# 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:** 1\ **Showing post:** 7
**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 12, 2014, 11:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-voter-id-laws-increase-the-chance-of-a-fraudulent-outcome/698273/7 "2014-09-12T11:16:48Z")
Well, what we do know is that voter fraud is exceedingly rare. In-person voter fraud, the only type that Voter ID will actually stop, is extremely time-consuming, involves multiple felonies, is fairly easy to check if suspected, and even in the most extreme conspiracy could hardly account for more than a few hundred votes (and that’s a scenario that’s completely unrealistic). So it makes sense that when the Bush administration went hunting for voter fraud, they turned up just about fuck-all. Seriously - the rate is somewhere between 0.0004% and 0.0009%. In other words, in an election, for every 250,000 votes, there’s likely to be \*one \*fraudulent vote. That’s really nothing. What’s more, there’s no evidence or reason to suggest that this is all going in one direction. For all we know, it may very well be fairly equal in partisanship, and cancel out. There’s no reason to believe that this disproportionately effects one party. What we also know is that voter ID is not ubiquitous. That is, a lot of people in this country don’t have photo ID. The most recent figure on that placed it around 10%. That is, For every 10 people who vote in an election, there’s likely one of them with no voter ID. Furthermore, there are good reasons to believe that this disproportionately effects one party, as the people by far least likely to have photo ID are college students (hard left), racial minority groups (left), the poor (slight left), the disabled (slight left) and the elderly. So yes, you absolutely have good reason to believe that the above example is plausible. I’m just going to quote myself here: > [@I Pit the ID-demanding GOP vote-suppressors (Part 1)](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/796): > > As a followup… > > There are essentially three things that matter here. > > The first is the percentage of people lacking ID who lack ID because it is unreasonably problematic for them to get it. This could mean that they’d need to take time they can’t really afford to take, or need to spend money that they can’t afford, or simply cannot get to the DMV for whatever reason. Let’s call this “X”. > > The second is the margin of error on the investigations present in the field of voter fraud. Maybe some cases were missed, maybe certain districts weren’t combed well enough, and maybe there are issues. Let’s call this “Y”. > > The third is how much more important it is to you that fraudulent voters are stopped than legitimate voters are ensured to be able to vote. Let’s call this “Z”. > > Then you plug those numbers into this formula: > > X \* 0.1 \* A – 0.000004 \* Y \* A \* Z ≥ 0 > > A is the population of the USA. So basically what we have here is the percentage of people who simply cannot get voter ID (X \* 0.1; 0.1 is the ratio of people who don’t have photo ID) times the total population, minus the rate of voter fraud times the total population times the margin for error, times the degree of importance of voter fraud compared to voter disenfranchisement. > > If this equation is not true, then voter ID laws hurt the integrity of elections, rather than helping them. > > Let’s make something clear right off the bat. If Z is anything other than “1”, then you are wrong, and you have the missed the point of voter fraud legislation completely. If X or Y are extremely small or large coefficients, then you’re going to need to explain _why_, preferably with real evidence. > > Actually, you can kinda simplify this: > > X \* 0.1 \* A = 0.000004 \* Y \* A \* 1 > X = 0.00004 \* Y \* 1 > X / Y = 0.00004 > > So basically, given the knowledge that we have, in order for voter ID laws to make sense, the rate of people who simply cannot get photo ID for whatever reason, divided by the rate of error of the current investigations must be 0.00004. I’d be willing to take people’s word for it that X is something like 1%, but not that it’s something like 0.001% unless someone could actually provide evidence. Similarly, I’d believe that voter fraud detection is off by a factor of _maybe_ 5 or 10, but not a thousand. Not without very good evidence. > > I do not care if the general public is in favor of voter ID laws – if they make elections less representative, they are wrong and must be stopped at any cost, the public opinion be damned. We don’t let people vote on voting rights. I made that post like, 2 years ago, and it still holds true. So basically, we’re creating a situation where we’re solving a non-problem with a solution that prevents a lot of people, disproportionately people who would vote for more liberal candidates, from voting. And before you say “well, they should just get ID”, keep in mind that if you don’t have photo ID, you’re obviously _not driving_. Often, it’s as much as 30 miles to the nearest DMV. In one case in Texas, they brought up a man who had to go _120 miles_ in each direction to get to the nearest place he could get photo ID. What’s more, these places tend to keep standard business hours, making it somewhat difficult to get ID if you work full-time, let alone double shifts. And if you do have to take time off, then you’d better be _damn_ sure that you get everything right the first time. Which is not a given. And all this, just to be a drop in an ocean of votes? You can blame it on them all you want, but the fact is that you’re putting a non-trivial hurdle for them to jump through, and the end result is less people voting. It’s actually kind of twisted, when you think about it - “Oh, anyone _could_ get ID. If you can’t be fucked to take the time off work, ride your bike 30 miles, wait at the DMV, and potentially have to do it all over again in a week, well, then maybe you just aren’t motivated enough to vote”. If that sounds callous, good - it’s more or less exactly the argument presented by, among others, **Bricker** and several others in that aforementioned pit thread when they were presented with the aforementioned numbers. And of course, all of this ignores the fact that absentee ballot fraud is infinitely easier to pull off. Food for thought. --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-voter-id-laws-increase-the-chance-of-a-fraudulent-outcome/698273)._