I don’t understand why people are against something as simple as showing ID to vote.
We show ID routinely all the time. Cashing a check at the bank. Buying a six pack of beer. My daughter shows ID at Walmart when I send her money. You need a drivers license to drive a car. IIRC we had to show ID to register our girls in elementary school 20 years ago.
It’s no big deal. It’s a part of life. Yet ask for ID to vote and they go crazy.
I don’t get it.
Why are the Federal Courts shooting down something so simple and routine? It seems like verifying a person’s identity would reduce voter fraud. Do we really want dead peoples names used to vote?
The Federal Courts jackboots stomped on North Carolina’s law.
While a procedure that controls access to voting may be neutral on paper, history shows that they’re inevitably abused to effect the outcomes of elections by targeting voters of one side.
This part really bugs me. Why would they assume poor people don’t have ID? Do they think these people register for food stamps and other assistance without ID? Do they buy beer without ID? Poor people often don’t have bank accounts. Cashing checks then requires two forms of ID! It’s printed on a sign at the bank. I keep a few $50 bills in a drawer at home to pay my yard guy for mowing. Because it’s such a PITA for him to cash a check.
I’m not even sure why the courts drag race into this. Being poor is hard for whites too. My yard guy is white and he needs two forms of ID to cash a check.
What bullshit. Anybody can get a state ID by applying for one.
The courts ruled the North Carolina un-Constitutional because of the evidence (the “smoking gun”, as the court called it) that the lawmakers enacted the law specifically to disenfranchise black voters.
From my reading of the article, they seem to have a good point. The lawmakers specifically researched the methods of ID that voters use, and banned the IDs that black voters tend to use while allowing the IDs that white voters tend to use; they also researched the days of early voting (and Sunday voting) that black voters are most likely to use, and only got rid of those days.
Yes, you can do this without state-issued photo ID. And these benefits are often given to households, not individuals, and only one member of the household applies (who, again, does not need state-issued photo ID).
Because whatever form of ID the poor people (or most importantly for the people passing such laws, black poor people) have will conveniently not be acceptable. The entire point of such laws is to disenfranchise Democratic voters; that is how they are always written and enforced. It has nothing at all to do with voter fraud.
Can afford to take a day off work to chase down a birth certificate,
Remembered to renew your expired ID,
Can take time off work to wait in line at the BMV for a government-approved ID, and
Don’t have the same name as a felon or a dead person in your state.
However, if you fail to meet all those conditions, you probably don’t have a valid ID that would allow you to register and vote. And you can’t easily get one.
I never show ID anywhere. I have a state ID card, and I rarely carry it with me when I go out. I put my purchases on a credit card, nobody has ever, ever, ever asked for ID. My bank assumes I am who I say I am, and I have a signature card on file if they’re ever in doubt. They photographed me when I opened my account.
I don’t drive anymore, but when I did, I would go from one license renewal to the next without ever getting it out of my pocket. The police let me get in my car and drive every day, without ever asking for my ID.
As a world traveler, there are not a lot of things about which I am proud of America, but being able to freely move about my entire life without ever having to show anybody ID is one of them.
As for voting, it falls in that category above. Go the polls and tell them who you are, and if they have a legitimate reason for doubting you, they can ask for ID. I have a right to conduct myself as though I were legally entitled, unless someone can show probable cause to challenge me. That’s the way we do things here.
Maybe you could explain how the current method of voter registration fails to prevent that, and how an extra layer of regulations (voter ID) would solve that deficiency.
Look – I am fairly neutral on the subject. I can live with or without showing ID to vote. But because you usually explain things pretty well I have to ask:
Sentence one - what forms of ID we poor people use today during our routine life are you talking about? What form of ID common to my black neighbors are you referring to? I can’t think of one that would be excluded by the law proposed a couple years back in PA or any of the other laws I am aware of.
Sentence two - I can’t imagine myself or any other Democrat I know staying home from the polls just because we need to show ID. Because we think Sanders got screwed maybe. But over ID?
Sentence three - but if it does prevent fraud, isn’t that a good thing?
I’d like to see a dead guy walk in and apply for ID.
I’m not sure what’s required. But a pulse is probably a given.
No system is perfect. ID fraud happens. But we can make it more difficult than grabbing a dead registered voters name off a list, and using it to vote.
My Dad passed away shortly before the election and since we’re both basically old and since I can do a fair version of his signature ------ things happen. Since we don’t look anything like each other, a simple photo ID would solve that problem but since nothing like that is required -----------------
Hey – you asked.
And while I hate to admit it, I was tempted IRL. There were a couple local issues/elections that could have come that close.
In Canada, every person has a provincial issued ID–their medicare card, which does have to be renewed every four years (in Quebec, at least) but is automatic when you renew your driver’s licence. You need the card whenever you go to a doctor or hospital–or vote. But it is not an issue. But states that want voter ID also make it hard to get one, unless you have a driver’s license or a gun license. Student ID’s, for example, are not acceptable. As mentioned about, first you have to get a birth certificate, which in some places has to be applied for in person, often in obscure locations that are not accessible by public transportation. And then ditto for the ID issuing agency. And these require taking a day off from work.
By the way, what is so magical about the birth certificate? It identifies someone, but how can anyone know it identifies you. I’ve changed quite a bit since my day of birth. And mine didn’t have fingerprints or even a heel print.
If they can’t walk in and apply for a ID they’ll have a tough time asking for an ballot to.
Dead people are stricken from the voter rolls.
Anyone attempting to use the name of a dead voter faces the chance the records are up to date and anyone attempting to vote more than once is also risking the chance they are caught if recognized.
Do you have any instances of dead people voting that has impacted a recent election?
I’m not against voter ID. If it was implemented in a way to be fair to all voters and was implemented well before elections. The strategy of using voter ID as a means to block otherwise eligible voters is disgusting.
I don’t want to waste time digging up cites now. But I recall voter fraud was a big concern in the 2000 election.
They were really worried that if Bush was awarded Florida that Gore would go to court to challenge Illinois and other states. IIRC Illinois was suspected of having some of the worst fraud.
They were saying the 2000 election might have been tied up in court battles for months and months. Thankfully Gore choose not to open up that nightmare box of worms. Just like Nixon didn’t go to court in the 1960 election against Kennedy’s narrow margin win. It had similar voter fraud concerns.
I understand that we need to simplify getting an ID. Make it as convenient as possible. So that people have confidence in who is voting and that some kind of ID verification was done.
Show us some instances of in person voter fraud that would be stopped by voter ID’s and people might be more willing to accept voter ID as a pressing issue to the integrity of our voting system.
The case you brought up at the start of this thread is a clear case that voter ID laws were used to damage the integrity of our system.
The evidence presented so far puts me against voter ID’s. Cite something to change my mind.
