photo ID. None of those things are fundamental rights of citizenship like voting. > It's amazing how that's accepted as normal but somehow outrageous when voting is involved. It is, poll tax issue aside, a method which presumes ineligibility and puts the burden on the citizen to prove their eligibility (which most state ID schemes, given their documentation requirements, would be as voting prerequisites even if the costs were waived.)
  - tzs 13y ago
    The ID requirement for renting a car or staying in a hotel is not designed to prevent people from renting cars or staying in hotels. It is to protect the rental company or the hotel from actual risks. The recent ID laws for voting in the US are designed solely to prevent people from voting. The ID requirement are designed to require procedures and documentation that is hardest for poor people and minorities--coincidentally people who tend to not vote for the party that is pushing voter ID laws. The proponents state it is to reduce voter fraud, but fraud based on exploiting a lack of ID requirements is close to if not nonexistent in the US.
callesgg 13y ago
It is interesting how USA is portrayed as a leading country. Amongst things, What is the point of having to register to vote. All the fucked up bureaucracy that USA has reminds me more of a dictatorship than a democracy.
- warble 13y ago
  one person = one vote, so you need to track who voted. I don't think the way we do it is necessarily effective, but that's the justification. Your other comments are probably justified though.
  - slurry 13y ago
    Yes, but other countries do voting without the need to pre-register. Some US states (e.g. Iowa) do voting with same day registration. I might actually be okay with an ID requirement if we also got rid of the previous registration requirement.
  - callesgg 13y ago
    Here in Sweden one just goes to the voting place(in ones district) shows their ID and one gets checked of the list. The List is just a list of every one that lives in the area.
leot 13y ago
Any electoral fraud that relies on having bunches of people vote multiple times necessarily relies on there being a conspiracy of >100 people in order for it to be effective (this is the only kind of fraud that can be prevented by demanding that voters produce photo ID). But if a conspiracy is required, then why not address that directly? Offer a $500,000 reward and immunity to any one who provides information about a conspiracy that could have changed the result of an election. Voila: no more "voter fraud".
- rlanday 13y ago
  I think the most common type of fraud that occurs is voting by people who are not eligible to do so (e.g., because they’re not US citizens). I don’t know on what scale this occurs, but I believe there have been documented instances. A lot of it is probably politically motivated (trying to make it easier vs. harder for lower-income, likely Democratic, voters to register), but the fear of a small number of non-citizens voting based on an immigration issue, for example, and thereby affecting the result of a close election seems at least plausible.
  - djur 13y ago
    That isn't fixed by voter ID schemes, though. For an ineligible person to register to vote is voter registration fraud, and you do have to prove your eligibility to register. Voter ID schemes only prevent people voting under other voters' names, and that kind of fraud appears to be extremely rare.
    - dragonwriter 13y ago
      > For an ineligible person to register to vote is voter registration fraud, and you do have to prove your eligibility to register. For fairly weak (and appropriately so) definitions of prove, in most cases. It would be more accurate in most jurisdictions, AFAIK, to say you must assert a set of facts which, if true, would make you eligible to vote in order to register.
- zacharytelschow 13y ago
zacharytelschow 13y ago
In WI, if you can't afford an ID you can get one for free for voting purposes (heading "FREE Wisconsin ID cards for voting"): http://www.dot.wisconsin.gov/drivers/drivers/apply/idcard.htm http://www.dot.wisconsin.gov/drivers/drivers/apply/idcard.ht...
Agathos 13y ago
If I ever lose the right to buy cough syrup, I might win it back by voting. If I ever lose the right to vote, can I win it back by buying cough syrup?
- tptacek 13y ago
  This might sound glib, but it is a big part of the kernel of Constitutional scholarship; Ely's _Democracy and Distrust_ goes into detail about substantive versus procedural due process and how the core of the effort is to "preserve the channels of democracy". In other words, Constitutional Law's most important job is to be a referee, to ensure that the political process isn't abused to lock groups of people out and, in doing so, to preserve injustices. Restrictions that obstruct the channels of democracy should have an especially high burden of necessity to clear.
- smsm42 13y ago
  Americans lost rights to buy marijuana in 1937. Winning it back by voting turned out not that easy in next 70 or so years. And, btw, if you try to still use you right to own marijuana, you become a felon, which - surprise! - means you lose rights to vote. See how nicely it works out?
  - Jtsummers 13y ago
    > you become a felon, which - surprise! - means you lose rights to vote Fortunately not in all states. Some allow you to vote, some allow you to vote after you're released or your sentence (including probation or just incarceration) is complete. [1] [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felony_disenfranchisement#United_States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felony_disenfranchisement#Unite...
viggity 13y ago
i'm just going to put this right here: http://imgur.com/78MF5i0 http://imgur.com/78MF5i0
spindritf 13y ago
The outcry in the US over requiring someone to show an ID to vote is one of the most bizarre things to come out of that country. And, to make it even more unusual, it's coming from the left, the very people who used to love issuing IDs, numbers, and whose intellectual and ideological predecessors set up most of those schemes. Practically, as much as the anarchist in me doesn't like that, you cannot have a mass society without strong, trusted IDs so this is a lost cause. Get used to them.
- djur 13y ago
  The American left is opposed to voter ID because it's a vote suppression scheme -- not all eligible voters have IDs or have access to obtain them. The voter ID bills have gone hand-in-hand with restrictions on early voting and same-day voter registration, which makes the intention clear. On the other hand, I have yet to see one of these bills accompanied by legislation intended to help people without IDs get them.
  - spindritf 13y ago
    I have yet to see one of these bills accompanied by legislation intended to help people without IDs get them. I have just googled it and, apparently, it's a constitutional requirement to issue IDs at no cost if they're required to vote. Arkansas for example is waiting with the implementation of their voting ID law precisely for that reason. The new law won't take effect until January or when funding is available for the state to provide free photo IDs required under the law, whichever is later. http://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2013/jun/19/panel-reviewing-rules-voter-id-law/?f=news http://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2013/jun/19/panel-reviewi...
    - nknighthb 13y ago
      I invite you to try and get one of those free IDs, which are often accompanied by a demand for documentation that, again, the underprivileged are likely to have trouble getting, if it even exists. This is assuming the DMV office doesn't play dumb and deny any knowledge of their obligations. There is a distinction between constitutional requirements and what happens in practice. I don't know where you're from, maybe there is stricter enforcement of rights there, but here in the US, on the ground, rights are regularly violated with impunity by local officials.
bigdogc 13y ago
you cant make meth out of voting cards. you can out of cough syrup!
poke111 13y ago
Why does everyone say that no large scale voter fraud ever happened in the US? What about the presidential election of 1960? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_1960#Controversies http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_elec... Even small scale fraud is enough to tip a close election, and I don't think too many people doubt that it does happen.
holograham 13y ago
I think an interesting question is how many of the 21 million without IDs regularly vote (or have ever voted)? Hypothesis: Less than 50%
poke111 13y ago
Another data point that suggests that voter fraud is a real problem: The New York City Department of Investigation reported that their undercover agents were able to obtain fraudulent ballots with a 97% success rate. It's likely that fraud is happening and we just aren't aware of it: http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/367278/report-new-york-investigators-obtain-fraudulent-ballots-97-percent-time-john-fund http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/367278/report-new-york-...
vampirechicken 13y ago
Right to vote vs right to Psuedoeffedrine?

26 points by nols 13y ago

I don't know what the fuck makes me more sick: 1) that in the US, an electricity bill is sufficient for voting ID purposes (WTF) or 2) that the US don't have mandatory ID cards. Even our new German ID cards only cost €20 apiece, and if you're too poor you can get benefits. Hello, ID fraud.

aeykie 13y ago
I don't know if it differs from state to state or even possibly county to county, but I got my first ID (in Florida), recently and it was 36 dollars and some change, so not to far off
toomuchtodo 13y ago
I'd argue Germany is ahead democracy-wise than even our most progressive US states.
- freyfogle 13y ago
  I'm both a German and US citizen, have lived back and forth between the two countries my entire life, and vote in both countries. Germany is definitely far ahead in the mechanics of democracy: ballot design, voter education, voter id, single set of coherent rules across the nation, etc. That's the benefit of having a great reset of the country a mere 70 years ago (or 23 years ago, depending on where in Germany).
- bananacurve 13y ago
  Yes. You have to register at the Police station when you move and hospitals have to report if patients are illegal aliens. Very advanced.
  - Tomte 13y ago
    You usually register at the town's "citizen's office", where you can also pay for your garbage disposal, get parking passes, apply for your driver's license, have the lost+found, and so on. Registering at the police station is something from the sixties or seventies, I think. "Police" back then had a lot more duties that are now located in other administrative offices. But "police" is a complicated term in Germany, anyway. Legally it's not just "the guys who chase criminals". Elsewhere it's even stranger: To me "Polizei" sounds like a friendly civilian force for order, while "Miliz" sounds paramilitary and dangerous. To Russians it seems to be different.
    - mschuster91 13y ago
      In Croatia (I'm a multi-national) registrations actually do happen at the police office in small-ish towns. It's a culture thing, I believe...
buckbova 13y ago
I was given a national ID card, it's call a social security card. That is my unique identifying number as an American.
- MichaelGG 13y ago
  SSNs are not mandatory.
- ceejayoz 13y ago
  It's not particularly useful as an ID without an expiration, photo, etc. and you're supposed to keep it somewhere safe, not with you.
- smsm42 13y ago
  SSN weren't designed as unique identifying numbers - in fact, until 1972 the cards explicitly said it should not be used as such. It is also way too short to be unique ID within imaginable timeframe. The fact that it is used as such is because americans have no choice - no other common ID to use. Some use name + birthdate instead, but that's even worse.
  - buckbova 13y ago
    Add another few digits and we're good, kinda like ipv6.
viggity 13y ago
IIRC, most states that have instituted voter id laws have made the cost of an ID free. Also, expired drivers licenses work as identification (for the elderly who have ceased driving).
- meej 13y ago
  Even if an ID is free, the documentation required to obtain one may not be free (like a registered birth certificate, for example). Expired licenses do not work as ID under Texas' new ID law. There was a particularly egregious example of this earlier this year: http://dfw.cbslocal.com/2013/11/03/former-u-s-house-speaker-wright-denied-voter-id/ http://dfw.cbslocal.com/2013/11/03/former-u-s-house-speaker-...
clavalle 13y ago
An electricity bill /and/ being registered in your district. It is not like you can take an electricity bill to any poll location and vote. 20 Euros might not seem like much but if you are making minimum wage it can be significant. And what if you lose your ID? Or you don't have access to the documentation to get an ID right away? Or you are a college student and your residence is with your parents? The fact is that voter fraud is not a big problem. Disenfranchising voters, however, is a problem. There are even 2000 page tomes on exactly how to go about it. That's what makes /me/ sick.
- zacharytelschow 13y ago
  "It is not like you can take an electricity bill to any poll location and vote." It's exactly like that in 8 states + DC ( Idaho, Iowa, Maine, Minnesota, Montana, New Hampshire, Wisconsin, Wyoming, and Washington DC.): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Election_Day_voter_registration http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Election_Day_voter_registration
  - clavalle 13y ago
    Well, just spot checking Wisconsin (because that is the first state to come up when I googled 'election day voter registration' requires a valid driver's license for same day registration. So, no, not exactly like that.
- mschuster91 13y ago
  You need those 20€ only every four to eight years IIRC, and as said you can always apply for assistance if you're earning minimum wage.
cs02rm0 13y ago
Some people are a little squeamish about Germany's mandatory ID cards. I don't blame them really, I think we could all do with a better way of preventing electoral fraud without requiring people to hold state-issued IDs.
walshemj 13y ago
Well plenty of people in the USA and the UK have serious issues with mandatory ID cards. And given Germanys recent past you should be the last Country in Europe to be happy about ID Cards.
cortesoft 13y ago
Not being required to have an ID card is something we Americans find to be an important freedom. Many (myself included) feel that requiring people to have an ID card is a slippery slope towards requiring people to show that ID card on demand. The idea of an authority figure being able to 'ask for your papers' is a scary one for us. As the article said, voter fraud is NOT really a problem. No one has ever been able to demonstrate that people illegally voting or voting more than once has happened enough to ever change an election. We want to make it as easy to vote as possible to encourage everyone to vote.
- mschuster91 13y ago
  I consider the claims of fraud on George W. Bush's elections made by Michael Moore to be pretty sufficient...
  - Jtsummers 13y ago
    IIRC his claims were not about individuals committing voter fraud, but fraud in the procedure of processing the votes. Which voter ID laws do nothing to help with.
- Tomte 13y ago
  I think it's important to regularly point these issues out, because even though many of "us" intellectually know about them, it's still hard to emotionally grasp for "us", how ID cards could be a slippery slope, why freedom of speech should trump everything else, no matter what, or why home schooling should be allowed at all. Cultures differ wildly, and it's hard to really accept that the other guy might have a valid point of view.

dragonwriter 13y ago

Citing the War on (selected) Drugs to justify the War on Democracy! Yay!

zacharytelschow 13y ago
If that doesn't appease you, how about... Driving a car. Renting a car. Staying in a hotel room. Flying on a plane. Opening a bank account. Many, many things in life require photo ID. It's amazing how that's accepted as normal but somehow outrageous when voting is involved.
- djur 13y ago
  None of those things are fundamental elements of democracy. Voting is.
- raganwald 13y ago
  Driving a car. Renting a car. Staying in a hotel room. Flying on a plane. Opening a bank account. Many, many things in life require having money. It's amazing how that's accepted as normal but somehow outrageous when voting is involved.
- dragonwriter 13y ago
  > Many, many things in life require photo ID. None of those things are fundamental rights of citizenship like voting. > It's amazing how that's accepted as normal but somehow outrageous when voting is involved. It is, poll tax issue aside, a method which presumes ineligibility and puts the burden on the citizen to prove their eligibility (which most state ID schemes, given their documentation requirements, would be as voting prerequisites even if the costs were waived.)
- tzs 13y ago
  The ID requirement for renting a car or staying in a hotel is not designed to prevent people from renting cars or staying in hotels. It is to protect the rental company or the hotel from actual risks. The recent ID laws for voting in the US are designed solely to prevent people from voting. The ID requirement are designed to require procedures and documentation that is hardest for poor people and minorities--coincidentally people who tend to not vote for the party that is pushing voter ID laws. The proponents state it is to reduce voter fraud, but fraud based on exploiting a lack of ID requirements is close to if not nonexistent in the US.

callesgg 13y ago

It is interesting how USA is portrayed as a leading country. Amongst things, What is the point of having to register to vote. All the fucked up bureaucracy that USA has reminds me more of a dictatorship than a democracy.

warble 13y ago
one person = one vote, so you need to track who voted. I don't think the way we do it is necessarily effective, but that's the justification. Your other comments are probably justified though.
- slurry 13y ago
  Yes, but other countries do voting without the need to pre-register. Some US states (e.g. Iowa) do voting with same day registration. I might actually be okay with an ID requirement if we also got rid of the previous registration requirement.
- callesgg 13y ago
  Here in Sweden one just goes to the voting place(in ones district) shows their ID and one gets checked of the list. The List is just a list of every one that lives in the area.

leot 13y ago

Any electoral fraud that relies on having bunches of people vote multiple times necessarily relies on there being a conspiracy of >100 people in order for it to be effective (this is the only kind of fraud that can be prevented by demanding that voters produce photo ID). But if a conspiracy is required, then why not address that directly? Offer a $500,000 reward and immunity to any one who provides information about a conspiracy that could have changed the result of an election. Voila: no more "voter fraud".

rlanday 13y ago
I think the most common type of fraud that occurs is voting by people who are not eligible to do so (e.g., because they’re not US citizens). I don’t know on what scale this occurs, but I believe there have been documented instances. A lot of it is probably politically motivated (trying to make it easier vs. harder for lower-income, likely Democratic, voters to register), but the fear of a small number of non-citizens voting based on an immigration issue, for example, and thereby affecting the result of a close election seems at least plausible.
- djur 13y ago
  That isn't fixed by voter ID schemes, though. For an ineligible person to register to vote is voter registration fraud, and you do have to prove your eligibility to register. Voter ID schemes only prevent people voting under other voters' names, and that kind of fraud appears to be extremely rare.
  - dragonwriter 13y ago
    > For an ineligible person to register to vote is voter registration fraud, and you do have to prove your eligibility to register. For fairly weak (and appropriately so) definitions of prove, in most cases. It would be more accurate in most jurisdictions, AFAIK, to say you must assert a set of facts which, if true, would make you eligible to vote in order to register.
zacharytelschow 13y ago

zacharytelschow 13y ago

In WI, if you can't afford an ID you can get one for free for voting purposes (heading "FREE Wisconsin ID cards for voting"): http://www.dot.wisconsin.gov/drivers/drivers/apply/idcard.htm http://www.dot.wisconsin.gov/drivers/drivers/apply/idcard.ht...

Agathos 13y ago

If I ever lose the right to buy cough syrup, I might win it back by voting. If I ever lose the right to vote, can I win it back by buying cough syrup?

tptacek 13y ago
This might sound glib, but it is a big part of the kernel of Constitutional scholarship; Ely's _Democracy and Distrust_ goes into detail about substantive versus procedural due process and how the core of the effort is to "preserve the channels of democracy". In other words, Constitutional Law's most important job is to be a referee, to ensure that the political process isn't abused to lock groups of people out and, in doing so, to preserve injustices. Restrictions that obstruct the channels of democracy should have an especially high burden of necessity to clear.
smsm42 13y ago
Americans lost rights to buy marijuana in 1937. Winning it back by voting turned out not that easy in next 70 or so years. And, btw, if you try to still use you right to own marijuana, you become a felon, which - surprise! - means you lose rights to vote. See how nicely it works out?
- Jtsummers 13y ago
  > you become a felon, which - surprise! - means you lose rights to vote Fortunately not in all states. Some allow you to vote, some allow you to vote after you're released or your sentence (including probation or just incarceration) is complete. [1] [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felony_disenfranchisement#United_States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felony_disenfranchisement#Unite...

viggity 13y ago

i'm just going to put this right here: http://imgur.com/78MF5i0 http://imgur.com/78MF5i0

spindritf 13y ago

The outcry in the US over requiring someone to show an ID to vote is one of the most bizarre things to come out of that country. And, to make it even more unusual, it's coming from the left, the very people who used to love issuing IDs, numbers, and whose intellectual and ideological predecessors set up most of those schemes. Practically, as much as the anarchist in me doesn't like that, you cannot have a mass society without strong, trusted IDs so this is a lost cause. Get used to them.

djur 13y ago
The American left is opposed to voter ID because it's a vote suppression scheme -- not all eligible voters have IDs or have access to obtain them. The voter ID bills have gone hand-in-hand with restrictions on early voting and same-day voter registration, which makes the intention clear. On the other hand, I have yet to see one of these bills accompanied by legislation intended to help people without IDs get them.
- spindritf 13y ago
  I have yet to see one of these bills accompanied by legislation intended to help people without IDs get them. I have just googled it and, apparently, it's a constitutional requirement to issue IDs at no cost if they're required to vote. Arkansas for example is waiting with the implementation of their voting ID law precisely for that reason. The new law won't take effect until January or when funding is available for the state to provide free photo IDs required under the law, whichever is later. http://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2013/jun/19/panel-reviewing-rules-voter-id-law/?f=news http://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2013/jun/19/panel-reviewi...
  - nknighthb 13y ago
    I invite you to try and get one of those free IDs, which are often accompanied by a demand for documentation that, again, the underprivileged are likely to have trouble getting, if it even exists. This is assuming the DMV office doesn't play dumb and deny any knowledge of their obligations. There is a distinction between constitutional requirements and what happens in practice. I don't know where you're from, maybe there is stricter enforcement of rights there, but here in the US, on the ground, rights are regularly violated with impunity by local officials.

bigdogc 13y ago

you cant make meth out of voting cards. you can out of cough syrup!

poke111 13y ago

Why does everyone say that no large scale voter fraud ever happened in the US? What about the presidential election of 1960? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_1960#Controversies http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_elec... Even small scale fraud is enough to tip a close election, and I don't think too many people doubt that it does happen.

holograham 13y ago

I think an interesting question is how many of the 21 million without IDs regularly vote (or have ever voted)? Hypothesis: Less than 50%

poke111 13y ago

Another data point that suggests that voter fraud is a real problem: The New York City Department of Investigation reported that their undercover agents were able to obtain fraudulent ballots with a 97% success rate. It's likely that fraud is happening and we just aren't aware of it: http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/367278/report-new-york-investigators-obtain-fraudulent-ballots-97-percent-time-john-fund http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/367278/report-new-york-...

vampirechicken 13y ago

Right to vote vs right to Psuedoeffedrine?