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> The most common form of ID in the US is a driver's license.

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.

There are states where you have to show a utility bill to get one of these.

You just need to show proof of residence, of which a utility bill is one example.

Which means you have to be in a stable living situation.

What kind of ID homeless people can get then? Can they vote? Register to vote?

I've never seen a requirement that specifically listed "must have utility bill". There are usually a list of valid documents, and in someone's worst case, if they're disabled, they're going to be collecting disability and will have official correspondence from the state with their name and address on it that would qualify.

ID is also required to receive welfare or exercise the 2nd amendment or 1st amendment right to peaceful assembly (many municipalities require a permit for that, which will not be issued to a person without an ID).

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".

It's controversial because people without ID overwhelmingly vote for one party. If having an ID were uncorrelated with party affiliation, we wouldn't be having this stupid conversation.

There's nothing that you said that isn't factual.

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.

> but a little bit of knowledge about the American election system makes it clear that voter fraud is really not a big problem.

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?

Hardly anyone does it because the reward is small and the penalty is huge. Voter fraud is a federal crime. That's 2+ years in a federal pen (the ones they make scary movies about) with a minimum 85% sentence served. There is no early, good behavior release. Imagine knowingly robbing a bank where the maximum haul is $1. That is kind sort of what knowingly.

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.

> Once your registered they have your name on a checklist at the polling location which they check off

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.

As long as literally nobody moves back to where they started, otherwise everybody involved gets locked up for the aforementioned years and years.

Don't you have a similar deterrent for being an illegal immigrant in the first place?

I think that used to simply get you a deportation. Now of course Trump et al. is incarcerating illegal border crossers.

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).

People mostly emigrate for work or family, so the risk comes with a much greater benefit than the very small chance of deciding an election.

How does authentication happen at registration time? Can people use a passport? Do they need something that has their address on it? What about homeless people?

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".

I’m not sure what the current procedure is as I registered 15 years ago at the polling station. I brought my driver license and a few bills with my address. Since then I update my address regular. I also moved abroad and have to absentee ballot as well.

The homeless can register and use the shelter address as their address. Most don’t and aren’t told they have that right.

> Hardly anyone does it

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.

At least here in California, every voter is assigned a location where they vote. The voting location has a list of everyone assigned there and checks your name (and address) off their list when you show up. If you're not on the list or if your name is already checked off you can't vote.

Do you have to prove your name and address somehow? Or you have to simply say it and they see if it's on the list?

Good question. I've always given them my ID to verify, but I'm not sure if that's actually required. I assume that it's not required and if they mark your name off the list, then someone else gives the same name/address they know there's a fraud situation and then there's some kind of followup.

Not all DMVs are inefficient, and some move quite smoothly.

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.

I don't have experiences with DMVs outside of California, but Californians love to complain about DMVs just like other things they chose to expose themselves to like traffic, heat, and relatively mild winters.

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.

> Waiting at the DMV once in a great while is a very, very small penalty.

> 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.

Do you need to show ID if you're young to buy alcohol? What do the people who don't drive use?

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)

You can pay $15 to get a non driver state issued ID. As a student I had to get one of those before I got a drivers license.

Why does not the body that keeps the electoral role just mail out poling cards as is done in the UK.

Funny when you go to the DMV, everybody in line is speaking Spanish.

But when you go to the polling place, those speaking Spanish don’t seem to have an ID.