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Comment by mc32 | Hacker News Reader

It’s not unusual among modern democracies for voters to provide proof of identity. We’re (and the UK?) the outliers in that, so no, I think it’s unrelated to authoritarianism. It’s got more to do with ensuring integrity of votes.

India, Mexico, Argentina, Germany, Taiwan, Brazil, Iceland, Costa Rica, etc, require it. Among Americans all major demographics show majority support for voter ID reqs.

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Other modern democracies have different traditions with respect to documentation; we don't have a national identity card either, nor do we require people to carry identification with them. Lots of voters, particularly elderly voters, don't have formal identification.

Instances of voter fraud in the US are vanishingly rare. It's a really dumb crime; stiff penalties, lots of legwork, and an infinitesimal likelihood of influencing outcomes.

I was a Cook County election judge in the last cycle and will be one during the next cycle as well. We don't require identification, though judges can challenge a check-in and ask for identification, and the vote will get cast provisionally if none is provided.

it is really interesting that in US and countries like that where voter fraud is relatively easy it's almost nonexistant, but in Russia, for example (where you need your passport to vote and where you can't vote just anywhere, but on a particular station in the region you have a stamp of residence in your passport, and yeah, there's a list of voters everywhere, in advance)... Well, bussing exist there.

Buses with "voters", who have "out of home voting permit" papers on them, are coming to the "problematic" voting stations, to tip elections for the "proper candidate". Usually it's organized by managers of political indifferent or loyalist workers of government institution.

That's because election fraud in Russia is driven from the top down. In a country with more-or-less functioning rule of law, and where you won't get into police trouble for documenting this sort of thing - these attacks would not work - and those sorts of restrictions on voting are not necessary.

Hence, the voter fraud boogieman in the US remains just that - a convenient boogieman.

Where voter fraud happens it isn’t random people deciding to vote 3 times. Why would anyone bother?

Actual vote fraud is about political machinery. Now in the US the real election shenanigans are much cheaper and more effective... the big pools of black money and gerrymandering are the tools of modern political machines.

That's not called 'voter fraud' though - 'voter fraud' is a more narrowly specific term than 'election fraud' and 'election shenanigans'.

“Voter fraud” in that context that is at best a boogeyman and at worse code for “poor and brown people voting”.

This is your bit:

"Actual vote fraud is about political machinery".

That's not 'vote[r] fraud'. The meaning of the term is independent of whether this type of fraud is common or not, how the threat of it is misused politically, etc.

Australia doesn’t require voter ID either. Voter ID is a vehicle for voter suppression (and generally called for by the politically conservative).

You’re right. I forgot Australia and NZ. Never the less even left leaning or liberal countries out there require ID to vote: Brazil (was left), Sweden, Spain, Greece (Syriza), but then you have truly poor countries with truly poor people who still pull it off, like The Gambia, Ukraine, Libya, etc. Ukraine and The Gambia are made up of many ethnicities and they manage to do it.

None the less, we're down the list at no. 26 when it comes to voter integrity[1]. This is from 2014, so it's not encumbered by today's politics.

Ahead of us: Norway, Germany, Netherlands, Iceland, Czech Republic, Austria, South Korea, Slovenia, Israel, Cyprus, Lithuania, Australia, Rwanda, Japan, Chile, Italy, Grenada, Malta, Argentina, Georgia and Mongolia.

All except Australia req. Voter ID.

I (and everyone else) needs to present ID for cold medicine. I don't see this being burdensome.

[1]https://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2014/11/study-ranks-...

Voter id is not required because by requiring it you shift voter demographics away from poor/minority/elderly people who don't have an id. The cost for an id should be zero if it is required to vote.

It normally is in Voter ID states like my (for a couple more days) home state of Wisconsin. The problem is that a lot of people can't provide supporting documentation, i.e. a birth certificate.

In Australia you simply attest that you are eligible to vote, repeat your name and address as per the electoral roll, and you're good to go — ballot in one hand, sausage sizzle in the other. You don't even have to demount from your skippy.

I've never heard anybody suggest that an election outcome has been affected by any part of this. And we vote on paper too, no computer fuckups.

the other thing that makes Australia an outlier on these kinds of lists is that it enforces compulsory voting, which tends to counter-effect attempts at voter suppression

To which I can only think, "So what?"

Why does the United States need to be like other countries? The whole reason people settled this land was because they didn't want to be like other countries.

It's OK for countries to have different systems. In fact, it's better because the diversity allows for experimentation. France is awesome because they do things the French way there. Germany is awesome for all its Germanity. If all the countries are the same, then there's no point in having more than one country or ever going anywhere.

I wouldn't ask Americans to give up their system any sooner than I'd ask the French to give up wine.

Among Americans all major demographics show majority support for voter ID reqs.

Again, "So what?" There's a vast difference between doing what is popular and doing what is right. Keeping it in the political realm, you imagine the mess the nation would be if we just went with the popular vote and let people vote directly for the president? It would disenfranchise 273 million people who don't live in New York, California, Texas, or Florida.

I dunno. 30 years ago there was hardly any ID theft. It was very rare. Today, it's widespread and a daily occurrence. Things change. We need to lock doors. It's not the world it used to be.

This is getting tangential, but opinion polls on voter ID aren't comparable to opinions on a national popular vote. Replacing the electoral college with a popular vote is the entire policy. Voter ID is complicated - we don't have a required ID nationally, lots of people don't have drivers licenses, state IDs cost money, how are we going to get gov't-issued IDs to people that don't already have one - do we make it any easier/cheaper or do we just tell them "you've got 4 years, figure it out"?

Also disagree on the comments on the popular vote being a mess - why should the population of someone's state factor in to how much their vote matters? Disenfranchisement is someone who lives in California's vote mattering less than a voter in Wyoming. Especially problematic is the winner-take-all way of determining electoral votes. Having a state pledge all of its electors to one candidate when 49% of its citizens voted for the other is an absolute failure of representation.

I'd say that the 2000 election coming down to 540 votes in Florida is a much bigger mess than the idea of a popular vote.

Authoritarianism always claims to be about ensuring the integrity of something or other. The question is always: is that the right goal, and is the proposal really the best way to accomplish that goal? Making election day a national holiday, for example, would do more to allow citizens to accurately express their voting preferences than any removal of non-citizen votes could ever do.

I think it would probably be best if we did both: statutorily mandate that employees have an opportunity to vote, even if the polling stations are only open during working hours; and also require that voters show the kind of ID we ask for when somebody tries to purchase a beer or a pack of cigarettes.

Neither is a bad idea.

Yes it is. I don't smoke any more but I resent having to produce my ID for common purchases. It's none of the retailer's or the state's business. Corporations typically cover their ass for legal liability against selling booze or cigarettes to minors by requiring everyone to product ID. I have no wish to live in a permission society where everyone is constantly having to get approval for everything, and am opposed to the construction of same. That attitude extends into the political sphere.

tl;dr mind your own business.

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