Why should an ID be required for almost everything but voting?

[LLStarks]

I never see people worry about non-permanent addresses or fees to buy a state-issued ID (for driving or otherwise) except when it comes to voting.

Why is this?

[TheWraith]

1. Nobody is actively trying to suppress driving rights.

Almost nobody is actively trying to suppress your right to buy booze, another reason for a photo ID.

But there ARE people who profit from making it difficult for certain people to vote.

[LLStarks]

2. Can't a balance be struck between verification and convenience?

If I can't trust voting machines, I want to be able to trust the registration and voter check-in process.

[Luminous Animal]

5. Verifiaction is resolved as a result of the registration process.

You register to vote, your local registrar verifies, you go to vote and sign your name. And it's free, even the poorest person can afford to vote.

[Morning Dew]

10. If you can't trust voting machines

then why give a shit about who is voting?

Really. If the machines are stealing votes, whatever is upstream is irrelevant.

[Enrique]

35. why would you trust ids?

they can fake them, you know.

[Confusious]

3. Driving is a privilege

or so I am told every time I get a speeding ticket. (That really makes no sense to me, since if you have no car, in most cities, you can't work)

Buying booze is a privilege.(A town can declare itself dry, nothing you can really do. You could sue, but I don't think you would win)

Voting is a right.

[pipi_k]

37. I was going to say that too, and may I just add...

that the privilege of driving and the ability to own a car don't always coincide.

If you have a license but don't have a car, your basic right to drive is still there.

OTOH, you could have five cars sitting in your yard but if you don't have a license, they're still of no use unless you drive illegally.

[Luminous Animal]

4. Because we are not required to show our papers.

Believe it or not, there are millions of people in this U.S. of A who cannot afford to buy an ID. And the cost of transportation to get one. And the time off of work. And the threat of losing their job to take that time off of work.


But ultimately, we, as a nation, have strove to reject, "Show me your papers."

[LLStarks]

7. But how do we distinguish such valid cases from people who shouldn't be voting?

What's the point of advocating paper trails if protocols before the booth are weak?

Yes, voting is a right unless you've forfeited it or aren't eligible, but there has to be trust in the system.

[Webster Green]

9. "Voter fraud" is a non-existent "problem".

Made up by scumbags who are really trying to suppress the vote.

Election fraud is quite another story.

[LLStarks]

11. I just want to make sure good-minded people vote legally and at the right location.

Voters do screw up and that's the extent to which I believe any and all voter/registration fraud exists. I'm not suggesting a bigger problem.

But as you mentioned, there are election officials that screw with the system either out of malice or incompetence. That is an enduring problem here and around the world.

[Luminous Animal]

13. Links, please, to voter fraud.

[LLStarks]

15. My aunt and uncle are perennial poll workers. A voter or two per precinct will slip thru the cracks.

They tell me it's insignificant but it happens.

This is real world voter fraud, not the pie-in-sky "organized voter fraud" crap the GOP talks about.

[Luminous Animal]

19. So, they witness fraud and let it go?

[LLStarks]

21. Not them personally. They're an iron wall. It's the statistical expectation.

I'll try to find the NYS data that shows this.

[Luminous Animal]

So your parents subscribe to the Fox News standard of "some people say". Nice!

[ejpoeta]

29. that is not voter fraud. voter fraud is an intentional attempt to defraud the voting process.

someone who inadvertently tries to vote at the wrong precinct is not voter fraud.

[dkf]

27. Well here is one...

Part of a nearly 20-year-old scandal has ended with Gov. Ben Cayetano's pardon last month of Ross Segawa.
In 1982, Hawaii's political and legal community was rocked by a voter registration scandal. University of Hawaii law school students had illegally registered voters for Segawa's campaign for a state representative seat -- a scheme that fell apart because student supporters of Segawa were registered at the Arcadia Retirement Residence.

In the end, candidate Segawa was convicted of 10 counts of election fraud, criminal solicitation and evidence tampering. He served 60 days in prison.

Clifford Uwaine, a former state senator, was convicted of conspiring to illegally register voters to help his protege, Segawa. He served three months in jail.

Debra Kawaoka, an aide to Uwaine, served weekends in jail for a year for her part in the voter registration scheme.

http://archives.starbulletin.com/2001/09/05/news/story13.html

[LiberalFighter]

32. That is the job of the poll workers.

Poll workers have the list of eligible voters and if they are not on the list then they don't get to vote. When voters sign in it should be similar to what is on file.

[Tunkamerica]

28. It exists, always has, but the incidence is so rare now that it's almost negligible

[Luminous Animal]

12. Prove that it is a problem and then come back with a solution.

What you are advocating is that people will have to pay to vote.

[LLStarks]

14. Would it still be a poll tax if the ID was free but had strong security features?

For the sake of argument, let's ignore the cost of implementation and distribution.

[Luminous Animal]

17. What you are advocating is tha U.S. citizens be required "to show their papers".

We should have the freedom from a paper trail and still enjoy the privilege of voting.


By the way, what do you mean by "strong security features"?

[LLStarks]

20. It has to be at least as hard to forge as a license. Also, signing in to vote is a trail, isn't it?

Heck, the e-voter card you get at the polling station is less of a paper trail than that signature.

[Luminous Animal]

22. Your signature can be an X if that is all a person can write.

My daughter had to be fingerprinted to get her California ID.

[Name removed]

44. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Sherman A1]

23. There is nothing FREE.

In one form or another, everything has a price. It may be at no charge to the recipient, yet there is a cost of processing and production. Why is it necessary to add more expense when even as you state from the experience of those whom you know as poll workers there is not a problem to be solved? We have far bigger issues, solving this non-problem requires both the use of real dollars and the opportunity costs involved that will leave other issues wanting.

[CreekDog]

24. they just explained how to stop people from voting

you never read or understand responses to questions.

it makes it pointless to carry on a discussion with you for that reason.

you ask, we answer, you ask the same question again as if it hasn't been answered.

[Wind Dancer]

36. Amazing, isn't it?

[pnwmom]

6. Because a voter I.D., which costs time and money, functions as a poll tax.

And the Supreme Court has already ruled that a poll tax is an infringement on a citizen's right to vote.

Many people don't have driver's licenses by the way, including people in large cities and elderly people everywhere.

[Mojeoux]

16. Here PNWMom explains exactly the answer to your Q.

The Constitution specifically forbids poll taxes. No making people pay to vote.
Unless free and official IDs are issued to those who can't afford them, it will be UNCONSTITUTIONAL.

[LLStarks]

18. Sociologically, it is a shame that equalizing and inclusive forms of ID don't exist.

I don't mean to advocate anything extreme like REAL ID, but not even taxpayers is inclusive of all voters.

I doubt even Vermont's single-payer system would cover the entire electorate to provide such an ID within Constitutional bounds.

[Obamanaut]

43. My 96 year old mother in law, residing in a nursing home, does not drive,

but has a state issued ID card. She does not need a driver license, so she doesn't have one. Most states have this feature for non drivers.

I used my retired military ID card last November. The Supervisor of Elections did not ask me if I drive or if I have a driver license. I did not pay a fee for said ID card, no poll tax (real or imagined) here.

If one can use the exact same identification to vote as they use to cash a check at Publix, and you already have it in your possession (because you cash checks regularly), how exactly is a poll tax. Man, you already have it - just take it out of your wallet.

And, if you really consider showing an ID at the polling place, save yourself some heartburn by getting an absentee ballot. Unless the postal carrier is also requesting a photo ID. Problem solved.

[aquart]

8. Thank you for your concern.

[Bill McBlueState]

25. I don't know; this bugs me too

Why should I have to present ID to buy cold medicine, for example? We're too willing to acquiesce to fake security measures.

[Syrinx]

26. what are the "everything" for which ID is required?

About the only time I'm ever required to show ID is sometimes when I buy some beer. And even that doesn't happen too often anymore. Sadly.

You have to show ID for using or cashing a check, to make sure you're not stealing. That is a pretty big problem, bad or stolen checks.

I'm never asked for ID when using a credit card... unless it's for a fairly major purchase. It seems like maybe I should, but I assume that the banking companies accept bad charges as a wise business "risk" and a smart way of doing business. That they wipe off their taxes anyway.

Voting ID is a different topic altogether. We know this country's history of trying to keep certain people from voting. Poor people shouldn't be kept from voting just because they can't afford to buy an ID.

If we could somehow have a free, mandatory voting identification card, that couldn't be used to keep track of us and sort us in a million different ways, I'd be for it. We're supposed to have something like that now, but our socials have been hacked to hell and back by the government, corporations and freelancers, for many years now.

In theory, if our SSN's were safe like they were supposed to be, I'd support making a modern social security card, with biometrics and all that stuff.

But, in reality, I can't support that, because institutions can't be trusted, and they always must be verified. Not that I dig Reagan. ;)

In each election, there's probably a relative handful of illegal voters. I feel confident that the number would be dwarfed by the lack of reliability and truthfulness in our basic electoral system.

I want to make the pool of voters larger, not smaller.

I don't favor by-mail or on-line elections. That's actually a big target for actual illegal voting, seems to me.

Maybe elections should last for a weekend, or maybe a whole week, maybe 24/7, as long as you find enough qualified poll supervisors.

I guess I just don't feel I'm asked for my picture ID all that often. And I want to make our government more representative of our people, instead of increasingly less like them.

(Not that I want dumb people running things, you understand.)

[alphafemale]

30. Voting is a Constitutional right.

And somehow I don't think that migrant workers would be too much into the idea of going to a polling place, standing in line and declaring their name.

"DEPORT ME!"

But plenty of citizens...read mostly non-white citizens...don't have those qualifying pieces of photo ID for various reasons. A driver's license? Shit happens.

A passport? You must be joking right?

[Motown_Johnny]

31. Lots of reasons. Constitutional right, effectively a poll tax, used to suppress voters

and the simple fact that this democracy functioned quite well before photo IDs even existed.



Maybe an electronic thumb print scanner for each polling place would be enough. When you come in to vote they scan your right thumb (for instance). Why wouldn't this work as well, or better, than a photo ID?

[YellowRubberDuckie]

33. There is a constitutional amendment that says taht you cannot require...

...people to PAY for something in order to vote. The south tried to get away with not letting black people vote by charging a poll tax or requiring them to own land or something back after they won the right to vote...
Duckie

[gop_equals_taliban]

34. Ok while we are at it...

Why not make Muslims wear an identifying marking on their clothing too?

Same with gay\'s.

US Corporations are already building and running the prisons with the help of the Government....

The Patriot Act allows the Gov to spy on US Citizens without a warrant...

America is currently in 3 wars....

In reality America is not very far away from emulating a certain North Central European Nation in the 1930\'s and 40\'s that did many of the same things America is doing today

[CreekDog]

38. what about absentee voting?

no id there.

[CreekDog]

39. do you ever post anything with a link or some justification?

or anything that would suggest you've thought about it for more than 3 minutes?

you post all these Fox-style talking points and in a kind of "i'm just wondering" way.

sheesh.

[NashVegas]

40. Your Signature Is Your ID

and with today's computer recognition technology, that should be enough.

[Name removed]

47. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[surrealAmerican]

41. It shouldn't be.

It's that simple. You should be required to have a driver's license to drive, but that's about it.

When you vote, you are required to sign the book, and your signature is compared to that which was submitted when you registered. That should be adequate.

[Gormy Cuss]

42. The better question is, why should an ID be required for almost everything?

That's a relatively new phenomenon.

[Posteritatis]

45. Yeah, this is the better question. (nt)

[Posteritatis]

46. There's more and more required in Canada for it as well

Until the federal election before the disaster this month, we'd just show our voter registration card, which arrives in the mail a couple weeks after each election call and is more or less an automatic process. (You don't go out and ask permission to vote or anything.)

The last election they abruptly changed it to require that and some specific forms of ID, which probably dropped the youth vote by half; it wasn't as bad this time because people knew it was there instead of getting a couple weeks' warning. The last time I showed my registration card, my health card and a recent bank statement with my address on it; this time I used a generic ID card but the same sort of thing would have worked. There's a big, big list of acceptable documentation these days too, which still screws over some people but there's options at least. If someone's got nothing at all, they can still get registered to vote on the spot, but it involves some public oaths and documented voters in the district vouching (each person can vouch for one other voter if need be), etc. The last provincial election I helped a first-time-voter friend through the process using that method.

Of course, up here we don't have quite as much active hostility to people voting, though, aside from the Conservatives being very up-front about not wanting people under 30-35 to vote in this past election.