For example: I have been a poor 18-20 year old living far away from my poor, disorganized parents. Only got a SS # when getting my first job at 17. No driver’s license (no money to own a car, live in a city, why bother?). Birth certificate somewhere in parent’s attic at the bottom of a box, perhaps (or a more recent facsimile (for a fee) no more ‘legit’ and ‘real’ than Obama’s long-form, which for some people isn’t adequate). $40 fee for ‘official state ID’ which would have no other real benefit for me (not drinking age, why bother?). For some people a 40 buck fee basically just to vote is indeed a noticeable barrier.
It still comes down to “you can register if you already have paper.”
Take capybara’s case, a person who has no documentation handy, it’s all either being looked after by someone else, or nonexistent. How do you start? You need a BC to get driver’s license, you need a driver’s license to get your birth certificate, you need ID to open a bank account… But for some things, you don’t need ID, just fill in the forms and nobody really cares. Some schools want a birth certificate, some just let you fill out forms; presumably you could get to age 18 with no valid ID in your parents’ possession. People who have had their wallet stolen need to “reboot” their ID, unless they have papers at home.
When i opened a bank account in the early 70’s you filled out forms, but did not need to produce ID. I don’t remember needing ID to get a driver’s license, but then that was also long long ago. Fortunately, I got a British passport in 1972, because if I had to obtain one today - I’m pretty sure my birth was registered at the consulate, but have no documentation it was… My father cannot even remember for sure what year he married my mother, although he’s not senile… they were divorced 50 years ago, she’s dead - if I had to chase down the documentation today, I’d be stuck.
At least with things like my health card, (yea! Universal health care!) they will send a new one to the address of record (I think). this works good if you’ve kept that address up to date, ahven’t recently moved cross-country.
The upshot is it’s very complicated and onerous to get more ID.
When I was a scrutineer for the Conservatives in Canada, years ago before Lyin’ Brian destroyed the system for me, there were always rumours that “OMG, the NDP will bring busloads of Indians from poll to poll to swear them in and have them vote for their candidate”. (Indian is like “black”, the boogeyman, “them”, in some northern Canada towns.) these always happened, like all urban legends, somewhere vague just across town.
In fact, what you saw, was that some of the poor of non-white persuasion did live a rather nomadic lifestyle, they stayed in friends’ places, they had limited documentation (except many Indians had their treaty cards -government ID - so they tended to have a name and picture) and where they happened to land up on election day was where they voted. There was no wave of phoney voters or voting from the graveyards. unlike Chicago. The poor people were simply not highly fixed to “home-family-address-steady job-utility bills-drivers license”. But, they still have the right to vote. Canada, at least, did not make an effort to stop them.
I do not have a state issued ID, and never have had one. I did have an ID in college, and that was sufficient for everything that claimed I needed ID. I do not still have that ID, so even if my college ID would be accepted, I would not be able to vote.
Of those under DrDeth’s list, there’s only one form of ID I could get my hands on reasonably quickly: a government check, although that will be going away soon, since that’s all going electronic. And, even then, it’s not like I get a stub, so I’d have to go get my ID on the day I get my check, before I cash it.
And how the heck does my having a check prove that I’m the person the check is written to?
Another thing to consider, from what I’ve heard voter irregularities are apparently substantially more of an issue (percentage wise at least and even perhaps in absolute numbers) in absentee ballots (mail) than in in-person voting. And there doesn’t seem to be much push to address let alone correct that. Could it be that Republicans who overwhelmingly are the ones pushing for voter ID tend to do better in absentee ballots?
That appears to be true, so people who were born in the US shouldn’t have a problem.
There was an informative comment on MetaFilter a few months back about how difficult it can be for the homeless to avail themselves of “free” voter IDs (in PA in this case.) It’s worth a read. The basic jist of it is not that it’s impossible for a homeless person to get a voter ID, but rather that the process is sufficiently onerous that it’s unreasonable to require it.
Sarah Silverman weighs in on the voter ID laws.
She advises everyone get a gun permit to vote.
Warning! NSFW!
I think the first question in the OP has been answered and I will say something about the second. I have lived in Switzerland for about 2 1/2 years and I know something about it. First, it doesn’t matter where you were born. You are Swiss citizen only if one of parents is. It used to be only if your father was but I think they have changed that. It used to be a woman automatically acquired citizenship if she married a Swiss man; I don’t know if that has changed. If you were born a Swiss citizen and were born there, then there will be a record and a government ID issued at birth. If you move into an apartment or buy a house, you will have to register with the local authorities and show your government ID (or, in my case, a passport with a current visa) to do so. So basically, you cannot live without a government issued ID. The registration process was free and, in my case, was accompanied by the issuance of a temporary ID card. I assume you needed this card to vote, but everyone automatically had one. If a state wanted to legitimately require IDs they ought to automatically issue them.
There was a letter in the Times today from a man who used to be a high official in Oregon in charge of voting and he advocates the Oregon system in which all registered voters get a ballot by mail that they can return by mail or in person (nearly all do it by mail) and they have about the highest voting percentage in the country. The amount of voter fraud is trivial. Washington state is adopting that method this year. If you want to encourage voting, it sounds great. If you are trying to discourage it, not so great.
Part of the problem is the enormous number of offices that are elected. The first time I voted, in Pennsylvania, I was faced with a ballot with 40 or 50 offices to vote for. Naturally, I knew the names of only a couple of candidates for the top offices and so I voted a straight party ticket. When I have voted in Canada, there is never more than one office to vote for. A much more sensible system.
The bottom line is that there are only two possibilities:
- You can’t get an ID unless you already have one, or
- You can get an ID by saying you are who you say you are.
Which means voter ID either disenfranchises certain people, or that it’s pointless. “We won’t just take your word that you are who you say you are! First you go to DPS, tell them you are who you say you are. Then we’ll take your word for it.”
In Minnesota, the previously proposed ID requirements were for a government-issued ID with your current address.
That last phrase was something that eliminated most college student voters.
Many students, when they go off to college, do not get a new Drivers License with their dorm address*. Especially as the dorm room they are in may change several times. Most just leave their license with their old (parents) address.
So that would not work as a valid ID on election day, thus excluding many college students from voting. And they mostly vote Democratic. Students who live at home while going to college do not have this problem – and those students are more likely to vote Republican. So this so-called ‘voter protection’ ends up protecting from democratic voters!
- For a while in Minnesota, the DMV process for issuing Drivers Licenses had such problems so that it took months to get a new or changed License issued. Normally, when applying for a new/changed license, the old one is taken & you get a temporary slip good fopr 30 days. The state had to issue instructions to law enforcement to not ticket people if they were still using that temporary slip afte 30 days, because the DMV was taing more like 60-90 days to issue the new license. So during that period, even if a student had remembered to request a changed Drivers License on the first day they started college, they would have not received it by Election Day!
I have gone over my story in other threads with cites to the Texas DMV and everything, I’m too tired to repeat all that though.
If you never have a drivers license or state ID in Texas before age 18 it becomes very hard to acquire one, you not only have to produce a birth certificate and social security card but also prove residence with stuff no homeless or poor person is likely to have like utility bills and leases. It appears now they will let you swear out an affidavit of residence, they certainly did not present me with that option long ago.
I get the sense this is done on purpose to marginalize people.
There’s something sort of strange on the state website now - it says if you don’t have an ID, you can send them a photocopy of someone else’s ID.
It’s hard to see the point of that. “Hi I’m Joe Blow. Here’s a copy of someone else’s ID. Now can I have my birth certificate please?”
Anyway, the automated system doesn’t require you to send them anything. You just need the right numbers - SS#, DL#, etc. That wouldn’t help you if you’re trying to get your own BC, if you don’t already have a driver’s license. But it’d be helpful if you had someone else’s info, and you wanted to steal his ID.
Actual situation, happend this year.
My son, age 26 let his driver’s license expire. When he needed to apply for a passport, he needed a government issued ID. At that point he had several expired cards (the driver’s license, his old passport, his old college ID, his old military dependent ID card). He could not find his birth certificate that he had misplaced in a move.
He was born in Indiana and for his parents to order a new birth certificate we had to upload into their website a copy of a drivers license (that’s why the parents were doing it, he didn’t have one). That system kept reporting “image not usable”. I finally took a picture with a digital camera and e-mailed that.
With that birth certificate he was able to get a NY state ID and then to apply for a US Passport.
I’ll leave it to others to evaluate how much of that, if any, would be an unreasonable burden/hurdle for one of the fringe groups that are potentially disenfranchised.
And yes, there were plenty of ways to circumvent this.
It is not a problem in any way. There are plenty of ways and plenty of time to resolve what happens if someone wants to vote who can’t be identified. Denying people their right to vote is a real problem.