We have eyewitness testimony, from a source who’s strict candor and spotless reputation is legendary.
Which states allow registration without such proof? Notably, these states would have to register people without requiring a social security number. SSNs identify citizenship (and Bricker, I don’t care to talk again about the sexagenarian sleeper vote fraudster Sven who got his SSN back before it was used to indicate citizenship).
So, which do, aduher?
A Texan speaks about voting rights. America has turned turned against itself and its principles since then.
Time to post this again . . . From The Voting Wars, by Richard Hasen:
This is an amazingly even-handed book, BTW. No one could accuse Hasen (a law prof specializing in elections law) of any partisan bias. He covers every aspect of controversy about voting over which the parties have struggled since 2000, and he cites countless examples where Dems as well as Pubs have not been entirely honest about the whole thing. In his view Dems often cry “Voter suppression!” in cases attributable to incompetence rather than malice. But on the issue of “voter fraud” his conclusions are entirely one-sided: It’s a nonproblem the Pubs have whipped up for their own partisan interests.
His general message is that all these problems arise because of two characteristics of the American election system which are highly unusual in a modern republic:
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The system is “hyperfederalized.” Every county’s elections office does things its own way, every Supervisor of Elections is elected locally. Even a state Secretary of State has only very limited power to standardize the process.
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The system is partisan. Most elections officials and SOSs are partisan elected officials. In other republics they are usually civil servants.
Look, guys, if you really want to make absolutely sure no noncitizen or felon ever votes illegally, there’s only one way: A national ID card (issued free of charge so there’s no question of it being a poll tax) combined with a national database. Your file on this database would be referenced and accessible by any of your ID numbers (national ID, SSN, DL, passport, etc.). It would include scanned copies of every documentary record of every personal interaction with American government you ever have had on any level – birth certificate, school records (“I hope you know this will go down on your permanent record.” It will! :)), DL applications, welfare or unemployment applications, any records of arrest, conviction, restoration-of-rights, naturalization record if applicable, military record if applicable, etc., etc. Any time you interact with government, the paperwork will be emailed to the agency running the database automatically. Including, at the last, your death certificate, and then your file will be marked “DECEASED.”
This would eliminate the need for voter registration. If you are legally eligible, your ID – any ID – would be your registration; everyone who is in this database is registered to vote automatically. Just walk in and show it to the poll workers. They’ll slide it through a credit-card reader and be able to see any disqualifying points right in front of them; if it turns out you can’t vote, you will not be arrested but simply be politely turned away, no harm, no foul. If the system is done right, you’ll be listed on the precinct-rolls already, just because government has a record of your current address. A problem arises only if you have not interacted with government since the last time you moved; that would be the only case where a “provisional ballot” might be in order.
Otherwise, the only purpose of voter registration is to let you register as D, R, or I, and the only point of that is which party’s primary you get to vote in; but that could be an election-day choice, why not. If you maliciously want to vote in the other party’s primary for strategic reasons – well, you can do that now, just register for that party.
This database would also make identity theft much harder, and fugitives or anyone under an arrest warrant easier to catch. Undocumented immigrants, too – and those who employ them. And, of course, the database would be an important source of accurate statistics. Heck, it might even substitute, to some limited degree, for the Census.
And, of course, when you buy a gun, the database can be used to do the background check instantly and easily. No excuse to omit it, even at gun shows. 
Apart from the expense, I see no objections to such a system. “You have zero privacy anyway. Get over it.”
But I think some will object. It just doesn’t sound American, y’know? "Are hyour paperz in order, mein Herr?"
But, look, we’ve already gotten used to a system where, when you’re driving, a cop can pull you over for any reason that seems good to him, and demand to see your DL, and check it against a database with his onboard computer, and if you have any arrest warrants you’ll be arrested.
Of course, when we issue the national ID card, every card’s number should include “666” somewhere. And the number should also correspond to your barcode-tattoo.
Bar code would be pretty cool, in an unfamiliar part of town, just scan it and Cortana will tell you that you that the nearest bar is .1 mile SW of your location.
And you *know *how the Second Amendment Remedies, New World Order, minimum government crowd would go for that.
Trouble comin’ every day. Tomorrow, there will be a buttload of close elections. Republicans lose, they will scream about voter fraud, Dems lose, voter suppression. Of course, one side has actual facts, but when did that ever matter?
OK, lets cut a deal. Voter ID becomes the standard, along with efforts to make voting easy and convenient, no more of this bullshit where likely Dem voters wait four, five, six hours or more to vote. That shit ain’t right. Voter registration drives, mail in ballots, the whole nine yards. Raise our voter participation levels to respectable numbers, rather than the embarrassment they are today.
Republicans will get creamed. Maybe once, twice, but then they will reform themselves to a party of honest conservatives, the kind who recognize the need for progress but insist on caution and prudence. Nothing wrong with that. Damn sight better than what we got.
More voters, more participation, more democracy, who could possibly be against that?
The faceless wallets that profit from the status quo.
As a traditionalist, I prefer “running dog jackals of the ruling class”. I’m a touch old-fashioned…
At least you don’t go back to “monied interests”, but I still thought your generation just used “The Establishment” for short.
The Robber Barons will leave no chicanery unshook or skull undug!
Somewhere I have an old vinyl album of quotes from Spiro Agnew (honestly). In one bit he mentions “the Establishment,” and was perhaps the last American ever to use the word to mean something he supported rather than opposed . . . and nearly the last to use it at all.
When the facts don’t support them (pretty much always) liberals simply lie.
That story liberally (ha!) quotes from the Eric Kennie saga, but carefully edits out the saliant fact that he doesn’t want an ID card with his legal name on it. Salon’s writers are aware, I presume, that even many of their loyal, if somewhat dim, readers might balk at the notion that Texas should simply shrug its collective shoulders and say, “Sure, bud, whatever name you want on your voting ID is fine.”
They play similar tricks with Jesus Garcia:
That’s because he’s trying to get a license. The ID card is free. And as of October 21, 2013, the Department of State Health Services adopted a rule amendment that waives the fees charged for a certified copy of a birth record for an individual who requires a certified copy in order to obtain an Election Identification Certificate issued by the Department of Public Safety. So the birth certificate is free – if he wants it to get Voter ID.
Every single time you examine one of these supposed hard luck stories, they collapse.
Much like liberalism itself. On the bright side, with lying a necessity Lobohan could get a job as a Salon editor tomorrow just by showing them his SDMB oeuvre.
What does that even mean?
It means that liberalism appears at first blush to be about helping people and doing good, but upon closer examination it collapses into a realization that the ostensible help is simply a perpetuation of dependency and an effort to retain political power by creating a class of people who must keep the liberals in power to keep the largess flowing.
Why, wasn’t that clear?
Well, bless his heart, he can’t help it, he’s set in his ways…
I voted this morning, a free man in a free country, without having to present an I.D. !
Go-ooooo-oood Damn, it’s good to be free.
I voted this morning. Oh ghodz, the horrible effort of having to drag my driver’s license out of my wallet and hand it to someone. Why, it added a whole 15 seconds to the process! I feel sooo oppressed.