That will significantly reduce, if not eliminate, most of the fraud and put this argument to rest.
We mostly use driver's licenses, and for people who don't drive states also offer IDs that look a lot like driver's licenses but are only for ID and are issued by the same agency that issues driver's licenses.
In many states they have closed many of the licensing offices, and cut back the hours licenses are issued at others. The closures happen disproportionately in poorer areas with a higher percentage of non-drivers. The reduced hours often leave office issuing licenses and IDs on weekdays in the middle of the day.
This can result in having to take a long trip on public transit to reach an office, and a long trip back, taking up much of your day. For many poor working people that can mean a day's wages lost.
The lost wages, transportation costs, and fees for the license or ID can come to over $100 which is a lot for many poorer people.
If we introduced an ID that is given to every citizen when they become old enough to vote, at no cost to them, and that can be obtained easily locally there would be little objection to requiring that to vote.
But most of the politicians pushing for voter ID are the ones that most benefit when poorer people cannot vote, and so tend to also be opposed to making the ID cheap and easy for eligible voters to obtain (and are also the ones closing license offices and reducing hours).
We do in every state where a ID is required to vote.
Not free if you have to take a day of unpaid leave from work to go to that agency, or travel a great distance to get to their nearest office, or have to pay to get supporting documents (e.g., a certified copy of your birth certificate) to get the ID.
> In addition, voters may use the free voter identification card they received by mail from the County Election Board when they registered to vote. The law allows use of the voter identification card even though it does not include a photograph.
Michigan: https://www.michigan.gov/sos/elections/upcoming-election-inf...
> If you do not have photo ID, you can still cast a ballot simply by signing an affidavit
Wrong. Every American citizen has Social Security Card as well as Birth Certificate or Naturalization Certificate. If you make a law that diverts 20% of election funds (and PACs) towards Social Security Administration they can make Social Security Card into a proper ID. Added benefit would be reduction in identity theft.
Functioning democracy is not cheap. But if a poor county like India with population 5x of the US could manage the voter IDs, we have no excuse for dragging our feet.
Religious conspiracy theories ("Mark of the Beast"), the uniquely American concept of "freedom", etc.
Make IDs universally available (I.e. free federal IDs handed out proactively by driving offices out to rural areas and workplaces) and I don’t think you’d see much resistance to this.
The problem is that the “you need to have ID to vote” folks would never support such an idea. Complete mystery as to why!
Is your position that it’s alright if we just disenfranchise a few people?
https://www.aclu.org/fact-sheet/oppose-voter-id-legislation-...
It's a good thing we don't have to depend on your limited experience to make policy decisions. There are millions of Americans without any ID. One survey in 2006 put the number at 21 million.
> the later argument of progressives is extremely demeaning to minorities to the point where it borders on explicit racism.
You should probably tell that to the minorities themselves, like the Congressional Black Caucus (https://www.ibtimes.com/alabama-voting-rights-congressional-...) for example, since they don't seem to have any issue with making that same argument or speaking out against voter suppression.
It can absolutely be a burden to get a state ID or drivers license and it can cost money that people don't have to spend. There's nothing "demeaning" about acknowledging that fact. The problems are real, and they don't even only impact minorities anyway.
No, it is none of those. Show me the money. A voter id card required to vote is akin to a poll tax. If we have a voter id requirement, we have to have all voters have a place to go get this ID. Seven days a week, at least ten hours a day. Who will pay for this?
Wealthy people refuse to pay their fair share of the tax. I can't afford to pay any more tax. Something has to give. What government services will you cut to fund this noise?
The politicians pushing voter ID are well aware of the demographics of that 10%, and have little interest in addressing their access challenges because of them.
https://www.aclu.org/fact-sheet/oppose-voter-id-legislation-...
> A recent voter-ID study by political scientists at the University of California at San Diego analyzed turnout in elections between 2008 and 2012 and found “substantial drops in turnout for minorities under strict voter ID laws.”
> Myrtle Delahuerta, 85, who lives across town from Randall, has tried unsuccessfully for two years to get her ID. She has the same problem of her birth certificate not matching her pile of other legal documents that she carts from one government office to the next. The disabled woman, who has difficulty walking, is applying to have her name legally changed, a process that will cost her more than $300 and has required a background check and several trips to government offices.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/getting-a...
And Republicans are very aware of that.
> Last week, during the federal trial on Wisconsin’s voter-ID law, a former Republican staffer testified that GOP senators were “giddy” about the idea that the state’s 2011 voter-ID law might keep Democrats, particularly minorities in Milwaukee, from voting and help them win at the polls. “They were politically frothing at the mouth,” said the aide, Todd Allbaugh.
It isn't a unique problem that the USA has and has been solved by almost every minimally organised country in the world.
American exceptionalism can go quite far sometimes.
Unfortunately, some Americans want the exact opposite of that and are actively working to make it harder and more expensive for the "wrong kind" of American people to get the ID they need to vote. If we all wanted more secure elections in America we'd have it already, but instead half the country just wants to prevent people who have every right to vote from being able to.
I agree that this is necessary; it must be Federal, free and readily obtainable.
That largely makes it unworkable; not for cost reasons (we do plenty in government that we don't pay for, including the existing free issuance of Social Security cards to everyone) but political ones.
The folks who want voter ID largely don't want this setup. They want a patchwork of confusing state-level requirements that are tough to navigate.