So do you only secure your computer networks after they’ve been hacked? We should have transparent, verifiable election infrastructure, like Taiwan: https://youtu.be/DUZa7qIGAdo.
Such a system could be added to the US without too much disruption if we did it gradually, say making it only apply to people born after 2030 so there is time to get all the support infrastructure in place.
Doing it quickly, and making it apply who grew up in a US without anything like that, would be a big and probably expensive effort. None of the proposals I've seen Congress talk about, or seen states talk about or that states have passed, have addressed this.
They say it is actually easy to get the required ID, but when you dig into the documents needed to get it if you don't already have a government issued photo ID it is a lot harder.
A certified copy of your birth certification is usually good enough...but most states require government issued photo ID to issue a certified copy of your birth certificate. Oops.
Also, for many older people, it can be hard to find where to go to get a birth certificate. That's all handled by the states, not the feds, and at the time many older people were born many states just recorded those records at the county level.
There are alternatives that allow can work around the lack of a certified copy of your birth certificate, or that can work around needing a government photo ID to get the birth certificate. They involve secondary documents, such as school records. Those don't usually have difficult ID requirements to get, but are even less likely to be centralized. You might have to go to the school district to get the records. For an older person trying to dig up old elementary or middle school records to bootstrap getting an idea that will often be difficult, even if that school district is still around and somehow the records haven't been lost.
The current system does in fact work well. It should be replaced with a stronger that could stand up against larger and more well organized adversaries than it has had to face before, but it is not urgent, and we have the time to do it right.
"In order to be issued a national ID card, you need to be able to establish your identity and your German citizenship. If at the time of your application you are not able to provide any documentation of your identity, such as an expired national ID card or a birth certificate or other identity-establishing document, the issuing authority will check your identity by other suitable means (see no. 6.3.1 of the Administrative Regulation on Passports (Passverwaltungsvorschrift, PassVwV))."
If you read through administrative regulation 6.3.1, it provides for the issuing authority to look at various documents to establish identity and citizenship. If all else fails, affidavits from witnesses can be used.
U.S. states operate the same way. I'll use Georgia as an example since I've lived there: https://sos.ga.gov/page/proof-citizenship. There's twenty different ways to prove citizenship, including affidavits from third parties if all else fails.
If the opposition cannot be trusted to even so much as acknowledge reality and fact, we must reject all notions of voter ID, with no exceptions. One begins to wonder why the right is so unbelievably hamstrung on ignoring the issue of ID availability.
Could it be, perhaps, because their goal is not righteous as they claim, but is rather a thinly-veiled attempt at voter suppression? Based off their actions, I would say any reasonable person would have no choice but to see it that way.
There are solutions to these problems. The people you’re championing would rather die than even consider them. Sit back and ponder why.
I just not that hard to (register to) vote. People who want to cast a vote will. The ones don't, won't.
• Birth certificate issued by a US state
• Passport
• Certificate of Citizenship
• Naturalization Certificate
• A Report of Birth Abroad of a US Citizen
• Birth Certificate issued by the Department of State
• A US Citizen card
• An American Indian Card issued by the Department of Homeland Security with the classification code "KIC" (Issued by DHS to identify U.S. citizen members of the Texas Band of Kickapoos living near the U.S./Mexican border)
• Final adoption decree showing the child's name and U.S. birthplace
• Evidence of civil service employment by the U.S. government before June 1976
• An official U.S. military record of service showing a U.S. place of birth
• A Northern Mariana Identification Card (Issued by the INS to a collectively naturalized citizen of the U.S. who was born in the Northern Mariana Islands before November 4, 1986)
• Extract of U.S. hospital record of birth established at the time of the person's birth indicating a U.S. place of birth
• Life or health or other insurance record which indicates a U.S. place of birth and which is dated at least 5 years before the initial application date
• Federal or State census record which indicates U.S. citizenship or a U.S. place of birth
• Institutional admission papers from a nursing home, skilled nursing care facility or other institution which indicates a U.S. place of birth
• Medical (clinical, doctor, or hospital) record which indicates a U.S. place of birth and which is dated at least 5 years before the application date.
• A driver’s license or identification card issued by an agency of a U.S. state if that agency indicates on the driver’s license or identification card that the applicant has provided satisfactory evidence of United States citizenship to the agency
• One of the following if created at least 5 years before use to prove citizenship and if showing a U.S. place of birth: Seneca Indian tribal census record; Bureau of Indian Affairs tribal census records of the Navaho Indians; U.S. State Vital Statistics official notification of birth registration; an amended or delayed U.S. public birth record that is amended more than 5 years after the person's birth; or statement signed by the physician or midwife who was in attendance at the time of birth
• If other forms of documentation cannot be obtained, documentation may be provided by a written affidavit, signed under penalty of perjury, from two citizens, one of whom cannot be related to the person in question, who have specific knowledge of event(s) establishing the person in question's citizenship status. The person in question or another knowledgeable individual must also submit an affidavit stating why the documents are not available. Affidavits are only expected to be used in rare circumstances
Most of those are only going to be useful to to a small fraction of adult Georgians who don't already have proof of citizenship. The affidavit at first seems like no big deal but it probably is because it as asking for affidavits from people who have specific knowledge of events that establish your citizenship.
Second, in Germany there exist exactly 2 ID cards accepted for e.g. voting: your national ID card, and your passport. There are no per-state ID cards, there are no ID cards that are completely fine to use in all government interactions except for voting. Meanwhile the US has 50 different ID card systems, and the people who are making arbitrary decisions on which of these ID cards are acceptable are the same people who can electorally benefit from strategically banning/allowing certain kinds of IDs.
So no, rayiner, these situations aren't remotely comparable. They could be if the US government introduced a uniform national ID card, and if citizens had plenty of time to get one. For example I'd have no issues with voter ID if it were introduced only once >95% of the population owns this hypothetical national ID over a 5-year period.
The funny/sad part in all this: if conservatives actually cared about election security, all they'd have to do is listen to the arguments against voter ID and remove these roadblocks over a few years, maybe a decade. But for some reason their only approach seems to be to demand Voter ID be introduced right now, no time to prepare, no efforts made to solve any of the issues. I wonder why?
Registrations of individual registrants can be challenged and then a more detailed examination is done. Both Republican and Democrat local or state parties keep an eye on registrations and challenge any the think are bogus.
Extensive statistical checks after elections by numerous statisticians (and by most major political parties) shows that this system is working fine, so there is no justification for rushing a transition to a more rigorous system. There is time to design a system that will work for all citizens.
We could get a long way there by just grandfathering in everyone who voted in the last 10 years, and making sure there is extensive help going forward for anyone who cannot afford the cost of getting the necessary documents to get the new ID or who cannot get those documents.
This is exactly what every despot who nationalized election security did right before their Party magically started winning in every election by “overwhelming popular demand”. What a shock that they are trying to use the same playbook.
It is the responsibility of the state to enact THEIR OWN elections, as was made clear in our constitution. States oversee their elections, primarily away from federal influence. Republicans passed their own laws that they are now using to say requires them to interfere in the state election process; they created the excuse they are using and have, to date, failed to show a single shred of evidence of any real systemic issue outside of a potentially 0.001% who MIGHT have voted illegally (based on the few cases they tried to use, often paperwork errors). If fact, the most obvious acts of election interference have been consistently Republicans. They are the ones who put out fake ballot boxes in states. They were the ones caught trying to tamper in order to “prove there was fraud”. They have been inside the house the whole time, so to speak.
Claiming this is a need to identify voters, which literally every state does, is just the BS people try to use to ignore the truth; that there is nothing wrong with the elections they are trying to steal. All of the ways people claim that can be used to get an ID … are LITERALLY the ways states verify voters when they don’t have an ID…
Republicans just haven’t understood yet that his claims mean THEY are complicit and have been supporting fraud — an accusation I think they would probably take issue with if they understood the real claim. Instead, they listen to news from organizations that literally argue that their news is “entertainment” and therefore not intended to be “truthful”. The party has become a disgraced shell of itself, co-opted by the Tea Party-incarnate MAGA who for years have left Conservative values behind in their attempt to remake the constitution in their own view in order to exclude dissenting voices.
>Taiwan has a comprehensive household registration system. The compilation of the voter list/electoral register is handled by the Household Registration Offices 20 days prior to the Election Day. Hence, citizens do not have to actively register to vote, with the exception of citizens residing overseas during the Presidential and Vice Presidential election.
I don't think the Trump administration would be interested in pursuing this degree of vote access.
This is a fairly common system. Many countries don’t have voter registration as such because they already have a mandatory system household registration they use to track exactly where everyone is and verify citizenship and ID. For example, Germany: https://handbookgermany.de/en/registration
The funding for this has to come from somewhere and it MUST be the federal government because my state / local government doesn't have money to even build a small sidewalk so it definitely does not have money for all this nonsense.
Nope, this is not even remotely good enough. Federal mandate must come with federal money. Also, there should be no caveats like "people who don't have other ID". It should be free of cost completely with no additional burden on the part of the voter.
I don't know much about Taiwan but I about it has a sizeable minority whom the government is trying to disenfranchise.
I don't believe it is possible for you and I to see eye to eye on this matter.
Idk seems to be an industry standard.