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Comment by mffnbs | Hacker News Reader

Not directly racist, but it costs money and time to obtain a passport.

In the US there is no such a thing as a universal ID. The closest thing is the state drivers license, and statistically poor communities tend to drive less for various reasons, so for them it is an extra hassle to go get a driver license OR EQUIVALENT ID just for the purpose of voting. The policy is not racist on his face, but a minimal context awareness is enough to understand the ultimate purpose.

In addition, trying to source IDs tends to surface some historical issues that we usually don't think about. One big one is that everyone has a birth certificate -- yet, if you weren't born in a hospital, you may not have such a certificate.

This is an internal passport (not for travelling abroad) and everyone has it because without it you cannot buy a train ticket, open a bank account, enter the college etc. Also there is a fine if you don't get it when you are 16 (or 18, I don't remember the exact age).

Also, young people cannot buy alcohol and cigarettes without it (to prove that they are adult) so some of them are motivated to get it as soon as possible.

Here is a Wikipedia link in case if someone didn't hear about "internal passports": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_passport

Also I wanted to add that internal passport is valid for a long time and you have to change it only twice in a lifetime: you get it first time at 14, then get a new one at 20 and at 45 years and that last one is valid forever (of course if you don't happen to die). So although there is a fee to pay, it is not really expensive.

Why should you need any form of identification to buy a train ticket? Say, for domestic-only travel.

Passport for a regular person in my country costs 30$, for children, people under 20 or over 65 and disabled persons it is 15$, and it is valid for 10 years. You literally have 10 years to put down 0.25$ per month.

P.S. You must have a valid passport when you reach a certain age.

The US does not have a law requiring you to have an id. Requiring people to have one is making the assumption that every person in the US can afford the time and money to obtain one, as well as the physical ability to do so.

If you cannot make this assumption, then you are actively disenfranchising people.

Sounds a bit backwards when one of the most powerful countries in the world cannot afford to issue its poor citizens passports...

We can afford to do that, easily. Can we achieve it politically? No. Is it worth doing? No.

You can achieve the same result by not requiring an id to vote.

In the US passports — our only national photo ID — are $145.

Passport cards are $65. But the cost is somewhat a red herring. There's nothing to keep the US from issuing a free voter identification card but issues of appropriate identification and the effort involved exist outside of out-of-pocket cost. [ADDED: And, of course, concerns about slippery slopes to national IDs which Europeans in particular may consider silly but nonetheless we're all allowed our hangups.]

And god forbid if you need a passport in two months or less--then you're looking at spending $200 to expedite the process (and add to that USPS 1-2 day document delivery).

>it costs money and time to obtain a passport.

As long as the process and cost is not punitive and targeted it's fine if something costs time and money. We have multiple constitutional rights that are burdened in that fashion. The right to petition the government, to have courts decide arguments, to own a gun, all cost time and money. (Not to mention that I have to have a photo ID and pass a criminal background check every time I buy a gun.)

As long as you acknowledge that you're implementing this explicitly to suppress American votes, sure, go ahead and try. I'm tired of the misdirection with election safety when anyone in the game knows what it's actually about.

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