Voter ID is mandatory in so many parts of the world. What are the rest of us missing?
Edit: Not that it matters, but I live in India, so "poor people can't get ID" confuses me even further.
If you were a poor person who really only has the value of their physical labor to feed your family you might not want to waste spend hours and hours of your incredibly (relatively) valuable time for something you can make do without. Since these poor people are often minorities voter ID laws disproportionately affect them.
The question of racism being a factor for supporters of voter ID is kinda muddied. Voter ID laws seem to make a ton of sense on the surface, but a little bit of knowledge about the American election system makes it clear that voter fraud is really not a big problem. There's no doubt that racists would support voter ID laws as they do suppress the election turnout of the poor, but I haven't seen any evidence that racial factors contribute to the majority of people's support for voter ID laws. Like every topic in US politics, it has become hyper-polarized to the point where both sides talk past each other to try to demonize their opponents.
[1]: https://www.quora.com/Why-is-DMV-so-slow
[2]: https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-aler...
It's the most common, but not the only one. You can just show up and ask for a plain ID, and avoid all that. And I kinda have to wonder how people get their I-9 filled out without any form of ID. You generally need an ID just to work in this country.
It's interesting that requiring an ID to vote is "disenfranchisement" yet thousands of other things where ID is required (including the exercise of some constitutional rights) are not "disenfranchisement".
What's funny is any argument against voter ID should be blown out of the water by just making IDs totally free (yes, I know, paid by taxpayers).
But I've had this discussion with people before, including people who actually believe that it's racist to have any form of ID to be required anywhere. Yes, these people do exist. The conversation always goes down the road of "well what about the mountain people who live 200 miles from the DMV, don't work, don't have an address, don't have a car, and can't take a bus?"
It's the most immature form of "debate" to hunt and peck for extreme edge cases and pretend that they are silver bullets. Aha! It doesn't work for the minority who won't hop on a bike and become a part of civilization, therefore those who are pro voter ID hate the poor. Yeeeup.
Personally, I don't really care about this issue as I think voting is a waste of time and I don't do it anymore. But it's hilarious just how far extremists will take the argument.
A huge hurdle has been the more stringent ID requirements for drivers licences, mostly imposed by airlines which rely on these now as security documents. For the economically marginalised, it's all too easy to become uncredentialed, and then difficult or impossible to re-establish identity.
This affects not just voting (if there is an ID requirement), but virtually all aspects of life: housing, employment, medical coverage, banking, and of course, mobility.
My experiences with the DMV have always been pretty smooth, and I've been to multiple offices. Yes, there's often a line, but people will stand in line just as long or longer for a 3 minute ride at Disneyland. Waiting at the DMV isn't fun, but you rarely ever have to go. Still, the line can be avoided almost entirely just by showing up early. Most people are lazy and show up hours after opening without an appointment. If you can't get an appointment(which already solves a ton of problems) show up 45 minutes before opening, be one of the first in line, eat a snack, hand over the papers you already filled out at home, and you're done. Yes, it's really hard to get up at 6am when you normally get up at 8. Life really, really sucks.
Let's say that other DMVs are worse, which I imagine they are. People don't have to renew their IDs for years. Waiting at the DMV once in a great while is a very, very small penalty.
People just complain too much, in my opinion.
> People just complain too much, in my opinion.
Spot on.
I’ve had to wait in line for hours in India - and even the poorest in India can do it without major complaint.
I mean yes you try and avoid it... but if it’s a 5 hour wait once every 10 years you just suck it up.
In reality the Democrats know there are a bunch of people who don’t care about politics and know nothing about the candidates or policies but can be cajoled into voting for team blue.
There are ~ 11 million illegal immigrants in the USA according to some government studies. How does the process measure whether or not they voted, in order to come to the above conclusion? Can't the same process be used to authenticate the citizenship of whoever comes to the voting booth?
Also I have just learned that voters' fingers are not inked when they vote. How is double voting prevented?
Authentication happens at registration. Once your registered they have your name on a checklist at the polling location which they check off. It also prevents double voting.
Now, how do they verify all these votes are actually correct? Well polling data is really damn accurate. Each party kind of knows in advance where they will win so it comes down to running a statistical models to find anomalies.
In short, to commit real voting fraud it would have to be a coordinated system wide event. Not something that can be done by individual voters. But now with electronic voting it takes very little to run a SQL update query and change a million votes.
From what I understand its common for many in the US population to move residences frequently so it's quite likely that people are registered to vote in multiple states. Wouldn't it be possible for someone to simply vote as you in the other state(s) where you are registered? I suspect there are a considerable number of people registered in more than one state. It seems like political parties can theoretically conduct coordinated voter fraud of this nature without triggering any kind of alarm through methods like this.
See also:
For the first improper entry offense, the person can be fined (as a criminal or civil penalty), or imprisoned for up to six months, or both. This is considered a misdemeanor under federal law (18 U.S.C.A. § 3559).
For a subsequent offense, or a reentry (or attempted reentry) after exclusion or deportation, the person can be fined or imprisoned for up to two years, or both. (See 8 U.S.C. Section 1325, 1326, I.N.A. Section 275, 276.) This is considered a low-level felony under federal law (18 U.S.C.A. § 3559).
I saw a post recently on Reddit claiming that a taxi (or uber or lyft or whatever) driver's car became a registration station. That doesn't seem to be too "secure".
The homeless can register and use the shelter address as their address. Most don’t and aren’t told they have that right.
I suspect there is a lot of it but it’s probably not coordinated enough to swing an election.
> because the reward is small and the penalty is huge.
I’d argue the reward is major and the chance of getting caught and prosecuted is almost nil.
For example voting illegally for dems could get amnesty on the table.
And the threat of penalty? Well my local liquor store got robbed for about $600 cash last month. The guy who did it is multiple orders of magnitude more likely to get caught than an illegal voter. Yet the jail time didn’t stop him.
But when you go to the polling place, those speaking Spanish don’t seem to have an ID.
In Australia, I don't drive and so don't have a drivers license, so I get a 'Photo Card' instead. I was actually able to trade in my expired learners drivers license for free to get a Photo Card (well, I could have if I didn't have an outstanding fine from... not voting)
If you get ID automatically or are required to hold it in other parts of life, it's less of a hurdle.
To apply for a photo ID card, you must:
Be a citizen or a legal resident of the U.S.
Be a resident of New York State.
Have your original birth certificate.
Have your Social Security card.
Be able to provide enough documents to verify your identity.
https://www.dmv.org/ny-new-york/id-cards.php
That's far from easy, and it's very easy to imagine scenarios where one lacks one or more of those. Proving residency can be hard, and is impossible for those who are homeless. The homeless have a right to vote.
https://www.mjt.me.uk/posts/falsehoods-programmers-believe-a...
The TSA will let you fly without ID if you answer a few questions to confirm your identity: https://www.tsa.gov/travel/security-screening/identification
I was pleasantly surprised when I managed to lose my driver's license somewhere in the 50 yards between the car and the airport door that I was actually able to fly. But they did really screen me. The hotel on the other end was more of a problem...
What does this mean? Do you mean RealID? States run elections so I’m not sure why this matters.
You might think you have an ID that's good enough for driving or buying alcohol, but you can be turned away at the polls if it expired a few days ago and you haven't had a chance to take time off work to get it renewed. Or if you moved recently and the address on your ID doesn't match your voter registration. Or if your name changed when you got married, but your ID still shows your former name.
Yes, these problems are avoidable. But the process still disproportionately disenfranchises people who are less likely to be able to spend the time on getting them resolved before it's time to actually vote.
It can't be valid if it has already expired, can it?
Voter ID laws would be great if the politicians proposing them didn't also underfund the ability to get the IDs.
Anyway, the downsides of not having a mandatory ID system was already mentioned repeatedly here.
Edit: It's not completely enforced yet (the REAL ID aspect). Some states are still working toward compliant. You still need an ID though.
"If we can confirm your identity, you’ll be cleared to go through security, and you may or may not have to go through some additional screening."
That's also just the TSA. You'll still have to convince the carrier to let you board without an ID.
Edit: Your link is 5 years old, and I don't think is up to date. Here's the current policy:
https://www.tsa.gov/travel/security-screening/identification
"Adult passengers 18 and over must show valid identification at the airport checkpoint in order to travel." They do so you "may" be able to travel if you forgot your ID.
Just because someone starts off asking you for an ID doesn't mean that they don't have a process for no ID.
Most people may have valid drivers licenses but voting must work for all people.
There is the additional complication that in some states they'll yank your license for unpaid traffic fines or for uninsured driving. It's fair that you can't drive but it isn't fair that traffic scofflaws can't go to the polls.
Also, voter fraud isn't much of an issue in the US, so it's a solution to a problem we don't really have.
Sometimes I wish those crying voter suppression would amend voter ID proposals to make getting ID free and easy and just put this whole issue to bed. Unfortunately with REAL ID, things are only going to get more difficult and expensive.
I would add that it's also used to deflect (or in some cases shout down) discussions of mass voter disenfranchisement, which actually exists and undermines US democracy in a meaningful way.
Try bringing up gerrymandering, voter purging, shortening of early voting and holiday/week-end voting, selective use of overwhelming police presence with a US reactionary and count the seconds before they make voter ID the center of the conversation.
https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/free-books/employee-...
I apologize if I didn't spell that out. To work in this country you need to provide more identification then you need to vote. At the very least, I think it should be equivalent. In reality, I think at the very least a government issued photo ID is required. We're talking about the integrity of an election after all.
Either way the requirements to vote are currently less strict in many places than the requirements to get a photo ID that can then meet the requirements of voter ID laws.
That, all by itself, means it will affect some percentage of the voters in an area, and that means it can easily affect the outcome of an election, at the very least for a period of time that may span multiple election cycles.
And that is the real reason voter ID laws are constantly being proposed.
Constantly re-arguing the theoretical neutrality and easy availability of ID (which is generally neither free or easily available, in some cases deliberately) ignores the practical effect of voter ID laws, and the motivations of those pushing for voter ID laws.
I'm not sure why we wouldn't want to guarantee the integrity of our elections. That's what this whole thread is about after all. Voter ID is just one key component of that.
If your birth was never registered? That can be a problem. https://www.wnycstudios.org/story/invisible-girl/
And I imagine if, as an adult, you don't have a birth certificate, aren't sure where you were born, and don't know your social security number, things can start to be difficult.
Consequently, many voter ID laws presume that all voters will have a driver's license as a form of ID (or even less likely forms, such as a passport or birth certificate).
While there are non-license forms of ID that can be obtained, all of these are bureaucratic processes.
Driver's license IDs are problematic for two reasons: (1) poorer and/or minority Americans are less likely to have a driver's than wealthy and/or white Americans (by ~5%) & (2) poorer and/or minority Americans are far more likely to have their driver's licenses taken (due to policing and economic inabilities to pay court fines or other charges).
Voter ID laws thus (1) create additional barriers for minority or poor Americans to vote, (2) are legal (in that aren't directly suppressing minority voting), (3) do not impact wealthy white voters.
As to why it's seen as disenfranchising, there are no general requirements in the United States to have a form of ID to exist in daily life. Poorer people who live in cities are less likely to have the resources or need to own a car, and if you don't own a car, why would you have a driver's license, which requires spending potentially hours at the local motor vehicle department, getting access to documents like birth certificates (which may well be in another state), and paying a fee [2]. Some states have free state photo IDs, but many do not, and even those IDs take some time and effort to get. Estimates of how many people are deterred from the polls because of lack of ID are tricky, and while the numbers are fairly low, America was founded on the idea of liberty and justice for all.
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/17/us/some-republicans-ackno...
[2] http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/20...
We have the same debate with early voting, how long polling places are open, and where they are located.
For whatever reason, conservative voters tend to be more motivated to vote. So any friction in the voting process tends to disproportionately affect Democrats.
As an aside, there are structurally racist policies that suppress Democratic votes both historically and today. To give one example, most states do not allow exconvicts to vote.
As to why many Americans are opposed? Because for so long this country has tried to prevent anyone but white men from voting.
Besides that, voter ID is a solution in search of a problem. There’s just not a plausible way to commit large scale fraud at the polls. You’d have to round up bus loads of people willing to commit voter fraud, take them from polling place to place, then have them sign their names as some other voter on the rolls at that polling location and hope that the real voter hasn’t and won’t show up to vote. I lack the imagination to see how this could occur without detection.
In any case, what everyone should actually be concerned with is that the voting system accurately captures the will of the people. In which case, voter fraud at the polls, in America, is the least of our problems. Our attention should be focused on things gerrymandering, first past the post, and for presidential elections, the electoral college, among other issues.
Almost all states do allow exconvicts to vote, but they may have to wait a certain period of time after release from custody/probation/parole.
“In 13 states felons lose their voting rights indefinitely for some crimes, or require a governor’s pardon in order for voting rights to be restored, or face an additional waiting period after completion of sentence (including parole and probation) before voting rights can be restored” [0]
Personally, I’ll be allowed to vote again in 2021.
[0] http://www.ncsl.org/research/elections-and-campaigns/felon-v...
I understand changes like that would favor the Democrats more than Republicans. Maybe it could be phased in slowly enough to lessen the pain? Anyway, once it was in place I'm sure the balance of power would readjust and then they could solve some real problems instead of shady politicking.
Better to err on the side of expanding access to the democratic process, instead of restricting it. Particularly since voter fraud is not a very enticing crime, or a very common one.
The 'racist' angle comes from various court rulings that have stated that certain laws intended to restrict voting rights disproportionately impacted people of color. One particular ruling in the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a Texas state law which banned student IDs as acceptable voter ID was racially discriminating against people of color.
Plus, the number of people who are might be affected is most likely dwarfed by the number of fraudulent votes that happen every single election, but that some people would rather not try to prevent.
Evidence suggests that the number of fraudulent votes is very low in the US (although the number of legitimate votes is also low)
If you're referring to a normal ballot, I've not seen anywhere that doesn't require some proof of residence and identity, like a very recent bank statement matching the registered address for that voter.
For that to be an issue, someone would have to:
1) Obtain a recent bank statement for a registered voter
2) Show up, in person, at the correct polling location
3) Commit a felony by lying to the poll workers and voting illegally
4) Hope nobody who knows the real person hears them claim to be that person
5) Hope the person doesn't show up and try to vote
Likely you are correct for the places where you have voted, but there is a lot of variation across the US. This page has a map of what states require (or do not require) ID: http://www.ncsl.org/research/elections-and-campaigns/voter-i....
As shown there, California, DC, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Vermont, and Wyoming do not require or request that the voter provide written proof of residence, identity, or eligibility to vote.
The specific process for those states differs, but in general, it's all based on self-attestation. Some states require you to provide a signature that is compared against another source, but nothing like a bank statement is required.
For (a) I suppose someone would come to vote only to find their name crossed off. For (b) I don’t know. Perhaps there would be cameras. Note that to commit fraud like this you still need one appearance at a polling station per fraudulent vote so it’s hard to have much effect.
A second issue to consider is that the list of those who are eligible is made by sending letters to houses asking who lives there and is eligible to vote. There isn’t really any checking of the eligibility.
This is the exact opposite of reality, and the opposite of basically every attempt[1] to investigate the prevalence of voter fraud.
The number of actual fraudulent votes is somewhere in the single to low double digits, it makes the news when it happens because it's extraordinarily rare. And it's a felony with virtually no real benefit for the person committing it.
And even some of those few cases were people who simply weren't supposed to vote, like the woman in Texas that was just sent to prison for it, not people who didn't have identification. Texas has a voter ID law.
The hyper-focus on one very specific kind of potential voter fraud, with virtually no evidence that it's even a problem, is suspicious on its face.
That voter ID proponents keep ignoring simple facts about the actual incidence of voter ID fraud, while dismissing all other concerns, strongly suggests they're arguing in bad faith.
[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/08/06/a-com...
Yes, some Americans have an extremely low quality of life. Some literally live on the streets. That doesn't mean they should be ineligible to vote.
But what people do often say, rightly, is that of the population who would don't have ID's and thus wouldn't be able to vote if you enacted a voter ID law, they're disproportionally likely to vote democrat. You can take from that what you want, but it's almost entirely republicans who are for voter ID and almost entirely democrats who are against it. That's not a coincidence.
Combine that with the fact that voter ID doesn't actually solve any current problems we have (in-person voter fraud is virtually nonexistent), it just seems like a distraction when what we should be having is a real conversation about the actual security of our election systems from hacking.
(EDIT: s/democrats/likely to vote democrat/;)
If I show up at the polls and successfully impersonate Person A, they cross Person A off the list of pre-registered voters, and I vote as them. But then, if Person A showed up, they would say "we already crossed you off the list", and it would trigger what we would call an "instance of in-person voter fraud." How they found out which person voted fraudulently doesn't really matter for my point, because:
In a recent 14-year period, this has happened about thirty-one times across the whole US, according to wikipedia. (Source is here: [1])
Basically, it's easy to do, but also extremely easy to detect, so in practice nobody does it. It's not currently a significant factor in the security of our elections.
[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2014/10/13/th...
Is there a system that is doing this checking though?
If I am an illegal immigrant I can go to that Equifax website leak for example, pick up a name and social security number, get some documents together, start a life for myself. Over time I could even get an ID to register for voting.
There are supposedly 16 million known cases of identity theft in the USA per year - many of which are caught because money went missing.
Is there a system that checks for voting in the same way.
Granted it would be trivial, but does this checking take place?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_Voter_Registratio...
50%+ of the US population right there?
It adds a barrier to voting. We don’t like having to trust our government to be benevolent—the track record of such populations is poor.
The risk of voter fraud (in the form of people who shouldn’t be voting, voting) is low. The ease of forging an ID is high. The risk of tyranny therefore dominates (I enter the massive corruption and security gaps in India’s Aadhar program as Exhibit A.)
First they require ID even if you are a registered voter. On the surface this isn't so bad. Then they only accept certain forms of ID. The accepted forms of ID are only available from certain departmental offices, like the DMV. Those offices have their own ID requirements to get their acceptable ID. They also are understaffed with limited office hours (10-4PM and 2 hours lunch). Due to budget cuts they also have fewer offices that can create your ID.
So the simple act of voting becomes a catch-22 of needing ID but not being able to even get ID.
That, mixed with the fact that in person polling fraud pretty much never happens, means we shouldn't want another tool in the hands of disenfranchisers.
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/feature/todays-voter-suppressi...
Explaining from scratch, the US has two approximately equally dominant political parties. It is presumed (by both sides, and probably correctly) that reducing the ID requirements will primarily benefit the more urban Democratic Party, and that making the requirements more stringent will benefit the more rural Republican party.
Possibly motivated by self-interest, the result is that about half the population believes that requiring greater voter ID is "obviously" a good thing, and about half believes that it is equally "obviously" a bad thing. The side in favor ID expresses this with concerns about fraudulent voting, and the side against ID talks about disenfranchisement.
Is there some sort of proactive movement that tries to make this a non-issue by making people get usable IDs?
A change to the situation will likely involve either one side getting sufficiently far ahead to be able to change the rules further toward their advantage, or will involve a change in the perception such that both sides think that the same change will be to their side's benefit. But since these decisions are made on a state-by-state basis, any change will likely be incremental rather than all at once.
No, I'm not really aware of any major efforts concentrated on helping people get appropriate ID. Voter registration drives are common, but the ones I've noticed put the emphasis on registering otherwise eligible voters rather than increasing the pool of eligible voters.
I wonder how cost effective a "free driver's license" charity would be at creating eligible voters. It wouldn't even have to be directly supported by a political party, but by targeting a particular demographic it would likely be quite effective in creating new voters of a particular type. And unlike straight voter registration drives, getting a driver's license gives other direct benefits to the recipient.
Now I know that isn’t a big deal to a lot of people here but there are a ton of people around where I live that it would be a significant enough barrier to entry to the point where they just wouldn’t bother.
Compare this to some other states that make it super easy (Oregon comes to mind) and look at their voter fraud rates vs TX and you start to wonder if there is some ulterior motive at play here.
The second part of this is the obvious motivation - with voter fraud being so low as to be nonexistent (as shown with recent news about the "voter fraud" committee that has done and found absolutely nothing), what is the motivation for the laws given how many people it would negatively affect?
I suggest talking about politically polarizing matters in terms of interests. For example, "Voter ID laws as implemented in the USA tend to result in diminished participation by poor people because [explanation]. Such laws tend to be favored by those who benefit from poor people voting less, and opposed by those who benefit from poor people voting more."
This depersonalizes the conflict a bit, and allows us to have the kind of insightful debates that HN is for.
It is horrendously racist to claim that any race is "incapable" to be able to get an ID, and the math doesn't work out in its favor anyway. But it's the current argument du jour that allows the power to be removed from the people, so it continues to play.
Anything else discussed in this thread with respect to the lack of American voter ID is just avoiding these facts. If the people want to take this nation back, they must pass voter ID and vote out (if they possibly can) those who oppose it.
Having an ID is important for so many reasons, it'd be great if the US gov had a standard state/federal ID system that could facilitate so many things. Of course it would also be abused :)
If it's racist, well...
https://m.rediff.com/news/column/the-giant-mess-called-aadha...
Given America's love-hate relationship with well-maintained infrastructure ("my tax money may end up benefitting somebody else?!?"), and given how ID is optional for most aspects of American live, it wouldn't surprise me if India's system is significantly better organized (although people will certainly find enough to complain about, as always).
You can't have an id in USA because the current system doesn't have a list of people with their addresses? So the current system needs to be a system of all the people and their addresses, including citizens, with some sort of unique identifier for quick retrieval? You know, an id?
Therefore "infrastructure to obtain ID in India and the US is of somewhat similar quality" is false. Therefore "Apparently some people believe that poor people or minorities in America find it harder than even the poorest Indians to go get identification" is a false equivalence:
The poorest of all Indians still have a government that keeps track of the data required to vote (whatever fault it may have in other ways).
Americans do not and therefore have to work around the no-registration policy with an ad-hoc registration procedure every two years that might require significant hoop-jumping - which is easier when you have some extraneous time and/or money you can throw at the problem (that is, you're not poor).
The fact is anyone can vote on a provisional ballot, and if the verified ballots provided a close enough race, the provisional ballots are scrutinized and counted. This is presently happening in KS with 10k provisional ballots which could skew a 96 ballot spread amongst almost 300k.
Those whining about disenfranchisement simply want fraudulent votes.