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Comment by forgot_again | Hacker News Reader

That's not really true. The Right is generally united on the point of wanting universal ID. Nothing totalitarian about a nation being able to reliably identify and distinguish its citizens.

Unfortunately the political Left believes that such ID, specifically when used as a means of election security, would lead to discrimination.

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You are conflating two things: a national/"universal" form of ID, and voter ID.

Voter ID is the requirement to show ID at polling stations in order to vote. That's what the left is generally concerned about. It's a separate concern from whether a national ID card ought to exist.

On the other hand, the existence of a national ID card is generally opposed by people on the right, which is the opposite of how they feel about voter ID.

The right at this point has long been pretty in favor of the surveillance state. Both sides have frankly.

If it were assigned for free when you were born and there was no effort associated with getting it or working with it, then there would be no issue. The current problem is that a driver’s license takes a long time to obtain (because the DMV wait time sucks as we all know), and because it’s not free. This means that it’s a lot harder for someone holding down 3 jobs or working during DMV hours to get one. You are basically making it more difficult for an already under-represented group of people to vote. It’s not that it’s impossibly hard or totally preventative, it’s just another obstacle.

The problem is that if the ID is not free, it could constitute a Poll Tax:

https://history.house.gov/HistoricalHighlight/Detail/37045

Which is against the constitution. It also disenfranchises voters who do not have a permanent address.

Those are both pretty simple issues to address. Many Democracies around the world use some form of voter ID and we could easily just follow their implementations with some adjustments.

Right but every proposition suggesting those elements gets struck down. It isn’t about voter ID, it’s about not letting poor people vote

> Unfortunately the political Left believes that such ID, specifically when used as a means of election security, would lead to discrimination.

I'm not an US citizen but this is the first time ever I've heard this extraordinary claim.

Do you have any source to substantiate your assertion?

If you are a citizen of the united states, you get a vote if you're 18, according to the constitution. No tests, IDs, or other things are required. To add any additional burden is counter to the constitution, and as a result any additional burden could be seen to prevent people from voting that have the right to vote.

Nevermind that when you add additional barriers, discrimination occurs against anyone that cannot meet the barrier, or does not want to meet the barrier.

Example: - "tests" in the South during civil rights to prevent african americans from voting

- Requiring any sort of payment or money to create a Voter ID in a state. If the person does not have money or time this is discrimination and against their rights as citizens (you are not required to prove you are a citizen. your ballot can be provisional)

- Requiring someone be able to read. It's not a requirement to vote. Any forms requiring reading are a no-go.

- Requiring them to have a permanent address (again, leads to discrimination for those without addresses.

- Requiring someone take a lot of time they cannot afford to get an ID (again, some folks are working too many jobs to go to the DMV for a day)

the list goes on...

Some places have tried to institute voter id laws that require ids that are difficult/expensive/time consuming to get, sometimes specifically making it harder for the most downtrodden segments of society to vote. That's really bad and so there's an outcry. Sometimes the nuance of "discriminatory ID requirements are bad" gets lost in the zeitgeist and circulates as "ID requirements are discriminatory and bad."

You might just be surprised at how many US citizens do not have a state issued ID card. There are just a lot of poor people who can't afford to pay for the ID or their parents never kept their birth certificate and they just don't have the slightest clue what to do to get another birth certificate. It perplexes me, but some people are just that broke or just can't get it together enough.

Maybe the commenter above is thinking of a different point, or coming at it from an oddly phrased perspective.

The Democratic party relies on a certain segment of immigrant or immigrant-related citizens to vote in support of them. And if licensing / IDs are perceived to target and identify who is not a citizen (your relatives, friends), then they could lose support. I suppose it could be seen as a kind of "discrimination". And if some social services, policing, etc were to be able to use such ID, then illegal aliens would certainly be more at risk of being discovered or face more stringent (less porous) treatment in the law enforcement system.

I personally think this is a ridiculous situation from every angle, and unfortunately it's all tied up in our immigration and economic policies, so it's hard to disentangle or fix.

> so it's hard to disentangle or fix

Give the Id to everybody who wants it for free. If someone cannot prove citizenship, but they can prove having worked or lived in the US for more than 5 years (checks, bank receipts, etc.), give them citizenship.

There, problem solved. That way, you only discriminate against those who are either in the US illegally and are not working, or are working but have been illegally living in the US for less than 5 years, and both situations are fixable by the individuals themselves (work for 5 years and "earn" your citizenship).

Of course, what many want is an Id that can actually be used to prevent poor people from voting, while also being able to employ those same poor people at very low rates using the fear of "reporting them".

This is quite a common claim from the Left in the US. If you do a quick search in Left leaning publications on the issue of voter ID you'll see that stance dominates their discussion of the issue. I agree it's an extraordinary claim, but it's a conspiracy they've latched onto.

You can in fact see a child comment below where someone is commenting that the purpose of such ID is to disenfranchise the poor.

> This is quite a common claim from the Left in the US.

What about the source? Are you able to find anything that corroborates your extraordinary claim? Because I asked for a source, and you just reiterated your baseless assertion.

I dunno, this claim isn't extraordinary. MSNBC/CNN/Nytimes/WashPost say stuff like this all the time. It's a very common talking point. Certainly (in my opninion), the reason why some people are so interested in voter ID is to make voting harder.

There are many sources, if you don't trust me you should search yourself.

Here's one, representative of the general attitude. Voter ID's are discriminatory or pushed with discriminatory intent: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/heres-what-you-need-to-kn_b_9...

> Voter ID's are discriminatory or pushed with discriminatory intent:

Your own link does not support your baseless assertion. The only claim is that so far voter ID laws have been crafted to exclude non-white US citizens from the electoral process.

Taken from your article:

> New studies suggest that the motivation of these laws is suppressing non-white voters, and worryingly, that they will be successful at doing so.

Do notice that the remarks refer to voters (thus, citizens with the right to vote) who, due to their race, are being excluded from casting their vote.

If that's the best source you managed to produce then I'm afraid that you were either lying or very confused, because your original claim has zero basis.

> crafted to exclude non-white US citizens from the electoral process.

Reads a lot like

>> pushed with discriminatory intent.

You seem to be confused about what the point of disagreement is

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