# Can voter ID laws increase the chance of a fraudulent outcome? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 12, 2014, 10:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-voter-id-laws-increase-the-chance-of-a-fraudulent-outcome/698273 "2014-09-12T10:19:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2014, 3:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-voter-id-laws-increase-the-chance-of-a-fraudulent-outcome/698273/141 "2014-09-17T03:55:58Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > It depends on how you measure them. I don’t agree with measuring vote against vote, since society should not be swayed by a person who chooses not to vote in the face of a minimal burden. What if the burden isn’t minimal to them? Cases have been described to you of people who are elderly or working jobs they can’t take afford to take time off of, or who can’t commit a whole day to travel to a distant DMV… I gather you don’t care about these people, even if they significantly outnumber the Cues and Waterses. You earlier said a blocked good vote is as bad as a permitted bad vote. Was that meaningless? > [@](#): > > So before I can answer your question, who gets to define the metrics for measuring the secondary effect? For the purposes of this message board debate, offer your metric, I’ll offer mine, anyone can offer theirs… Your metric seems to be repeatedly saying “Cue and Waters”. Do you have anything else? ETA: I see Parthol has addressed the issue in greater detail. ---
**Author:** ![bldysabba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ecccb3/32.png) [@bldysabba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bldysabba)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2014, 4:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-voter-id-laws-increase-the-chance-of-a-fraudulent-outcome/698273/142 "2014-09-17T04:02:17Z")
> [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](#): > > Right. Now [here’s why I disagree](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=15172002&postcount=339). > > The gist of it is pretty simple: voter ID prevents exactly one kind of electoral fraud - in-person voter fraud. In order for voter ID to stop your fraudulent vote, you have to be casting it in-person at a polling station. This is _exceptionally_ rare. The figures cited by the Brennan Center place this at something like 0.0004% - that is, for every 250,000 votes cast, one will likely be fraudulent. In stark contrast, the best available data we have for the number of people with photo ID is a 2006 survey that places it at around 10%, with numbers closer to 25% for poor minorities. > > Now, make any assumptions you want about people without ID not wanting to vote, the fact of the matter is that in order to prevent something which is about as common as people healing their cancer with reiki (and which makes about as much sense to do), we’re placing a fairly substantial hurdle in front of a good 10% of the population. You say they’re not being prevented, and while that’s a good excuse legally, when it comes to actually justifying the law it really isn’t. People without photo ID necessarily do not have driver’s licenses, and DMVs are not always conveniently located. Back when I lived in Maine, the nearest DMV was almost 30 miles away from where I lived (Bar Harbor). Hell of a bike ride. In one [court case in Texas](http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/Federal-judges-reject-Texas-Voter-ID-law-3827727.php), the distance cited by a plaintiff was _120 miles_. In each direction. For a low-income person without a license, especially one that works, that might as well be the moon. > > This is the issue. Not that anyone is _prevented_ from voting - the list of people legitimately disenfranchised by voter ID laws is probably very low (albeit probably still higher than actual cases of voter fraud each year) - but rather that it presents a quite _non-trivial_ hurdle. People often have to take time off of work, travel long distances, and if you are taking time off work you’d better damn well hope you got all your paperwork right the first time, and the DMV’s computers aren’t fried (which happens from time to time), otherwise you’re going back again. The end result is that a good number of people are going to say “I will not go through that effort simply to be a drop in a bucket”. So in the end, you have a solution to a non-problem that creates a much bigger problem. In a country where participation is already abysmal, I’d say that’s pretty bad. And that’s not even getting into the partisan aspect. Ok, so if you agree that all that is happening is a hurdle being placed in the way of voting for some people, why do none of the discussions on the Dope ever focus on lowering that hurdle? I always see the same positions staked out and adhered to - that the hurdle be removed. Clearly the other side of the debate has decided the hurdle is important to them to remove the possibility of fraud. Your only objection is that it is difficult for some people to get id, so the hurdle should go for everyone. You’re setting yourself up in opposition to a popular(and IMO not unreasonable) opinion, while ignoring that both sides can get what they want, and without great difficulty. Issuing ID to people is a pretty basic task. > [@](#): > > I live in Germany and here, I don’t think it’s an unreasonable burden either. Of course, in Germany, it’s almost never the case that you live more than a few miles from the nearest ID center, the government puts in a lot of work to ensure that you have that ID, and you’re all but mandated to have one. To my knowledge, if you don’t have photo ID, you virtually cannot get a job - at least not legally. They don’t do the whole SSN thing - their basic ID is a shiny card with your name, face, date of birth, and home address on it. It’s totally reasonable for them to ask for ID. In the US, you’d be surprised how many people do just fine with nothing more than their social security number. I can’t tell you how it is in India. I don’t live there, and I can’t find too much info on it. But in the US, the situation is liable to be very different. In India millions of people don’t have ID. Which is why we’re attempting to correct that problem. In the last two or three years we’ve issued 600 million biometric identities, and that id program will hopefully cover almost everyone in the next four or five years. > [@](#): > > As for compromise, here’s a good one: _get that number down!_ Make it considerably easier to get photo ID. Make it so that the number of people without ID is a lot less than _one in ten_. Yes, precisely. This would, presumably, make both sides happy. Have you broached any of these ideas with your opposition in these debates? Is there even a discussion of ideas to reduce the number of people without voter id _among_ the people who oppose voter id laws? > [@](#): > > Do that _before_ we make it a requirement to take part in democracy. On the contrary, I believe it’s only important that it gets done, not that it gets done before the requirement is placed. Quite often the requirement can be the impetus needed to ensure something happens. But still, discuss it. > [@](#): > > How about we stop trying to shut down organizations like ACORN, who do their best to make more people participate in democracy? I bet, if they hadn’t been taken down by a dishonest, fabricated smear campaign, they’d be totally into helping people get photo IDs! I was not aware that there was a systematic campaign in the US to shut down organisations that help people participate in elections. Surely that’s a different/bigger problem? > [@](#): > > Or how about a different system? We’ve had fingerprint scanner technology for ages - why not use _that_ to prevent voter fraud? Or any other system that doesn’t mean even more of a huge hassle for the voter, in particular low-income minority voters? Fingerprint technology won’t help unless you have an ID to match it against. But that(and iris recognition) is, in fact, the basis of India’s push to give all citizens an ID. The idea behind it was to prevent subsidy fraud. ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2014, 6:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-voter-id-laws-increase-the-chance-of-a-fraudulent-outcome/698273/143 "2014-09-17T06:54:19Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > I don’t agree with the weight you’ve attached to your pros and cons. Neither do a majority of voters. So wait, do you disagree with what the list actually _is_, or just with how it’s weighted? Because if the former, then I’d like to see what you’d call it; if the latter, then the issue is pretty straightforward. What value to the system does each thing bring? Which brings us to this: > [@](#): > > No. The goal of voting is to allow interested persons the opportunity to vote. If the goal were as you say, then we’d have a national mandatory holiday for Election Day and it would be on a weekend. Perhaps this doesn’t come as a surprise to anyone, but I constantly rack my brain thinking “_why the fuck isn’t election day a national holiday?_”. Because it makes no sense to me. At all. Let’s just go back to the source of my claim - what’s the point of an election? Well, can we all agree that the point of an election is to elect people to represent the will of the people? Regardless of the imperfections in the way this is handled in the American system (which I think should also be dealt with - First Past The Post is a freakin’ abomination of a system), the fact is that if that is your goal in an election, there are very good reasons to make the barrier to voting as low as reasonably possible. The more people legitimately vote, the more a candidate can legitimately say to have a mandate from the people, the less people who are highly motivated to vote have an exclusive say in things (and yes, this is a _good_ thing, as the votes of every Tom, Dick, and Jane end up diluting the votes of Wacko McCrazyRacist who voted for the American Nazi Party), and I’m sure other people could come up with other good reasons. Indeed, reducing an election specifically to “interested” people leads very quickly to radicalization. The point is that if the goal of your election is to elect representatives to represent the will of the people, then all other things being equal, getting _more_ people to vote is better, both in terms of within the system (voter confidence, better establishment of a mandate) and externalities (we’ve established in other nations that radicalization is a real problem). Are you with me so far? > [@](#): > > See, you’re writing the rules and then proving you win the game with those rules. I’m trying to start from a place where we agree on the rules and build from there. If this were chess and I was arguing for an optimal strategy, I might say “the goal is to capture the king”, and if you don’t agree with that, then I’d have to try to figure out why you think this isn’t the goal. Because the entire point of elections _is_ to elect representatives that represent the will of the people. As such, making voting more open and easier for everyone, all other things being equal, can only lead to this goal more effectively. > [@](#): > > There’s not an inherent equality. I have used the “voodoo” threat as a thought experiment to illustrate this. Imagine a voodoo practitioner who said, “I will place a voodoo curse on anyone who votes for Smith.” > > Even if I were to learn that this threat caused ten voters to stay home, I wouldn’t care, because their decision to stay home because of a voodoo curse is objectively unreasonable. I don’t agree that we simply count the votes: instead, we ask how reasonable the barriers are. Right. Which is part of why I included that last paragraph: However, here’s a question for you. What if, in order to get photo ID, a person had to take several days off of work, pay a non-trivial sum of money, and provide documents that require even further money and time? How would that effect the balance? Would it still be reasonable to tell these people “If you wanted to vote, you just should have cared more”? That’s not a rhetorical question. I actually want to know your opinion on that. A voodoo curse is an intentionally ridiculous example, but it’s easy to see where vapid, baseless threats _would_ be taken seriously and lead to less people voting, and where we’d _absolutely_ want to deal with it. If a church says “Vote for X and god will smite you down”, we remove their tax-exempt status. And of course, beyond that, there’s the problem that while we know voodoo is bullshit, we know the costs behind getting ID are very real. This isn’t someone saying “ooh, magical pixies might stab me if I go to vote, so I won’t”, this is a very real expenditure of time and money. Often, it’s a rather large expenditure of time and money - at least, for people struggling in that aspect. I mean, do you think it’s reasonable to assume that many people who don’t have ID lack it because they would find it difficult/obnoxious to get? After all, you’re the one going on about how necessary it is (in fact, when I told you that I had friends who had gone their whole lives without it, you called me a liar!); there must be some reason why they don’t want to have it. > [@](#): > > I’m not going to continue answering this post, because your remaining commentary builds on your disproved commentary. You don’t to declare that missed votes are equal to fraudulent votes and then magically discover that you win the debate, _because they are NOT equal._ Except in the big picture, one less person voting is one less person voting. This weakens the system. Sure, you can’t force those who don’t want to vote to vote, but the fact is that when you dissuade people from voting via financial constraints, via time constraints, by just making it a pain in the ass to get what you need to vote, you’re _weakening the system_. Maybe it’s not 1:1. But it’s not negligible either. You don’t get to erect barriers between people and the voting booth, then say that those who decide not to bother as a result are “too lazy”. And considering that voter fraud is so vanishingly rare, and that there are so many other more meaningful, less harmful ways of increasing voter confidence, the “pro” side of the scale has barely a feather on it. > [@Bricker](#): > > It depends on how you measure them. I don’t agree with measuring vote against vote, since society should not be swayed by a person who chooses not to vote in the face of a minimal burden. “Minimal burden”. 120 miles distance is a “minimal burden”. Requiring documents you were never issued or may have lost and will have significant trouble getting back is a “minimal burden”. Taking time off of work is a “minimal burden”. Spending money on public transit is a “minimal burden”. The entire problem with voter ID is that it is quite clearly _not_ a minimal burden! That for many people, in particular low-income workers, it is a quite _substantial_ burden. I don’t understand how you don’t get this. > [@bldysabba](#): > > Ok, so if you agree that all that is happening is a hurdle being placed in the way of voting for some people, why do none of the discussions on the Dope ever focus on lowering that hurdle? I always see the same positions staked out and adhered to - that the hurdle be removed. Clearly the other side of the debate has decided the hurdle is important to them to remove the possibility of fraud. Your only objection is that it is difficult for some people to get id, so the hurdle should go for everyone. You’re setting yourself up in opposition to a popular(and IMO not unreasonable) opinion, while ignoring that both sides can get what they want, and without great difficulty. Issuing ID to people is a pretty basic task. There are a variety of reasons to be against this hurdle. Sure, we could work towards getting everyone photo ID. We could do everything possible to ensure that each vote cast is legitimate, and nobody is unfairly deterred. Politically speaking, though, that’s kind of a non-starter. What’s more, it’s a _huge waste of money_ to prevent from happening something which virtually never happens and doesn’t even make sense to do in the first place. It’s like spending a whole bunch of cash to ensure that the unicorn hunt (which must be performed with grenade launchers in Times Square) is done without endangering any other people. Sure, you can spend a whole lot of time and money on making safe grenades that are precise and small-impact, you can spend a lot of money clearing the area before the hunt… Or you could just admit that unicorns aren’t real (or at least, that there are virtually none you could hunt for), and not _have_ the hunt. Saves you a whole bunch of money and a whole lot of hassle for a whole lot of people. At least, if you think that giving people ID in the first place is a waste of time. I don’t, but using it primarily as a method to deter voter fraud is a really bad idea. > [@](#): > > In India millions of people don’t have ID. Which is why we’re attempting to correct that problem. In the last two or three years we’ve issued 600 million biometric identities, and that id program will hopefully cover almost everyone in the next four or five years. Congratulations, this makes you a step ahead of the US. > [@](#): > > Yes, precisely. This would, presumably, make both sides happy. Have you broached any of these ideas with your opposition in these debates? Is there even a discussion of ideas to reduce the number of people without voter id _among_ the people who oppose voter id laws? Honestly, the debate rarely gets further than “I don’t care that people who can’t be bothered to get ID won’t vote”. That’s the framing many have gone for. The “free ID” made available through these laws is woefully lacking. Of course, this ties into a very different problem… > [@](#): > > I was not aware that there was a systematic campaign in the US to shut down organisations that help people participate in elections. Surely that’s a different/bigger problem? …That the point of many of these laws was never to stop voter fraud in the first place. I don’t know how much you’ve followed these discussions, but there’s a very real reason to believe that the main purpose of these laws is to discourage voters, particularly low-income minorities, from voting. They often coincide with attempts to curb early voting, with attempts to close down DMVs, with attempts to shut down organizations that do registration drives… And then there’s the occasional quote from Republicans about how voter ID laws would clinch a certain state for them. No, _[seriously.](http://www.politicspa.com/turzai-voter-id-law-means-romney-can-win-pa/37153/)_ This isn’t a good-faith discussion with the republicans in congress. They know full well voter fraud is so rare as to be negligible (it was the Bush administration that spearheaded a massive investigation into the issue and found nothing, remember?), but the point isn’t to make elections more fair. It’s to make them _less_ fair. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2014, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-voter-id-laws-increase-the-chance-of-a-fraudulent-outcome/698273/144 "2014-09-17T13:51:09Z")
So, Bricker, compare and contrast: A. Group X is inclined to some degree to vote for Party 1. B. Party 1 wants to make it easier for members of Group X to vote. C. Party 2 wants to make it harder for members of Group X to vote. Morally equivalent? Incidentally, all the votes in question are completely legal. ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2014, 7:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-voter-id-laws-increase-the-chance-of-a-fraudulent-outcome/698273/145 "2014-09-19T07:09:01Z")
_pokes_ Dead? ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2014, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-voter-id-laws-increase-the-chance-of-a-fraudulent-outcome/698273/146 "2014-09-20T01:22:07Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > So, Bricker, compare and contrast: > > A. Group X is inclined to some degree to vote for Party 1. > B. Party 1 wants to make it easier for members of Group X to vote. > C. Party 2 wants to make it harder for members of Group X to vote. > > Morally equivalent? Incidentally, all the votes in question are completely legal. Morally neutral. The moral issues arise when we look at what measures they actually take in service of their desires. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2014, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-voter-id-laws-increase-the-chance-of-a-fraudulent-outcome/698273/147 "2014-09-20T01:37:28Z")
> [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](#): > > So wait, do you disagree with what the list actually _is_, or just with how it’s weighted? Because if the former, then I’d like to see what you’d call it; if the latter, then the issue is pretty straightforward. What value to the system does each thing bring? In what debate universe can I say that I disagree with the weighting you assign issues and you believe you can rebut that by announcing that “the issue is pretty straightforward?” > [@](#): > > Perhaps this doesn’t come as a surprise to anyone, but I constantly rack my brain thinking “_why the fuck isn’t election day a national holiday?_”. Because it makes no sense to me. At all. It makes perfect sense – if you accept that your vision of what elections should be is not completely accurate. > [@](#): > > Let’s just go back to the source of my claim - what’s the point of an election? Well, can we all agree that the point of an election is to elect people to represent the will of the people? Sure. But the will of people we want are those who are genuinely interested in providing it, and willing to expend a little effort to do so. This is why we don’t make voting mandatory and Election Day a national holiday. > [@](#): > > Indeed, reducing an election specifically to “interested” people leads very quickly to radicalization. Not at all. It leads to an involved and informed electorate. > [@](#): > > The point is that if the goal of your election is to elect representatives to represent the will of the people, then all other things being equal, getting _more_ people to vote is better, both in terms of within the system (voter confidence, better establishment of a mandate) and externalities (we’ve established in other nations that radicalization is a real problem). Are you with me so far? No. Getting more people to WANT to vote, yes. Simply getting more people into the booth – no. > [@](#): > > I’m trying to start from a place where we agree on the rules and build from there. If this were chess and I was arguing for an optimal strategy, I might say “the goal is to capture the king”, and if you don’t agree with that, then I’d have to try to figure out why you think this isn’t the goal. Because the entire point of elections _is_ to elect representatives that represent the will of the people. As such, making voting more open and easier for everyone, all other things being equal, can only lead to this goal more effectively. No. It’s a balance. “What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly.” > [@](#): > > However, here’s a question for you. What if, in order to get photo ID, a person had to take several days off of work, pay a non-trivial sum of money, and provide documents that require even further money and time? How would that effect the balance? Would it still be reasonable to tell these people “If you wanted to vote, you just should have cared more”? There’s a line, and certainly it’s possible to step over it. But none of the existing schemes do. Your example does. ---
**Author:** ![Parthol](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/dec6dc/32.png) [@Parthol](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Parthol)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2014, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-voter-id-laws-increase-the-chance-of-a-fraudulent-outcome/698273/148 "2014-09-20T18:58:19Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > There’s a line, and certainly it’s possible to step over it. > > But none of the existing schemes do. > > Your example does. This right here is at the very heart of our disagreement. I’ll take it as a given that you more literally meant “_In my opinion_ none of the existing schemes do.” Can you outline, even generally, where you think the line is? How many additional dollars of supporting documentation, dollars/hours of travel to and from voting booths and DMV offices, and lost hourly wages due to dealing with bureaucracy, would it take for you to decide that line has been crossed? In the current court case surrounding the Texas Voter ID law we have Sammie Louise Bates: > [@](#): > > Sammie Louise Bates moved to Texas from Illinois in 2011. She wanted to vote last year, but all she had was an Illinois identification card, and under Texas’s strict voter ID law, that wasn’t acceptable. To get a Texas ID, Bates needed a birth certificate from her native Mississippi, which cost $42. That was money that Bates, whose income is around $321 a month, didn’t have. > > “I had to put $42 where it would do the most good,” Bates, who is African-American, testified Tuesday [9/3/14], the first day of the trial over Texas’s ID law. “We couldn’t eat the birth certificate.” Do you think she esteemed the right to vote too lightly? Scaling her monthly income up to that of my upper-middle-class family, that’s like telling me I need to spend over $1000 for the right to vote. As much as I enjoy exercising the franchise, I’d certainly think more than twice about deciding that’s not worth it. If you agree that in her personal case the line of undue burden had been crossed, how many cases like this would it take to change your mind? For instance, if it were shown that 5,000 Texans were in situations similar enough to hers that the Voter ID Law pushed her over the line, would you change your stance about that law? What about 10,000? 50,000? ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2014, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-voter-id-laws-increase-the-chance-of-a-fraudulent-outcome/698273/149 "2014-09-20T20:45:28Z")
> [@Parthol](#): > > This right here is at the very heart of our disagreement. I’ll take it as a given that you more literally meant “_In my opinion_ none of the existing schemes do.” In my opinion. And the opinion of the reviewing judges, interestingly enough. > [@](#): > > Can you outline, even generally, where you think the line is? How many additional dollars of supporting documentation, dollars/hours of travel to and from voting booths and DMV offices, and lost hourly wages due to dealing with bureaucracy, would it take for you to decide that line has been crossed? > > In the current court case surrounding the Texas Voter ID law we have Sammie Louise Bates: > > > [@](#): > > > > To get a Texas ID, Bates needed a birth certificate from her native Mississippi, which cost $42. Usually, when you start to investigate these claims, they turn out to be greatly [exaggerated.](http://www.msdh.state.ms.us/msdhsite/_static/31,1240,109,62.html) > [@](#): > > The certified copy of the birth certificate is available for $15.00 for the first copy and $5.00 for each additional copy ordered at the same time. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2014, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-voter-id-laws-increase-the-chance-of-a-fraudulent-outcome/698273/150 "2014-09-20T22:21:25Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Morally neutral. Really? Encouraging the exercise of democracy and discouraging the exercise of democracy are both morally neutral? Is democracy itself morally neutral? How about relative to other forms of government? ---
**Author:** ![Parthol](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/dec6dc/32.png) [@Parthol](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Parthol)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2014, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-voter-id-laws-increase-the-chance-of-a-fraudulent-outcome/698273/151 "2014-09-21T00:23:17Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > Thank you, **Bricker** , for the correction. Assuming that there were no other additional costs for Mrs. Bates, that’s down to the equivalent of about $400 for my upper-middle-class family. I still think that’s pretty awful. But my question to you still stands: > [@](#): > > Can you outline, even generally, where you think the line is? How many additional dollars of supporting documentation, dollars/hours of travel to and from voting booths and DMV offices, and lost hourly wages due to dealing with bureaucracy, would it take for you to decide that line has been crossed? If it simplifies things, you can answer either in a straight dollar amount, or in a percentage of a voter’s monthly income. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2014, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-voter-id-laws-increase-the-chance-of-a-fraudulent-outcome/698273/152 "2014-09-21T03:44:09Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Really? Encouraging the exercise of democracy and discouraging the exercise of democracy are both morally neutral? Is democracy itself morally neutral? How about relative to other forms of government? How come you get to define “democracy?” ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2014, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-voter-id-laws-increase-the-chance-of-a-fraudulent-outcome/698273/153 "2014-09-21T03:49:47Z")
> [@Parthol](#): > > Thank you, **Bricker** , for the correction. Assuming that there were no other additional costs for Mrs. Bates, that’s down to the equivalent of about $400 for my upper-middle-class family. I still think that’s pretty awful. > > But my question to you still stands: > > If it simplifies things, you can answer either in a straight dollar amount, or in a percentage of a voter’s monthly income. Is one grain of sand a heap? How about four? Ten? Fifty grains of sand? And if fifty is, then how about forty-nine? Your question involves a fallacy. ---
**Author:** ![Parthol](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/dec6dc/32.png) [@Parthol](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Parthol)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2014, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-voter-id-laws-increase-the-chance-of-a-fraudulent-outcome/698273/154 "2014-09-21T04:16:47Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Is one grain of sand a heap? How about four? Ten? Fifty grains of sand? > > And if fifty is, then how about forty-nine? > > Your question involves a fallacy. I don’t agree that it involves a fallacy. You have specifically stated: > [@](#): > > There’s a line, and certainly it’s possible to step over it. I don’t know how you can fairly make this claim, and at the same time either refuse to say where that line is, or declare it’s impossible to know where it is. I also don’t see how the the question “What percentage of a person’s monthly income is reasonable to require, as a one-time payment in either straight money, or the money-equivalent of time lost, to be allowed to vote?” involves any sort of paradox or fallacy. I can infer from your previous answer that “4.6%” is an acceptable demand for you. ($15 out of a person’s $321 monthly income.) In other words, you have already answered the question with 4.6% as a possible answer. So, perhaps I can assuage your reluctance to slide down your heap of sand, and determine your threshold, by asking a series of discrete questions of the sort you have already shown yourself willing to answer. I’'ll start with this one: Do you think 10% of a person’s monthly income is fair to ask, as a price to be allowed to vote in future elections? ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2014, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-voter-id-laws-increase-the-chance-of-a-fraudulent-outcome/698273/155 "2014-09-21T04:22:49Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > What if the burden isn’t minimal to them? Cases have been described to you of people who are elderly or working jobs they can’t take afford to take time off of, or who can’t commit a whole day to travel to a distant DMV… I gather you don’t care about these people, even if they significantly outnumber the Cues and Waterses. You earlier said a blocked good vote is as bad as a permitted bad vote. Was that meaningless? Never said it. Said the opposite. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2014, 4:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-voter-id-laws-increase-the-chance-of-a-fraudulent-outcome/698273/156 "2014-09-21T04:56:21Z")
> [@Parthol](#): > > I don’t agree that it involves a fallacy. > > You have specifically stated: > > I don’t know how you can fairly make this claim, and at the same time either refuse to say where that line is, or declare it’s impossible to know where it is. I can claim there is such a thing as a heap of sand, and yet be unwilling to commit to a particular number of grains being the tipping point to make a heap. > [@](#): > > Do you think 10% of a person’s monthly income is fair to ask, as a price to be allowed to vote in future elections? As applied to all people, no. But if I were to learn that a very small number of people were in a position that they had to incur such a one-time cost, it would not invalidate the general scheme. ---
**Author:** ![Parthol](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/dec6dc/32.png) [@Parthol](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Parthol)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2014, 6:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-voter-id-laws-increase-the-chance-of-a-fraudulent-outcome/698273/157 "2014-09-21T06:00:10Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > I can claim there is such a thing as a heap of sand, and yet be unwilling to commit to a particular number of grains being the tipping point to make a heap. Quite so… which is why I wouldn’t ask you to commit to an amount exact to the penny. But asking you to commit to a number of shovelfuls – say, fifties of dollars, or perhaps increments of 3% of a person’s monthly income – seems to me quite reasonable. > [@](#): > > As applied to all people, no. But if I were to learn that a very small number of people were in a position that they had to incur such a one-time cost, it would not invalidate the general scheme. Ah, now we’re getting somewhere! You are willing to sacrifice the franchise for some small number of people – most likely poor people, for whom 10% of monthly income is more indispensable – in order to reduce or eliminate a particular sort of voter fraud. Might I ask you to estimate – in shovelfuls, not grains – the percentage of a state’s electorate upon which you would be willing to enforce this sacrifice, in order to solve the fraud problem you believe Voter ID will address? ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2014, 12:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-voter-id-laws-increase-the-chance-of-a-fraudulent-outcome/698273/158 "2014-09-21T12:03:50Z")
> [@Parthol](#): > > Quite so… which is why I wouldn’t ask you to commit to an amount exact to the penny. But asking you to commit to a number of shovelfuls – say, fifties of dollars, or perhaps increments of 3% of a person’s monthly income – seems to me quite reasonable. > > Ah, now we’re getting somewhere! You are willing to sacrifice the franchise for some small number of people – most likely poor people, for whom 10% of monthly income is more indispensable – in order to reduce or eliminate a particular sort of voter fraud. Might I ask you to estimate – in shovelfuls, not grains – the percentage of a state’s electorate upon which you would be willing to enforce this sacrifice, in order to solve the fraud problem you believe Voter ID will address? Courts call this a “bright line rule.” And the answer is: there are too many factors in play to possibly answer the question. As Potter Stewart said about defining obscenity, “I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description [“hard-core pornography”], and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But _I know it when I see it,_ and the motion picture involved in this case is not that.” And I see that despite my valiant reminders over the course of several years, you have recast my position as a belief that this is intended to solve a fraud problem. The intent is to assuage voter confidence in the election result. Actual fraud affecting an election result is extremely rare, and possible only in ultra-close elections. ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2014, 12:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-voter-id-laws-increase-the-chance-of-a-fraudulent-outcome/698273/159 "2014-09-21T12:12:12Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > In what debate universe can I say that I disagree with the weighting you assign issues and you believe you can rebut that by announcing that “the issue is pretty straightforward?” The rebuttal is what followed. > [@](#): > > It makes perfect sense – if you accept that your vision of what elections should be is not completely accurate. Again, it’s based solely on one issue - “how are elections in a democracy set up; what goal do they aim to achieve”. You clearly disagree with this to some degree: > [@](#): > > Sure. But the will of people we want are those who are genuinely interested in providing it, and willing to expend a little effort to do so. This is why we don’t make voting mandatory and Election Day a national holiday. See, I disagree with this on a fundamental level, and I think this is going to be something of an impasse. A fundamental constraint of democracy is that it is rule of the people by the people for the people. Not just the people who happen to care a lot. I don’t really have much justification for this opinion, and I don’t know how one would go about justifying such an opinion in the first place. Given this, I’m just going to skip ahead: > [@](#): > > There’s a line, and certainly it’s possible to step over it. > > But none of the existing schemes do. > > Your example does. That’s the funny part - my examples are all taken from real-world people who struggled to get their ID. They may not be the norm, but their cases are very real. And for many, it’s just _too much work_. I don’t hold that against them - if, in order to vote, I had to spend that much time, effort, and money, I wouldn’t vote either, regardless of how important my vote was. I think that placing a very significant hurdle between people and the voting booth for no purpose beyond “fighting the leprechaun menace” (or “convince people the leprechaun menace isn’t a problem”) is ridiculous. That said… > [@Bricker](#): > > Morally neutral. You clearly don’t care about making it harder for people to vote for partisan or baseless reasons. So… What the hell. I got nothing. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2014, 12:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-voter-id-laws-increase-the-chance-of-a-fraudulent-outcome/698273/160 "2014-09-21T12:46:40Z")
> [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](#): > > See, I disagree with this on a fundamental level, and I think this is going to be something of an impasse. A fundamental constraint of democracy is that it is rule of the people by the people for the people. Not just the people who happen to care a lot. I don’t really have much justification for this opinion, and I don’t know how one would go about justifying such an opinion in the first place. > . > . > . > You clearly don’t care about making it harder for people to vote for partisan or baseless reasons. So… What the hell. I got nothing. As long as you recognize that the opinion I’m advancing is the opinion shared by the strong majority of your fellow citizens. You are of course welcome to say that majorities don’t prove rightness. But apart from your passionate belief in your own correctness, you have nothing else. I have an equally passionate belief in my rightness, and the popular acclaim, the passed laws, the upheld in court laws. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-voter-id-laws-increase-the-chance-of-a-fraudulent-outcome/698273.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-voter-id-laws-increase-the-chance-of-a-fraudulent-outcome/698273.md?page=9)