How do voter ID laws prevent democrats from voting? We have to be fully identified in Europe to vote and parties from the left win elections just fine.
Some of the laws are explicitly designed to favor demographics that skew conservative and exclude others - for example Texas accepts gun licenses as valid IDs but excludes student IDs.
1) How come there isn't a standard, mandatory, country-wide ID card system in place?
2) If you can vote without an ID card, what prevents illegals from voting as somebody else?
That being said, it kinda exists already in the form of the Social Security card & number. If a baby is born in a hospital, they get one at birth. If not, the parents can apply for one. It is the de facto way to prove citizenship. Everyone who processes sensitive information asks for it (banks, etc.)
2. Persons in the US illegally don't vote because the benefit is nonexistent and the punishment is very harsh.
Anyway I want to know, aren't you identified in any way at all when you vote? Don't you have to pretend you're someone who's on a list, at least?
Or do you believe there is an underground organization that mobilizes this "illegal vote" by insuring millions of people against the adverse consequences of being caught voting in order to push for the legalization of all undocumented immigrants?
I also come from a place where voter fraud is real and significant. Underground organisations that bring old/disabled people to the urns to make them vote whatever they want do exist. We know about that. So whatever is happening in the US won't really surprise me. (Not to say something like this happens in the US, but it's perfectly possible, and it is foolish to simply outright deny that possibility)
What? _Dozens_? Committing dozens of crimes a day sounds like a lot of work. Are you under the impression that all undocumented immigrants in the US are in the Mafia, or something?
If you're already doing all these things, what's illegal voting added to it.
You can see how easy it is to register to vote in California yourself at the official government website https://covr.sos.ca.gov/ You can complete the first 4 steps of the app without submitting it, just complete the first 4 steps to see what's needed.
You do not need to provide any form of identification to register. When asked, just select "I do not have a California driver license or California identification card." You don't need to provide a social security number, which the govt uses to keep track of your taxes, social security benefits; and is used by banks, hospitals, and credit agencies to verify identity. It is assigned by the govt just after birth and practically every citizen born after ~1940 will have one, and all legal immigrants will have one.
You do not need to provide a mailing address to register. You can say "I do not have a street address."
The only items you have to provide to register to vote are a name, birthdate, and what county you live in. And you just need to check a box stating "I am a U.S. citizen". That's it, it's very very easy to register in California.
One restriction is, you can't register with a very silly name (e.g. "Mr. NotMy RealName" because periodically they will search though voter rolls and purge them. However, if you register with a regular sounding name I don't think it would raise any issue.
I assume it is similar in California. Some research indicates that in California, if this is a new registrant, then some identification, or at least proof of residency, must be provided [1]. If documents cannot be provided to the satisfaction of the officials, then a provisional ballot will be offered instead, pending verification of residency.
[1] http://elections.cdn.sos.ca.gov/regulations/hava_id_regs_fro...
And not all crimes are the same: most people just want to live a quiet live. So just because they are breaking immigration laws doesn't make them a priori more likely to eg commit murder or voting fraud. (I heard that the undocumented immigrants are much more careful to eg stick to traffic laws, since they don't want to get any attention?)
One is people who committed the crime of "illegal entry" -- they smuggled themselves into the country somehow.
The other group, much more common, is people who visited legally (on a tourist or other visa) but have stayed, in violation of their visa.
It's a mistake to think of the second group as criminals in the technical sense -- they have not committed a criminal offense, only a civil offense. It would be like saying that everyone who exceeds the posted speed limits is a criminal "with no regard for the law".
This doesn't exist in the UK. The USA is bigger, more distrusting of government, and would presumably have to deliberate over whether it was really to be a national system, or rather - perhaps mandatory - state-level systems.
More recently I worked for a Lebanese company in the uk and one of my Lebanese coworkers had had a close family member killed as when he was stopped by a militia had had the wrong religion on his card
Most developed countries just have a mandatory ID card, of course.
The US states requiring ID would be much less worrying if they would accept something that everyone has. It's the selectiveness about forms of ID that makes the motives clear...
Sure, but a key purpose of voter IDs laws, as proponents will sometimes admit in public (or in remarks that aren't intended to become public but do) is to tip the partisan scales in elections.
Maybe that's not what you meant it seems a bit racist assuming that young black youth who want to vote are too incompetent to get an ID. But presumably poor white or asian ones are smarter and more resourceful. Having lived in poor neighborhoods with various races I'd say that not true based on my experience.
No need to assume, you can just check the statistics.
(Not that a policy which selectively disenfranchised the poor would be acceptable if it were race neutral in effect.)
And, it may or may not be Constitutionally possible to have a centralized national ID, but it's certainly not politically likely.
On top of this, these laws generally come with extra burdens when getting a generic state-issued ID card (for example, requiring more paperwork to be shown for it), or are passed at the same time that state DMV offices in Democratic-leaning areas have their operating hours cut.
A dramatic example would be Alabama adopting a voter ID requirement and then shortly after it became effective, closing the driver's license offices (where IDs are issued; driver's licenses are the main form of state ID and alternative non-driver IDs are generally issued by the same offices sice they use infrastructure originally built for driver's licenses) in 8 of 10 black-majority counties, including all those where that majority was 75%+ and including the five that voted most strongly Democratic in the preceding Presidential election.
http://www.al.com/opinion/index.ssf/2015/09/alabama_sends_me...
Depends on the country. The UK doesn't require ID (except in Northern Ireland). Ireland requires ID, but it can be practically anything (bank cards, social security cards, student ID, work ID, birth certs, some bus passes...) Most other countries in Europe have mandatory ID for all citizens anyway, so requiring it to vote in less onerous. In the US, there's no national ID card, and the states which require ID to vote typically require ID that not everyone has, and that lower-income people who live in cities are particularly unlikely to have.
As a result, voter ID laws often turn on which form of ID you are permitted to provide. Many states with voter ID laws also have conveniently defined their set of acceptable IDs to be those which Republican voters are much more likely to have than Democrat voters, due to income and cultural disparities. Additionally some of these states offer some kind of universal ID for purposes of voting, but it will not be free or will be unusually difficult to obtain.
This bias towards Republican voters is not by accident: multiple Republican-controlled legislatures have been quite open about their intent. It is one of several strategies being employed by Republicans to counter Democrat-leaning trends in voter demographics.
Not true in the UK - last General Election, I walked into the Polling Station, handed over a polling card, confirmed the address WRITTEN ON THE CARD, and then voted as me.
I could have picked up anyone's card from the block of flats I live in. Hell, I could probably have voted more than once if I'd been careful and timed multiple visits to avoid hitting the same checking people.
And this is without even getting to the "you don't need a polling card to vote" bit.