The only thing vanishingly small about this issue is the number of voters who go to a polling place and pretend to be someone they are not.
Actually, @Martin_Hyde had a great response upthread:
Voter ID is a symbolic “solution” to a non-problem that creates real handicaps to voting for many people. (Its true purpose.) But organizations can work with those people to largely overcome those handicaps.
OTOH, if in exchange you get mandated polling places, mail-in voting rights, prohibited gerrymandering, etc., there’s no legal way the other side can overcome them.
So ultimately you trade a symbol for a permanent gain.
(I realize all of this is far more complicated, but that’s the gist.)
But this to some extent makes that point for me. You have this group of people who despite all of the uses that having a govenrment ID affords them still don’t have one for one reason or another. If they haven’t gotten one by now, why do you think they would get one just to get a slight warm fuzzy feeling once every 2 to 4 years.
Right, but that is just one example. How do that 1/10th without ID get through life without things that the other 9/10th consider essential? I’m not talking about cigarettes and alcohol, but a job and housing are pretty essential.
I’m not sure that you have filled out an I-9 in a while, if that is what you think.
First off, a photo ID doesn’t mean that you don’t have to use a second piece of ID, if you are an American citizen, then it’s only a passport that would be the single piece of ID.
If you have a driver’s license, then you would still need the second piece, usually social security card or birth certificate.
Now, you also are incorrect that you need a govt issued photo ID for the column B documentation. For one, you could have a student ID, which is one that is often not accepted by voter ID states. Also, interestingly enough, you can use your voter registration card for a list B document.
So, those are documents that you can use to get a job, but you cannot use to vote in voter ID law states.
for your reference:
Does the Constitution require them for voters?
Lots of possibilities. You live with your relatives for friends, and you are either not employed, retired, or do odd jobs and yard work for cash. Also you could have moved into your place and gotten your job several years ago, but you ID has expired and you saw no reason to get it renewed.
But you concede in your own post that you don’t necessarily need a photo ID to complete an I9. And the ID that’s acceptable for an I9 may not meet voter ID requirements — for instance, a school ID is acceptable for an I9 but not if you want to vote in Texas. And as has been pointed out, the unemployed and retirees are allowed to vote too (for now).
Does that not mean that a U.S. passport is also valid for voter ID?
Probably but only something like a third of Americans have a passport.
I fail to see how that is relevant.
My point was that a voter registration card is acceptable for filling out the I-9, so your contention that you need a photo ID to get a job is incorrect.
One thing that I would like to see on a voting bill is allowing a voter to vote at any polling place, preferably in the state, but at least within the county. It’s all done electronically now anyway.
That way, if lines are long at one’s “home” district, they can go to a polling place with shorter lines.
The unemployed, and retirees hired after 1986 already had, at the time of hiring, the documents, whether column A or columns B+C. In most places, B+C would qualify for getting a voter ID.
I’d like to see no-excuse-needed vote-by-mail for everyone.
Except those document may be expired and in Texas at least, the rules say, “With the exception of the U.S. Citizenship Certificate, which does not expire, for voters aged 18-69, the acceptable form of photo identification may be expired no more than four years before being presented for voter qualification at the polling place.”
No, some states still have paper ballots.
But shouldn’t people that are homeless and/or don’t have jobs be allowed to vote?
I would like to see both.
Ohio has paper ballots, but they are printed when you sign in.
But, since you mention it, part of the bill should be to modernize the systems, in case they do not have that capability.
I am afraid it would soon be followed by calls to abolish the USPS.
I’d also like to see federal funding of voting. It is paid for by county and state, which not only means that the county and state have more control over it than they should, but also that poorer counties and states cannot afford to have as many locations as more wealthy areas.