Why would a requirement for ID affect minorities more than non-minorities? Wouldn’t this just be a way to preent fraud?
KVLD: Why would a requirement for ID affect minorities more than non-minorities?
Because minorities are less likely to own a photo ID. (Correlation of race with socioeconomic status and all that jazz.)
Wouldn’t this just be a way to preent fraud?
That’s the idea. But is this sort of voter fraud really a problem? In the other current thread touching on voter fraud (in re voter intimidation tactics), the fraud referred to seemed to be of the form of people with legitimate IDs registering to vote somewhere that they weren’t entitled to vote (being non-citizens or legal residents of another state).
But showing up at the polls pretending to be somebody else in order to steal that person’s vote? Does this actually happen to any significant extent? And if it doesn’t, do we really need to implement a system to guard against it, especially one that discriminates against, e.g., non-drivers and poorer people in general?
Cite that poor people are less likely to have an ID? And then a cite that poor people that are registered to vote are less likely to have an ID have someone with more money who is registered to vote. I don’t anyone who doesn’t have an ID.
KVLD: Cite that poor people are less likely to have an ID?
Sure. (But wouldn’t it be obvious that the people most likely to be unable to afford to pay for a driver’s license or other photo ID would be the poor?)
How can people write such idiotic articles?
Can’t you just get an ID, and not a driver’s license?
I think very few people can’t afford $30, and for those, why not make an exception and waive the $30 fee for an ID?
Hmmm, if they don’t have a proof of residency, should they be voting?
Don’t a lot of states require residency, making those without, kinda struck anyway? I also find it hard to believe that some poor people do not, and cannot afford some sort of picture ID. Just because they’re poor doesn’t mean that they don’t own a home, or an apartment, which, somewhere along the lines would require a photo ID. Who said it has to be a $30 dollar drivers license? What about a library card? They’re are many cheaper alternatives.
Regardless of what I say, I am against this idea all together anyway.
[QUOTE=Polerius]
How can people write such idiotic articles?
Can’t you just get an ID, and not a driver’s license?
I’d consider this a socialist suggestion, if it weren’t for the following:
‘Proof of residency’ != ‘Eligible to vote’.
I’ll gather you don’t know many homeless people? My experiences with homeless people is not having an ID is hardly uncommon. Given homeless people who do vote (which I admit is statistically uncommon) tend to favor tax the wealthy and transfer it to the poor economic policies, this will favor certain candidates and parties if the homeless can’t vote.
If you’re concerned about the same person trying to vote twice, some countries solve that problem by requiring you to dip your thumb in indelible purple ink when you vote. No reason we couldn’t do that here.
If you’re concerned about a given person trying to vote only once, but at a polling station or in a jurisdiction other than that in which he or she is resident – how often does that actually happen? Cite?
If you’re concerned about a person who is not eligible to vote at all, because of felony conviction or non-citizenship, trying to vote – I say more power to 'em! 
You are asking for a cite and your justification is you “don’t know anyone who doesn’t have an ID”? Don’t you think that statistical sample might be a little small?
How can you vote if you don’t have an address? How would you know where to go? As far as I know you can’t just walk in and say I’m here to vote… otherwise we could all go from place to place and vote multiple times.
I don’t care if I have to show ID, I’ve always been surprised that I haven’t had to. How do they know I am who I say I am?
IIRC, there is at least one state that allows registration on the day of the election. As for not having an address, many homeless people while not having a permanent address will have friends who will accept mail for them and hand it to them whenever they come by.
And, would you disagree that someone who has been homeless and out on the streets in Michigan for the last year is not a resident of Michigan eligible to vote? I’d say if they are a US citizen, under that scenario unquestionably they have the right to vote.
What is the likelihood that an adult wouldn’t have SOME kind of official ID? If someone is too poor to have a driver’s license or a non-driver ID ($20 in my state), isn’t he probably going to have a card from a welfare or food stamp program? Even if his only income is welfare, how does he cash his check? If his money goes straight to a bank via direct deposit, he had to provide ID to open the account and to get an ATM card. If he has any kind of legal job, he almost certainly had to provide ID when he was hired. And when he registered to vote in the first place he very likely had to show ID. The only people who wouldn’t have ID are the ones who get paid under the table and live in the cash-only underground economy. If a person isn’t enough of a participant in the society to have an ID do we really want him voting on public issues?
Obviously various kinds of voting restrictions have been used in the past to discriminate unjustly against minorities and the poor. “Literacy tests” were notorious. But is it entirely wrong to have *some * minimum requirements for a person to take on the responsibility of voting? Having to prove that you are who you say and that you live in the district where you are voting just doesn’t seem so terrible.
Some people, as a matter of principle, oppose the idea of any form of government mandated identification cards. Requiring people to obtain such a card in order to vote would be seen as a violation of that principle.
There’s plenty of people out there I don’t want to vote and lack of proper ID is seldom the criteria. But it’s a democracy and I shouldn’t get to pick who gets to participate.
That doesn’t fly here in CA where the legislature keeps passing a bill for illegal immigrants to get drivers licenses (fortunately it keeps getting vetoed). A topic which San Diego (where the news item is from) is particularly sensitive to.
Additionally, a CA ID or SSN is required in CA to register to vote. So how is it discriminitory to require people to bring that ID with them?
testride: What is the likelihood that an adult wouldn’t have SOME kind of official ID? If someone is too poor to have a driver’s license or a non-driver ID ($20 in my state), isn’t he probably going to have a card from a welfare or food stamp program?
Not necessarily. Here’s what [one report](www.nlchp.org/content/pubs/ Terror’s%20Other%20Victims.pdf ) (pdf) from Virginia has to say about it:
emarkp: That doesn’t fly here in CA where the legislature keeps passing a bill for illegal immigrants to get drivers licenses
What does legislation about driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants (who are not legally eligible to vote anyway) have to do with my contention that minorities are statistically less likely than non-minorities to have a photo ID? Most minorities are not illegal immigrants, you know.
With motor voter, it would be pretty easy for illegal immigrants to vote. It’s one of the concerns we have about the issue. Right now a drivers license functions not only as ID but de facto proof of citizenship.
Well I’m not an idiot. You might note that pretty much all illegal immigrants are minorities. Also, illegal immigrants are typically restricted to manual labor or day-labor type jobs. Since their employers don’t give a rip about the law, minimum wage is pretty much ignored. That makes them some of the poorest workers in the country. Yet there’s a movement to get them CA drivers licenses anyway. The apologists for this inane policy tell us to have sympathy for the poor illegal immigrant who is afraid of driving because he can’t get a license and if he has a license he might get insurance.
And that line of argument is mistaken because . . . ?
I see a curious nonsequitur here: Illegal immigrants are some of the poorest workers in the country . . . therefore, they should not be allowed to obtain driver’s licenses. What’s the step in the middle?
Also – it would be very easy to issue non-citizens driver’s licenses that specify their non-citizen status somewhere on the license – so they couldn’t use those licenses as ID for voting, assuming ID is required, and assuming non-citizens voting constitutes some kind of real problem somewhere.
Assume, for the sake of argument, that 90% of the population believed in this principle and did not have ID’s.
How would you conduct an election?
How would you know who was voting and where they were voting?
How could you know that there wasn’t massive voter fraud (multiple votings)?
Someone said that even Blockbuster asks for ID before you rent a movie, why is it so outrageous to show ID before voting?