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Comment by tick_tock_tick | Hacker News Reader

ID verification is a really big issue in the US the Democratic party is very strongly opposed.

>ID verification is a really big issue in the US

No it is not.

There have been less than a hundred voter impersonation cases in the last two decades: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2014/10/13/th...

Anyone saying that ID verification is a big issue is using it as a red herring, to create more hoops to jump through for citizens who have a right to vote.

I mean politically it's a hot topic.

Only because the GOP politicians make it difficult for lower-income and elderly to get IDs.

Also the verification process itself can be often biased or outright discriminatory (ie, registration polls being inaccurate).

Or Native Americans.

Which GOP politicians made it more difficult for lower-income and elderly to get IDs? That would definitely be scandalous.

You don't have to make it explicit that you're targeting a specific group. If there is a correlation between groups that tend to drive less, and the groups that you don't want to vote, all you have to do is to require a driver license and that imposes an extra burden on the people that you don't want to vote, whereas populations that tend to drive, they already have a driver license and need no farther work to exercise their right to vote. It's so happens that poor people, communities of color, and the elderly tend to drive less.

In Spain everybody has a mandatory ID, and it is very easy and cheap or even free to get it. In that context it makes sense to require an ID. In the US, for cultural reasons, there is a lot of reluctance toward a national ID.

This is a systemic thing, not the work of a single villain with a face. Getting an ID is inherently more difficult for lower-income individuals for a variety of reasons. It doesn't have to be a specific GOP politician stopping people for it to be discriminatory.

Assuming that people can't get IDs based on their demographic is also a form of discrimination. Weak ID requirements disenfranchise voters of all backgrounds by enabling the possibility of diluting their votes with fraudulent registrations and ballots. Los Angeles County had more registered voters than they have age 18+ citizens and recently were forced by lawsuit to purge 5 million invalid registrations from their rolls.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yW2LpFkVfYk

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2019/06/20/calif_...

> Assuming that people can't get IDs based on their demographic is also a form of discrimination.

Assuming it based on no evidence would be a form of prejudice.

Concluding that such a disadvantage exists bases on ample empirical evidence plus occasional statements of policy makers cheering themselves for preserving or advancing that disadvantage is not.

The same ones that aggressively gerrymander districts. In most cases this is a committee, it is seldom one person.

These ones https://www.snopes.com/news/2015/10/01/alabama-drivers-licen...

From the linked article:

While a driver’s license is the most common form of ID in the state, Bentley said anyone without a driver’s license can go to any county register’s office and have a photo ID made and the closing of the DMV offices will not change that fact.

Bentley also pointed out that every probate judge in the state has the authority to renew driver’s licenses and the closing of the DMV offices will not change that fact.

Bentley said not only is the state not engaged in any effort to curtail voting, it is doing all it can to make sure anyone who wants to vote will be able to register to vote.

“We will go to people’s houses to have their picture made if they don’t have a photo ID in the state of Alabama,” said Bentley. “We’re not ever going to do anything to keep people in the state of Alabama from voting. And for them to jump to a conclusion like that, that is politics at its worst.”

You are literally quoting the guy who shut down the DMV locations. Politicians can and will say anything to get what they need (reelection).

For damn good reasons too. They're intentionally used to target minority voters that vote democratic in most cases under the guise of preventing a problem that doesn't actually exist. It's bad enough the courts decided that representatives can choose their voters through gerrymandering but allowing them to lock some voters out by requiring IDs without making it significantly easier to get IDs reeks of Jim Crow style poll taxes and literacy tests.

Well then fix that problem (of it being difficult or onerous to acquire an id that you can vote with).

In Canada, you don't actually even need an ID to vote. [0]

Two pieces of paper like your voting information card (that is mailed directly to you) and a utility bill with your name and address will suffice.

https://www.elections.ca/content.aspx?section=vot&dir=ids&do...

For a very long time, I'd show up to vote, say my full name, and they'd ask for a street name or house number, and I'd tell them, and they'd strike out my name and hand me a ballot to go vote. That was the identification process.

Now, same state, I get the ballot mailed to me, it has my name on it, it's bar coded, I vote, put it in an envelope, mail it back or drop it at a collection box for this purpose, and I get an email telling me I've voted. That kind of tracking gives me a frowny face. I don't know that they have a way to associated my vote with me, but they know whether or not I've voted, same as before.

Anyway, other states are different, where they have onerous ID requirements, including government issued photo ID, because the like that sort of thing. There's not much to be done about it.

The point of the policy isn’t to ID voter fraud (extremely rare) it’s to restrict voter access so the republicans pushing voter ID laws aren’t going to implement things to fix the ID availability problem.

It's hard to fix that problem when the people who benefit from it are in charge of setting the relevant policies.

They're opposed to ID verification laws that act as a poll tax. Not all voter ID laws carry the same burden. 11% of Americans do not have any form of government ID, yet they have a right to vote.

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