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Comment by tpm | Hacker News Reader

It's a different culture, one which is not used to have and use a national ID, which is completely common in the EU (with the exception of Ireland perhaps?)

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That’s not true. I lived there for nearly a decade and you use driving licenses for id and there are other forms for id as well that don’t include the passport.

You need ID to do a lot of stuff just like any other country.

What is not true? A driving license may be a defacto ID, but it is not a dejure, designated national ID card. It's a different system. In the EU countries the ID cards are backed by a more-or-less central civil register.

(as an aside, it would be very funny to me if the they used the driving license for electronic signing of official communication with the authorities like we use it in some countries in the EU).

The UK also has strong opinions about ID.

I know, having lived there in the past, but they are not in the EU anymore.

My wife was denied the opportunity to vote last year in the local elections due to not having ID in her when we popped in on a whim.

The voting booth refused to even register this, yet the apologists claim only 1 in 400 were denied.

I mean....how do you know it's more than 1 in 400? You have one example - your wife. Any reason to believe it was common?

https://theconversation.com/almost-2-million-people-in-the-u...

The article you posted confirms the 1 in 400 number:

"We found that around 0.5% of all voters reported being turned away at polling stations as a result of lacking ID in the local elections of 2023. We also found that four times as many people (around 2%) reported not voting because they knew they didn’t have the right ID."

2.5% is 1 in 400

Seems like a sensible decision, since you apparently couldn't be bothered to prepare properly. I totally have no sympathy for this story.

That sounds fair. No ID means no way to check if she had already voted or even has the right to vote.

There is no national id (other than passports; but most people don't carry theirs on themselves in their own country) because driver's licenses (issued by states) serve the same purpose. We don't have a non-DL id (that's popular at least).

Anyway, this is sort of by-the-by. Most adults have driver's licenses, and no one in Alaska is going to reject your Tennessee-issued DL so it is a de-facto national id.

91% of adults have a driver's license, leaving 9% of potential voters without a DL.

In a properly functioning democracy barring 9% of your voting population from voting because they lack an unrelated document (why should a driver's license be linked to ability to vote?) would be considered a major flaw.

You don't get it.

You may elect to have your DL as a voting document as a convenience. It doesn't mean you have to have one in order to vote. A state's Board of Elections will issue you a voting document.

>>why should a driver's license be linked to ability to vote?

It's not, it's just one of many acceptable forms of id - along with a passport, birth certificate, and probably few others.

>>In a properly functioning democracy barring 9% of your voting population

Unless they are stopped from obtaining any document then they aren't barred from anything. Most Americans don't have a passport either but no one would argue that they are barred from travelling internationally, they just have to go and get a passport issued.

> Unless they are stopped from obtaining any document then they aren't barred from anything. Most Americans don't have a passport either but no one would argue that they are barred from travelling internationally, they just have to go and get a passport issued.

Making it difficult (as the article states, this 9% do not have ready access to documents proving their citizenship) is essentially barring with extra steps.

I hate this semantics/loophole game Americans like to play, seems to be quite common in your society to use the "akshually, technically" and going completely against the spirit of something. The spirit is: this makes it more difficult to vote, it will inevitably bar some people from voting, it's just salami-slicing...

>> seems to be quite common in your society

I'm not American and I don't know why you'd assume I am - to me the fact that americans don't have ID requirements to vote is insane.

>>as the article states, this 9% do not have ready access to documents proving their citizenship

Again, do they simply not have them because they never bothered to get them, or are they unable to obtain them? That's quite a big difference.

I also hope we're not saying that if someone turned 18 and just simply never bothered to obtain any kind of acceptable ID(and there are usually many) then it's somehow unfair to not let them vote - because I really struggle to see how that would be true.

A lot of people seem to just assume that other countries have less friction (or no friction at all?) for people to vote, than the United States. My friends from other countries would find that amusing.

I get it that some states try to disenfranchise people and obviously that's wrong but the answer to that cannot be "voter id requirements are bad".

40% of the eligible voters sit out every election. No one who wants to vote is being barred from anything. They don’t lack an unrelated document, they lack the proof that they are allowed to vote. We have freedom of expression and yet to purchase alcohol you must be able to prove you are allowed to buy it. We have the freedom to bear arms and yet in many states you must prove you aren’t a nut job to own and carry a gun.

In a properly functioning democracy ... nobody without proof of citizenship should ever be allowed to cast a vote.

Driver's license is the defacto ID used everywhere. Which kind of makes no sense but that's the way it is. Just about everyone has one and arguments that requiring an ID to vote would disenfranchise citizens don't sound believable to me.

Just look at actual facts. There are many links in this thread.

You also seem to think everyone has a car and thus a driving licence.

And that's before talking about voter roll purges, gerrymandering and putting ballot boxes and stations away from "certain type" of voters.

>>You also seem to think everyone has a car and thus a driving licence

I don't see how those two are related. In UK driving licences are also used as de facto ID everywhere(you can even get on domestic flights using your driving licence lol), and everyone gets one when they turn 18 because just get a provisional driving licence(identical to a normal one but with an L on it to indicate learner driver), no car necessary. In effect everyone in the country has a driving licence even if they don't drive or own a car. And you just apply by post, no need to go anywhere,

Obviously it would be much better to do it like other European countries do it and just issue everyone with an actual ID when they turn 18, but what UK is doing is close enough equivalent of this. So if the US has the DMV and already has an easily accessible way for people to get driving licences......what's the problem?

Old people don't necessarily have photographic driving licences in the UK.

Some would be caught out if their passport has expired.

You can use expired passports and driving licences to vote:

https://www.southend.gov.uk/elections-registering-vote/chang...

This may be true in your demographic (it is in mine) but as of 2015 there were 45 million driving licenses issued and at least 55 million adults.

What's the problem?

Just look at the actual facts, as you say.

https://theconversation.com/almost-2-million-people-in-the-u...

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