Hacker News Reader

Comment by greggarious | Hacker News Reader

>Jokes aside, I wonder if we're really seeing the long term erosion of democracy because people just don't care.

Or maybe a better explanation is that the will of the people is actively surpressed? Be it voter ID laws surpressing Democrats, or the democrats themselves surpressing the voices of progressives through superdelegates and closed primaries, there are serious issues with our democracy.

Throw in a populace that's been the victim of a failing education system for decades due to candidates who slash taxes (and thus budgets).

And now, when the problems are so acute, I find it very interesting that the narrative becomes that all these issues are the fault of the lazy voters. A convenient, and false narrative.

View on HN

I don't think being required to prove you're an American citizen with a photo ID is suppression of the will of the people

I agree, in general, at least in states where an ID is trivial to obtain and dirt cheap. A sibling poster suggests $8 for a 4-year ID in Ohio. I just looked at the CA DMV, and they're $29 (5-year, I believe), but they have an $8 option for people who meet certain income requirements.

Now, getting to the DMV to apply for an ID card can be a hardship on people given the hours that the DMV operates and the fact that you usually need to set aside several hours to deal with waiting in line and such. If you hold 2 or 3 jobs, and missing part of a shift means getting fired, you probably don't have the time to go to get an ID. (Hell, you probably also don't have the time to actually go to the polls to vote, but that's another issue.)

And what if you're homeless? Getting an ID is probably very low on the list of things you can afford, even at $8. Also how do they mail it to you if you don't have an address?

At any rate, isn't this fixing a problem I don't think we don't have? Where is the evidence of rampant voter fraud that would recommend even an ID requirement?

I had a doctor's appointment on Friday. While checking in, I overheard the plight of a new mother who didn't have ID, and whose infant therefore could not be seen by the doctor. Fortunately, the clerk's call to a more enlightened manager prevented the potential travesty. The ID-obsessed sense some moral failings on the part of those who have difficulty obtaining IDs, and their instinctive reaction is to make difficult lives yet more difficult.

70 Years ago: "I don't think being required to prove you're a literate citizen with a test is suppression of the will of the people"

If you look at the people affected it's clear that it is racial disenfranchisement under a different name.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literacy_test

One is a measure of mental aptitude. The other is a physical thing that proves you are a constituent entitled to all privileges of citizenship, including voting. This analogy makes no sense to me, can you explain it better?

An ID does no such thing -- That's what voter registration is for.

I've never understood this sort of reasoning. Requiring an ID has nothing to do with race. It turns out that the percentage of people that have an ID varies by race - and this makes requiring an ID a form of racial disenfranchisement?

Requiring IDs and then denying IDs to a particular race would be racial disenfranchisement. Simply requiring an ID isn't.

And in the end, I think it makes a lot of sense for an ID to be required in order to place a vote.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/getting-a...

Because there are barriers, and expensive fees for many, intentional or not. The article above gives a couple stories of the issues people face trying to get ID for voting.

Until everyone can automatically and without cost obtain an ID for voting, these are new versions of poll taxes.

> Until everyone can automatically and without cost obtain an ID for voting

And yet, no politician campaigns for that because it would actually resolve the issue.

Free, universal, automatic ID would totally be the technically-correct-is-the-best-kind-of-correct answer. Which is to say, it's wrong, because the issue is not "voter fraud", the issue is "voters who aren't conservative," because when one erects barriers to voting, conservatives (who tend to be white and more affluent, as a rule, in the areas where these shenanigans are going on) will turn out and everybody else won't.

A politician who campaigns for that will be beset upon by the right wing as it heaves into a fit over they're spying on us, they're trying to track us. Because in actually solving the nonexistent problem, they threaten the true reason for the problem being posed.

No, the issue is that there are people who need an government-issued ID but the barrier to getting one is too high.

But you decided to take only the slice of the problem that fit your talking point, and that is the real problem.

Lowering the barrier to entry causes screams from that same contingent, just the same as "here's an ID, for free, right now". I know this, because I have been (peripherally) involved with folks trying to push such systems and the pushback from the drown-the-government-in-the-bathtub crew is real and it is strong.

My "talking point", such as it is, is that one political party is actively disinterested in democracy (while the other is more or less ambivalent), and that nobody in that actively-disinterested party is going to let the ambivalent party make this happen. Because it empowers them for it to not happen. It's not rocket science.

> Requiring an ID has nothing to do with race. It turns out that the percentage of people that have an ID varies by race - and this makes requiring an ID a form of racial disenfranchisement?

Yes. The argument is pretty straightforward: explicitly mentioning race would be blatantly illegal, so legislators are targeting a variable that correlates with race and using that as a proxy instead. Old-school disenfranchisement laws did much the same thing, using the voting eligibility of one's grandfather as the condition for exemption from poll taxes, literacy tests, and so on (whence we get the term "grandfather clause").

so if requiring an id has nothing to do with race then what does it have to do with? cases of voter fraud where someone impersonates someone else are very rare. Are there more people out there would want to vote so badly that they will impersonate someone else (but not make up a fake id to do so) or are there more eligible voters without ids?

The founders didn't have photo IDs.

In person voter fraud is extremely rare[1], this is why requiring photo ID to vote has been struck down as voter supression in many states[2]

[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/08/03/he...

[2]https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/05/15/528457693...

That's irrelevant. They did have slaves, doesn't mean slavery was a good system.

IDs should be required but they should also be very easy to obtain. The government should go out of its way to make it as easy a possible. Being undocumented is not useful to any citizen, it creates an underclass. People should have IDs and we should care about voter fraud, whether its 1 vote or 1 million.

That the parties won't do this shows that both sides have something to gain by keeping things the way they are, they just want to win, regardless of the sanctity of the vote or the well-being of the people.

Being undocumented only creates an underclass if you require people to be documented!

There's nothing inherently wrong with existing as a living being without declaring your existence (or, realistically, asking permission for your existence) to the government.

Nobody is complaining about animals roaming the world freely without documents. In fact birds routinely cross borders without being stopped or even noticed.

Why do people need to be monitored?

So they can be taxed?

If you have documentation requirements of any kind (dejure or defacto), without documentation you are at a disadvantage. There's a lot of processes that require single if not multiple forms of ID, today.

You don't have to mandate it for anything but voting. But if you do want one, they should be easy for anyone to obtain. If the poor can't prove who they are, they can't do a lot. They'll always be poor.

>IDs should be required

Do you have a source to support this claim?

As I previously pointed out, voter fraud is incredibly rare[1] practically non-existent.

Creating laws and administering laws both take time and resources. Can you support your claim identification is needed with any sort of rational, data based arguments or are you operating on emotion?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/08/03/he...

Considering the vote is the centerpiece of democracy, to ignore fraud of any kind or to not safeguard your democracy is on its face illogical or at least questionable.

Of course it would take time and resources, but to make it easy for people to obtain IDs would be one of the cheaper things we can do as a nation.

You need an ID to get a lot of jobs, get funding for school, etc. If it's not easy for people to get IDs, we are limiting them anyway, so by argument we should be making them easy to obtain. That's my datapoint. It's a very natural way to empower people.

Is there a reason an ID shouldn't be required to vote?

The source of the source you link to kind of backs up OP's point. It's not an unbiased source. So why do they think ID's should not be required?

I mean just thinking about, verifying who a person is before they vote seems like 101 common sense to me.

As stated several times, instituting ID requirements disenfranchises people at an extremely high rate compared to the number of 'fraudulent' votes that are stopped. There's a reason that Voter IDs are the centerpiece of several anti-democratic voter suppression efforts:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/10/05/ho...

This stuff isn't accidental.

One political side (the bent of the source you site) would like to be able to load a bunch of folks who can't be arsed to get IDs (a part of adult modern life) into buses, fill them full of rhetoric and drive them to the polls in an emotional fervor without impediments.

The other side would like to keep this same group (who can't be arsed to get IDs) from voting by whatever means necessary. Drug laws and felony disenfranchisement are likely part of this same scheme.

I'm not pleased with political shenanigans in general. And objectively I think if IDs are required they should be very easy to get and cost free even. That's the real problem.

But saying we don't need to verify who a person is before they vote is just f'n fishy as hell. Shenanigans. All cries about "disenfranchisement" aside. Washington Post (and friends) put this stuff out because they are clearly in first group.

It's too bad you are getting downvoted, you aren't wrong, it's just not fun to hear.

If this statement can be made in this same thread and upvoted as an argument for why IDs are too difficult to get for voting purposes, surely that's an unnecessary hardship irrespective of voting and should be fixed.

If the demographic for whom getting an ID is an undue burden suddenly became supporters of the other side I have little doubt the argument would get flipped around.

But it still would be a ridiculous argument.

ID's should be easier to get, yes, but the fact it's an inconvenience for some small minority of people shouldn't undermine the principals of one person one vote nor make it difficult to verify eligibility.

Reason: the difficulty of obtaining accepted forms of ID can disenfranchise more voters than any thwarted voter fraud does.

ID is required to vote—remember that we're talking about which kinds of ID are to be accepted.

So the argument should be, how much assurance do you need to allow a citizen to vote? No security is perfect, and increased security usually decreases usability.

The founders made a system which required landed property to vote. "They didn't require photo IDs" is ridiculous.

This isn’t the piece I was looking for but it makes the case that what seems obviously easy and affordable isn’t.

https://rewire.news/ablc/2014/10/16/well-actually-pretty-har...

The intent of those laws are to be supressive.

If you started expanding something like social security numbers to be a real ID system with photo ID and digital 2FA, then maybe in 10-15 years you can make it a requirement.

That's how long time adopting of such systems takes in other countries... With much smaller populations

In theory, it might not be; the actual proposals there have been advanced have been attempts at voter suppressions with partisan (and usually class and racial, as well) bias.

Establish a universal ID first and eliminate any access bias then we can talk about requiring it to vote. Given that there is no evidence of any real problem that it actually solves in voting, it's more important to avoid creating new problems than to rush into it as a solution for speculative potential future problems.

The fact is that before Republicans began pushing for voter id laws in states there were very very few proven cases of voter fraud. So if there wasn't a problem with voter fraud, what was the point of trying to pass the laws?

It's probably very hard to prove fraud when no one uses an id

How much does a photo ID cost? It's a poll tax any way you slice it.

About a decade ago my ID expired. This wasn't a huge deal since I don't drive and rarely travel. About a year ago I did want to hop on a plane to visit my nephew in San Diego. So I was thinking getting a new ID wouldn't be a huge problem.

So I go into the DMV with my expired ID and expired passport and a stack of mail with my current address and a stack of debit and credit cards and my social security card. They will not do anything without my birth certificate. Crap.. Lost that when my basement flooded. I will head over to vital records.

Then the lady at the DMV told me that they closed down the vital records office in Eugene and my only option was to go to Portland. So right here I have to spend 60 bucks on a round trip to get to Portland two hours away.

So I get the bus the next day and go to vital records. Again more expense for the Max. So I get them to print out a birth certificate. I had to pay 40 bucks for them to do it. Then they want to see my ID. Wait it is expired. They will not accept it.

I am told my options are to have a parent or sibling come in to vouch for me. Difficulty.. Parents are dead and my sister at the time lived on the east coast.

So here I am stuck. I know, I will have my sister get on a plane to come out here. It will cost but it needs to be done. So she does. So now I need to pay for a last minute ticket for her. And shit, it will be a while so I need to get a hotel for the night. And I should probably cover my sisters lost wages for a few days.

In the end I got my birth certificate. Off to the DMV where I paid 40 bucks for a state issued ID.

This all was fantastically expensive.

And really.. They closed the vital records office in a city that has 200,000 people. The only option for the entire state is Portland. One office for 4 million people and Oregon is a physically large state.

So yes.. Getting a state issued ID can be incredibly hard and expensive. Even if everything was perfect and I was able to easily get the documents it would still be 80 bucks to just get a ID card.

You must be a bit of a hermit ;-). There's a list of documents that you could have brought any three of, which includes things like utility bills, paystubs, insurance policy, personal check, etc. Sixteen different options, and I honestly don't know anybody in my circle of friends who couldn't pull off at least three of them.

I otherwise agree with your point, if it is that ID is too expensive to require for voting. It amounts to a poll tax.

Better to make it the job of a federal agency. Let's call it the Federal Elections Commission. ID is free, and they track you down to issue it, kinda like the census. Then I might be able to support requiring the ID for voting.

I had utility bills since that is pretty much the only mail I receive. And I had checks and pay stubs. They were very clear. No birth certificate no ID. I had my insurance card too. And funny enough my voter registration card too. For some reason I keep that in my wallet.

Sorry, I think I wasn't clear -- at the DMV you were definitely out of luck without the birth certificate. I'm just saying there is a pretty wide open list of what would have worked for getting your birth certificate from vital records. Utility bill, paystub, and personal check should have done it as all are on the list of sixteen choices. Still a great big hassle, but cheaper and faster than flying out your sister from the east coast :).

It's a chicken and egg problem. I understand and respect why they want to make it hard to get the birth certificate since we've made it the key to the kingdom. It used to be quite easy to get when I was younger, I for some reason have three copies of mine from over the years.

>Sixteen different options, and I honestly don't know anybody in my circle of friends who couldn't pull off at least three of them.

Not everybody is so lucky unfortunately.

The cost isn't actually the main barrier to availability of ID. It's mostly the timing. They're typically only available at a DMV office, which are only open 9-5 on weekdays (or similar hours). This means taking a day off work, which for many poor people would be a major expense. Most won't have any form of paid time off, so they lose at least the days wages. Not to mention how few DMVs there are in many regions, and the resulting transportation expenses (need to take an express bus to get there in in time to wait in line and get the ID before they close).

Many places with voter photo ID laws provide nondriver IDs for free.

With how much paperwork required and at what cost (time, money) to obtain? And, like Texas, are the places to obtain ID few and far between?

https://rewire.news/ablc/2014/10/16/well-actually-pretty-har...

Right, it takes paperwork to verify identity, otherwise the ID would be worthless. I've also never met an adult that _doesn't_ have some form of photo ID.

I understand that it's important to protect our poor and all that, but requiring proof of citizenship to vote seems pretty important to me in our democracy, and is an incredibly low bar that nearly everyone is already capable of meeting.

I’ve never met one either, but that could not be any less relevant. The ACLU says that 11% of American citizens have no ID.

https://www.aclu.org/other/oppose-voter-id-legislation-fact-...

That statistic came from the Brennan Center for Justice, which has a history of bias-driven research[1]. They have also taken massive donations from George Soros. I question the legitimacy of their "research."

[1] https://ballotpedia.org/Brennan_Center_for_Justice#Bias

edit: Why am I being downvoted for doing research on citations? It's kind of important to be critical of these kind of things.

Ok, how about another study. 100k in Wisconsin alone.

http://www4.uwm.edu/eti/barriers/DriversLicense.pdf

That research is incomplete. Look at the bottom of page 3:

"A portion of the population without a drivers license – whether valid or not – will have a photo ID, but without an analysis by race and location, it is not possible to estimate that population. "

The question here isn't whether or not they have valid drivers license, it's whether or not they have a valid photo ID good enough to vote with.

Thank you for providing that link, though. It's less biased than the others so far.

It’d be one thing if the politicians pushing voter ID were also pushing hard on making it easy, but when you look at Alabama cutting off access to IDs st the same time they’re requiring them, it’s hard not to draw obvious conclusions about intent.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/alabama-drivers-licen...

I agree completely. IMO, voter ID laws should only be legal if photo IDs are free. If a state simultaneously restricts access to IDs while requiring them, then that's voter suppression.

I’d argue free isn’t enough. Free and accessible is necessary, but given how hard it is to obtain a birth certificate e.g. there’s more to the problem.

Honestly where does this George Soros Boogeyman spring from? His philanthropy seems way less insidious and society undermining than the Kochs, Mercer, DeVos.

I guess it depends on where you sit...

How do you know? Do you ask everyone you meet for an ID?

There's a lot of people who live in the "fringes" of society who don't have an ID.

My uncle, for example. He lived with my grandma his whole life and didn't have a driver's license, car, or a job other than to run errands for my grandma.

I also have a friend who does not have an ID. Her husband takes care of everything and she doesn't drive.

It's unusual but not illegal to live like that.

Well, anecdata aside, an estimated 20 million Americans don’t per one study.

http://www.brennancenter.org/sites/default/files/legacy/d/do...

> I've also never met an adult that _doesn't_ have some form of photo ID.

I'm sorry you live in a bubble and can't see past it.

In Pennsylvania, about $30. That's at the high end. In Ohio, it's $8. Generally good for four years. Is $2 per year an impediment to voting?

The cost of the id itself is only part of the real cost. There's transportation expenses, taking time off work to go, in some cases it is expensive to get the documents necessary to even get an ID like a birth certificate

Of course it is.

Fortunately decades of history and court decisions disagree with you.

Well, I do.

So we're at an impasse.

See, my deal is, you want to make this whole system more complicated at several steps, and for what benefit? To solve what problem?

I'd rather keep the system as simple as possible--cheaper, easier, less can go wrong that way, and more people get to vote and participate in governance.

The US has close to the highest spending in the world on k-12 education per student.

Don't blame GP; he was probably educated here. Part of that education is learning who may be criticized for a failure to accomplish the tasks for which they were hired. Public school administrators and teachers are certainly not among those.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com