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Comment by acdha | Hacker News Reader

The thing to remember about voter ID discussions in the US is that it costs money & non-trivial amounts of time to get IDs, and most of the people calling for ID checks aren’t willing to fund improvements there because most of the affected people are not their voters. This makes these conversations hard to follow because they’re not really about voting but access to government ID. If we had universal ID cards, I doubt any serious number of people would oppose checks.

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Yeah, the GOP has been caught a few times saying the quiet part out loud:

Voter ID initiatives are explicitly intended to make it harder to vote for lower-income people, because those people tend to vote for Democrats.

Yet most countries have far stricter voter ID requirements.

Weird!

How many of those countries lack freely-available national ID cards?

Most countries do not have a history of Jim Crow laws and voter suppression like the U.S. does.

That's hyperbole. The US isn't alone in not letting women vote, non-landholders, certain minorities.

You should go read up on the history of Jim Crow laws and come back, because it's clear you are lacking a huge chunk of context here.

I’m not sure how that matters?

Are you saying because there used to be laws suppressing a minority that minority is unable to meet voter ID requirements that every other countries voters can easily meet?

America was an apartheid state well into the 1960s.

Structures remain in place that make it difficult for people to escape the inter-generational poverty that was enforced by LAW up until that time. The abolition of Jim Crow laws did not magically create socioeconomic equality, nor did the abolition of those laws mean things like redlining, preferential hiring, etc. didn't continue to happen (and, in many cases, still happen).

As I mentioned in my other comment, in many states the Republican party has sufficient power that they can (a) reduce polling places in poorer, black areas while also (b) close Department of Motor Vehicles offices in those same areas. This means it's harder to vote even if you have the ID, and also harder to get the ID.

So yes, that is exactly what I am saying. You would do well to do some reading on this before you embarrass yourself further, because it's clear you really have no idea what you're talking about.

Many of them, India is the one I know, did a multi year drive to go to every corner & make voter id cards available to every one, for no cost & for no more than 200m walk away.

It feels like you're suggesting the reality of voter ID in the US isn't how I'm describing it.

In the US, there is no national ID card. The de facto ID is the driver's license, and those are issued by the individual states -- and for people who don't drive (which, in most places in the US, means "poor people") there's no reason to have one.

States DO issue a non-DL ID, but getting one involves a bunch of the same hassles that getting the driver's license involves -- paying a fee, taking time to go to the correct government office, taking time off work to do so (again, a large imposition for lower income non-drivers), etc.

The GOP is also infamous for reducing polling places in areas that tend to vote Democratic, and really only gets in trouble when they're super obvious about it. Now, with VoterID, many GOP-run states have also starting closing the driver's license issuing offices in poorer and blacker areas of the state (for example, Alabama). There, you get a snowballing effect: reduce polling places easily accessed by poorer people; require an ID to vote that many of them don't have; and then make it harder to GET the ID in order to vote.

This is the new American reality.

Anyone who wants to legally drive or buy alcohol already has the required ID. Those that somehow do neither but still want to vote might still have a state-issued ID card for other ID purposes, and if they don't, well, the infrastructure to get them one already exists.

The blocker is actually checking those and thus reducing the cheating going on. And you can say the people who are for voting IDs are of a certain ideological bent, but that goes both ways, doesn't it?

Not everyone drives a car or buys alcohol (or gets carded when they’re decades past 21 in a place where everyone knows them), and if they don’t need it regularly it’s not uncommon for older people to let theirs expire. For example, I know someone who spent the last 40 years of her life medically unable to drive a car and unwilling to travel internationally but that doesn’t mean she didn’t have a right to vote. It’s not a huge number of people but it’s consistently on the order of a single digit percentage nationally - millions of people - and higher in certain communities, which is where the fairness question arises:

https://www.npr.org/2012/02/01/146204308/why-millions-of-ame...

The solution is easy: require access to state ID to be free, and reverse budget cuts which mean that in some areas of the country you might need to drive for hours to get to a DMV or produce things like utility bills which not everyone has.

I will believe anyone talking about voter ID has a goal other than suppressing opposition votes when their bill includes a robust implementation of any of this.

It’s also worth remembering that the “cheating going on” is largely an urban legend. Every credible study has found it to be exceedingly rare, nowhere near the level of affecting election results.

That NPR article is from 2012 and as far I can tell they referenced a survey from 2006.

"A SURVEY OF AMERICANS ’ POSSESSION OF DOCUMENTARY PROOF OF CITIZENSHIP AND PHOTO IDENTIFICATION" https://www.brennancenter.org/media/6697/download

In 2012 the same group said the number was only 500k. Also they mention "Legal precedent requires these states to provide free photo ID to eligible voters who do not have one." in the newer article.

https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/chal...

So in 6 years it went from over 3 million to half a million people without some form of ID that is valid for voting. Looking at it from a larger picture, that's approximately 0.217% of the entire US voting age population a decade ago that didn't have some form of legal ID that was valid for voting. That is a smaller percentage of people than were incarcerated in the entire US in 2012. What I am not able to determine is how people of that half million actually wanted to vote but were not able to for some reason? That missing number is the one I would care about putting the time and effort into making sure they had the opportunity to vote.

You can look at the yearly voter turnout in the US to easily see that a significant portion of the US simply didn't vote. And the freedom to choose to not vote is something I strongly support.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_turnout_in_United_States...

Again, voting is a right. If we’re going to add restrictions to that right we need to handle the edge cases. This isn’t a ton of people but it’s enough that we need to have an answer better than “they probably won’t vote for my guy”.

The US allows charities to help people that need it. A quick google came up with this website.

https://impactful.ninja/best-charities-for-voting-rights-in-...

Although I would strongly suggest you investigate any charity to see if they are spending the money donated to them for their stated goals. And double check their tax form 990 to see how much of that money is actually spent on “charitable work".

Charities in the US also have the added benefit of donations being tax deductible(to an extent) and a fairly direct way to make sure your taxable income is being spent on something you care about.

How do you feel about showing ID to buy guns? Or pay for a firearms license/ mandatory training? (Also a constitutional right)

Technically only a right to hear them as part of a militia - the idea of blanket freedom was a revisionist take popularized many years after the Founder’s era - but to be clear I’m of the opinion that national ID cards should be freely available to everyone, no harder than getting to a post office.

That, too, is a revisionist take. Sure, earlier commentary concentrated on advantages of the militia, especially verses a standing army. But there is only limited discussion of the scope of the right prior to the 20th century. It was only with the development of federal regulation of guns with the National Firearms Act of 1934 and the Gun Control Act of 1968 that the question of whether or not the militia clause limited the right began to be discussed.

There was less discussion about the second amendment itself because it was so linked to the militias in common understanding. Early American cities and states had laws restricting storage, banning concealed carry, requiring registration and/or taxation, etc. One really important thing to keep in mind is the distinction between what a rich, white property owner could do (i.e. not only own guns but be expected to furnish supplies for the militia in which they were likely an officer) and what, say, a poor or black person was allowed to do even though they were ostensibly equal under the law.

I'm not saying there wasn't plenty of allowed activities but that the concept of this being an unrestricted right goes back to roughly the second half of the previous century.

>the concept of this being an unrestricted right goes back to roughly the second half of the previous century.

From a federal perspective this is laughably disingenuous. The strongest federal gun control is the GCA and NFA. In 1920 you could mail order a machine gun.

The bill of rights weren't even fully incorporated to apply to the states until later in the republic, such as when the 14th amendment was passed. So it's disingenuous to characterize 19th century restrictions as representations of statutes in compliance the 2nd, when the 2nd didn't even necessarily apply to local/state governments at that time.

Again, the point is that for the first couple centuries it was not considered controversial that there could be restrictions. People might disagree on the exact details but few people thought there couldn’t be any restrictions prior to that becoming a major political rallying point in the late 1970s.

Have you seen the sorry excuses for “historical precedent” that NYS dug up for Antonyuk v Hochul?

https://int.nyt.com/data/documenttools/new-york-gun-law-temp...

This was filed by the State. Search the word “negro” to find their justification for character references.

https://reason.com/volokh/2022/11/07/preliminary-injunction-...

For a summary and explanation.

If you read any scholar pre 1900, you'll find that all of them understood as in no uncertain terms that it is a individual right unconnected to participation in a militia. The collective rights understanding is a complete fabrication of the 20th century.

No, that's why they said it is the "right of the militia to keep and bear arms."

If they wanted it to apply to people, unconnected to the militia they would have said "the right of the People to keep and bear arms."

Wait...

Read the founders, DC v Heller and this Twitter thread https://twitter.com/MorosKostas/status/1523800762706325504.

Another point you completely mis-quoted the amendment. It states

> A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Yes, that was the joke. Note that notch656a has posted pro-2A comments elsewhere in this hellthread.

Ah missed that. Thanks.

Which scholars are you basing this on? I'd recommend checking out Lawrence D. Cress's “Citizens in Arms” and Saul Cornell's “A Well-Regulated Militia”. It's nowhere near as simple as the unrestricted gun activists tend to portray it.

This Lawyer has been documenting text in this Twitter thread https://twitter.com/MorosKostas/status/1523800762706325504

Unconstitutional.

The constitution ascribes the right to keep and bear arms to "the People."

Constitutional protections to voting explicitly apply to "citizens." This is why American Samoans, non-citizen US Nationals born in the US, can own a gun but (usually) not vote in the mainland.

If voting applied to "people" instead of "citizens" then the ID would make no sense. It's pretty insane to compare determining if someone is a citizen to determining if they are a person.

I think we’re in agreement.

I knew the exact (non)answer I’d get from the other poster based on their other comments.

It is not the same kind of right as the right to free speech or to keep and bear arms. It is a civic rather than a natural right.

Not since after the 15th Amendment (race, color, past status as a slave) and 19th Amendment (sex).

15th and 19th apply explicitly to citizens. US Citizenship is not a world-wide natural right. The natural right is to voting rights in your nation of citizenship to not be prejudiced by your protected class. Verifying votes are made by eligible voters in fact protect the 15 and 19th amendment from infringement -- imagine a scenario where a bunch of Idahoan men made a pact to come into California to [illegally] vote against state-level issues supported by female California voters.

How is that relevant? This thread is only about how the right to vote has to be considered when proposing ID requirements which would prevent someone from voting. Nothing about non-citizens, only what constitutes an acceptable burden for citizens.

The non-citizen consideration in inextricably linked to the citizen consideration. If you say something is specifically for citizens you're absolutely saying something about non-citizens.

The right for citizens to vote can only meaningfully be preserved by verifying votes are eligible, otherwise you could just bring in busloads of Mexicans or whatever and dilute the citizens votes to the point it was rendered a vote only in name. This is why it is harmful and deceptive to just frame this as a question about burden for citizens; if only citizens showed up to vote then obviously there needn't be any burden at all to verify citizenship. I reject your characterization as it being "nothing about non-citizens."

The 'burden' is there precisely to create an impassible, or at least fairly effective, impediment to NON-CITIZENS to stop them from voting. The question isn't what minimizes the burden of citizens (obviously not requiring any evidence would be least burdensome). It is what burden maximizes preservation of the right of the citizens to vote.

Non-trivial amounts of time? When I lived in the US, I would wake up and be at the DL location (Dallas Tx) at 5am. Not fun but doable and I would have my temporary ID the same day. I live in France now. It took me 9 months to receive a DL.. So a few hours waiting in line in the US is not so bad. So for me, the arguement that it is too time consuming to 'access' a form of identification is not reality. It sucks, it isn't fun. But you can get it done same day by sacrificing a little sleep. For a small fee I might add.

Yes, this isn’t an issue for everyone but consider that rural people might have several hours drive - which is a big barrier if they can’t drive themselves – just to get in that line, and people with medical issues aren’t jumping to stay at the DMV for hours either.

Again, this isn’t a barrier for most people but there’s a constitutional right to vote so I think it needs to be as easy as possible to meet the requirements.

The requirements for Identification to vote even in the states that currently have Voter ID are surprisingly lax for the most part.

https://ballotpedia.org/Voter_identification_laws_by_state

Most states also have some kind of hardship waivers to help people get a basic government Identification since it's kind of hard to do a lot of things without some form of ID. Some states even have a specific "Election Identification Certificate" process that can only be used for the purpose of voter identification and it's free to get.

Hardship Waivers for IDs in Pennsylvania[2015] http://sharedprosperityphila.org/documents/Revised-ID-Waiver...

As far as the time investment required to get an ID to vote; if a person isn't willing to spend some time to make sure they can legally vote, do you think they will spend the time to make an informed vote? It's a pipe dream but I would prefer that everyone who votes does so while making an informed decision about who/what they are voting for.

I also support voter ID just because it makes it a little bit harder for foreign agents(A US state vs State example: https://edition.cnn.com/2018/10/16/politics/beto-orourke-con...) to interfere with what should be an internal affair. Although with political action committees (PAC) being a thing and with how hard it is to know where the funds are coming from, it's basically a free pass to have unknown monetary funds being funneled to politicians with questionable moral integrity.

> As far as the time investment required to get an ID to vote; if a person isn't willing to spend some time to make sure they can legally vote, do you think they will spend the time to make an informed vote? It's a pipe dream but I would prefer that everyone who votes does so while making an informed decision about who/what they are voting for.

There’s a difference between being uninformed and not having time to potentially travel long distances without a personal car and stand in line for a while. We’re talking about a constitutional right so we can’t just say it’s no big deal because the alternative costs more - it has to work for people who are disabled, have childcare responsibilities, are too poor to own a car, etc.

I’m not opposed to a voter ID requirement but there’s no evidence that it would be more than a symbolic gesture. Even so, I’d go for it as long as we pony up the cash to do it fairly by making ID cards easy for anyone to get so the only people without ID would be the religious nuts who think it’s the mark of the beast.

Personally, I never hear poltiticans say "we need to make IDs easier to obtain." They complain loundly but never pass laws to fix it, preferring instead to weaken election integrity rules. So I suspect ulterior motives

"Black people can't get IDs" is a racist trope promoted by the Democrats, famously exposed as ridiculous in this "on the street" video: https://youtube.com/watch?v=yW2LpFkVfYk

It is simply a fact that a a much higher percentage of black people do not have a government ID. The GOP know this and it is the reason why they push so hard for voter ID lays despite the fact that their is almost no voter fraud.

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