Requiring a simple ID is not excessive, either in cost or beauracracy.
LonesomePolecat nailed it with this: “Having sufficient documentation to prove that you are who you say you are is a basic adult responsibility.”
You guys would have a point if the ID in question cost $500 or took twenty forms to get. But it’s just not that hard to get an ID.
Currently, the only ID that meets the requirements of the House bill is a US passport, which costs $85, plus the cost of 2 photos. Substantially less than your arbitrary $500 pricepoint, but still prohibitive for those who already choose between eating and buying medicine.
Can you get one through the mail? I live in Podunk and can only get a DL on certain days of the week. I don’t imagine that a passport would be simpler.
If you have never had a passport before, you must apply in person:
To locate the nearest passport application office, go here.
I don’t oppose requiring ID
Freely providing mandated proof of existence is a basic government responsibility.
Getting a voter ID should be free. Getting the documents neccessary to obtain a voter ID should be free as well. Thats all it boils down to for me. I don’t oppose making someone go to a courthouse or something to get the documents they need. I oppose folks charging for the information that they require you have in order to vote/live/whatever.
I love how nobody had addressed my real world, real life situation. Anyone care to take a swing at it?
Oh, bullshit. $85 is a pittance. It’s less than one percent of the annual income of someone making minimum wage. But OK, let’s play it your way, I think that providing an ID should be the responsibility of the individual states anyway. A state issued ID card in Maryland costs $5 if you’re under 16 and $15 if you’re over. Still going to claim that getting one is a choice between eating, buying medicine or having an ID? And for those of you who are so eager to scream “poll tax”, I say bullshit as well. Having a legal ID is a basic responsibility of any citizen of the US. You need one to prove who you are to the police, to access any type of governmental benefit, to engage in any type of legal financial transaction. In short, it is next to impossible to be a legitimate citizen of the US without one. Requiring ID before allowing someone to vote is reasonable. Just who in the hell do you think is being prevented from voting by their lack of ID anyway?
My grandmother on my mother’s side didn’t have a picture ID until she got a checking account after her divorce when she was in her late 60s. She was pretty Goddamn legitimate a citizen (and a Republican FWIW).
Yes, because a state issued ID does not meet the requirements of the bill passed by the House. Care to take another swing?
Is it OK if I take a swing at the part of this bill that provides for “IDENTIFICATIONS PROVIDED AT NO COST TO INDIGENT INDIVIDUALS” where the feds will pick up the tab for any ID charges that poor folks are unable to afford?
Of course, I’m thrilled with the part requiring that the IDs not be used for anything but elections, good use of resources there.
Still does nothing to establish US citizenship without a passport or naturalization papers:
Now just what document (besides a passport or naturalization papers) meets that requirement, without which you cannot be issued this mythical new ID that does not even exist yet?
It’s a trade-off. Are the chances that someone who knows that info will vote in your place greater than the chances that someone will be disenfranchised due to unreasonably strict standards? Somehow, I suspect that we disagree here.
It took me three tries and almost a year to get my birth certificate re-issued by Maryland a couple of years ago. The cost was low, but the trouble was great.
I have to question the motives of those who do. What’s next, a literacy test?
Yes, here in the land of the free.
And piffle to you, as well. I am under no requirement to show an ID to the police unless I am engaged in an activity which requires one, such as driving. I’ve received a governmental benefit (unemployment compensation) without showing an ID. I have never shown an ID at my credit union.
Now that I no longer get carded for liquor, did I not drive, I could get by just fine without any sort of ID. Except for voting.
Just when, exactly, did conservatives move over to the belief that the government should be able to require me to be able to prove I am who I say I am according to its whim?
Please pardon my tone here folks, but some of you are simply wrong.
Weirdave, I’m absolutely incredulous regarding your last statement about incomes and what people can afford. Are you truly unaware that there are poor people who literally have difficulty getting together the $1.15 bus fare to get to work on a daily basis? $85 is not a pittance to them. Many of these people are stuck in menial jobs they don’t even permit themselves the hope they will ever leave. Many don’t have $5 left over out of their meager paychecks after paying for basic necessities like rent and food. Based on your statement you obviously have no idea that a maintenance man who makes $9 an hour, responsible for a wife and two kids and a $640/Month rent and utilities is barely subsisting. Contrary to assertions made by the ignorant (yes, even on this board, I’m saddened to note) many of the working poor are not attempting to live above their means, nor are they lazy. Yes, some have made poor or questionable life choices with regard to education and other priorities, however, many have done and are doing the best they can with the cards they’ve been dealt. It seems to me, dear friends Weirdave and LonesomePolecat, that not only have you not experienced such an existence, you don’t know anyone who does. This, however, doesn’t negate the fact that there are millions of legal, law-abiding Americans who are in the circumstances I described.
As far as paying to acquire the documentation that would be required as a prerequisite to being able to cast a ballot, again, no matter how you slice this, it’s a poll tax. Poll taxes are illegal, aren’t they? If so, why is it continually proposed on this board? Am I missing something?
Those who’ve brought up statistics and cites to bolster their arguments that voter fraud exists, although duly responding to the OP, I don’t believe have made their case that it’s a problem the extent of which requires a measure that would probably result in the disenfranchisement of many of the poor, as well as the non-ambulatory elderly and infirm. Voter fraud is a herring that will continue to be red, as far as I’m concerned, until such time as it can be proven that a mandate that prevents a fraudulent vote from being cast will not also result in the prevention of a single vote by a law-abiding citizen of the US, regardless of their economic status.
The law does not say that only people who really, really want to vote can vote. The few places to register in Georgia have already been cited. Everywhere I’ve lived have had many polling place scattered around, so I’ve never had to walk more than three blocks to vote in my life. So, the system is set up to not need cars - unless you live in a place that requires you to have a car anyway.
In the front page of the New York Times today there is the story of Mrs. Eva Charlene Steele, who moved from Missouri to Arizona, has no license, and is in a wheelchair in a small room in an assisted living center. It appears that she won’t be able to vote. Sounds like you think she’s not good enough to vote. I doubt the Times stumbled on the only person in the country with this problem.
Sufficient documentation used to be a gas bill or other means of identification. Having a drivers license or id is not a requirement of life. Credit cards, marriage certificates, mortgages, none are good enough. The issue is making “sufficient” identification much harder to obtain.
As I said, I’m assuming the same percentage of legal voters in the legal or illegal population. No illegals have mental illness?
The bottom line is that unless you can show that not even 1%, not even a tenth of 1%, are blocked by voting by these measure, you are creating a bigger problem than you are solving. Your inability to imagine why someone would have a problem is not a cite.
I give it maybe a week before it goes into mission-creep and is used for purposes not intended, like the SSN.
Dunno why I should, since once again you have demonstrated that reading comprehension is not amongst your skills:
Birth certificate.
There shouldn’t be any chance at all. I actually know enough to go vote for RTFirefly, should I care to. I suspect that the candidates that I would pull the lever for would not be the same ones he would chose. Conversely, I believe he knows enough to vote as me. Doesn’t this seem just a wee bit crazy to you? Requiring ID is a basic security procedure. It’s the same as the Diebold voting machines. People have been going on and on for the last few years about how these machines make voter fraud easier. They have produced no evidence that any voter fraud has occurred because of these machines, but plenty of evidence as to how it could occur, and demand a paper trail as a solution to this problem. I agree with that. By the same token, the system in place makes it so easy for people to cast fraudulent votes that steps should be taken to prevent it before it actually occurs.
It took me 5 minutes to get one sent from Texas.
The Supremes have stated that this is no longer true.
I have never filed for unemployment so I don’t know, but every other government office I’ve ever been in has required ID
I don’t believe that you have NEVER shown an ID at your credit union, unless you have a very unique set of circumstances.
What whim? If you want to access Government services, you should have to prove you are who you say you are and that you are entitled to them. Also, if you want to vote, you should be required to prove that you are a citizen with the right to vote. If you don’t want to vote, don’t get ID. That’s really not unreasonable at all.
Yea, yea, I’ve heard it all before. I don’t buy it. $85 is not that big a burden anyone. Anyway, I’m supporting the $5 to $15 IDs. Frankly, I think they should be free, but $5 to $15 is nominal. And I said not one word about anyone being “lazy”.
If the only thing that the ID was good for was voting, then yes, absolutely, it would be a poll tax. Since I have advocated the use of general IDs which are needed for any number of purposes, it’s not a poll tax, see? Frankly, I think they should be issued by each state free of charge, but I’m not gonna get my panties in a wad about the imagined burden that a $5 or $15 ID would put on anyone. And I find the idea of equating it with a “poll tax” ludicrous, hyperbolic, and guilty of blatant partisan wolf crying.
I haven’t seen anyone offer even one shred of proof that requiring an ID has disenfranchised anyone. It’s not a new requirement, IDs have been required for years in order to vote. Now they are taking away that requirement. You’re the one that wants to change the status quo, you tell me why it’s necessary. Where are these legions of disenfranchised voters from years past?
How could you type so many words while completely missing my point? In order to eliminate the extremely rare chance of you voting in RTFirefly’s name, or he for you, you choose to disenfranchise any number of legal voters.
Well, goody gumdrops for you. My anectodal evidence is just as good as yours.
Cite?
I applied online; tendered my claims online; I never set foot in an office.
I resent this, and I will ask you to retract it.
What do you think is unique? I gave them my SSN when I opened my account. Sometimes when I cash a check in person, they ask me to sign my signature again - that’s it.
Voting is a Government service? Sorry, pal, voting is my right. The government is not the boss of me. They have to prove I’m not a legal voter. If I vote illegally, they may try me and convict me of that. They may not say I can’t vote.
More nonsense. You just stated yourself that you didn’t need an ID to vote in Maryland. I have not needed an ID to vote in Maryland, Massachusetts, Virginia, or Colorado in years past. Fill out the voter card and - yippee - off I go to vote the straight “Politicians who agree with Frank” card. I have only needed an ID to vote in Colorado since 2002. Where do you come up with this nonsense?