Former backwater Soviet puppet nation holds election via teh intarwebs.
We still think digital watches are pretty cool.
Part of the problem is probably those “special ID cards”. I don’t know why, but a large subset of Americans seems to flip completely when it comes to ID cards.
You mean you disagree with the reasons people give for not wanting them… You’re familiar with national ID threads in great debates, so I have a feeling that you do know why a large subset of Americans don’t want them.
No, I quite honestly don’t. Every argument I’ve seen is easily countered with “It works fine everywhere else”. If you want to debate this, please open a thread in Great Debates.
A new GD thread on this issue? No thanks. This one may head there anyway, considering the thread title being what it is being related to the United States being unable to do this, National ID’s and fears of big Government will arise here.
You’re misunderstanding my intentions. I don’t want to debate this issue, I was simply trying to point out that since you’ve participated in at least one of these threads, you may have read some of the opponents views on why they don’t want national ID card. And now you’re saying that you don’t know why people object.
At any rate, here are some reasons of many:
[ol]
[li]Privacy concerning medical records linked to a National ID[/li][li]Privacy concerning data logging about your travels[/li][li]Fears of “Big Government”[/li][li]Biometric information about you in a national database - Related to DNA ID Card fears[/li][li]Fears of Possible governmental control over your credit, finances, everyday things…[/li][/ol]
Now I know these are all debatable, but that’s not what I’m here for. I’m only giving you some of the reasons as to why people may object to a National ID. Feel free to disagree with them, but now you know.
Wait, isn’t it the US where you can be in trouble for not having any ID on you when pulled up by the cops? 
Yep. And where you can’t buy alky without a picture ID. Even if you’re evidently a contemporary of may grandparents.
So why the angst about some sort of national ID card? I read in the papers that Mr Blair was seen as extreme in his passion for ID cards because not even mad old Dubya (in the eyes of the paper) would dare to try.
Because it’s national.
All the picture IDs they get now are “local”, except the passport. And every state has completely different rules. If you ever want to get a shot of “missery loves company”, take a look at your own procedures for obtaining a driver’s license and then at the same for each US state. It’s a bureaucrat’s wet dream!
The one national “ID” they get is the SS card, which doesn’t have a picture. To you and me, the fact that it’s relatively easy to falsify and that it’s relatively easy to get a number (I’ve seen many schools and companies that used people’s SS# as their “student/worker ID#,” something which would never be done in Spain) is crazy - to Americans it’s normal because well, it’s “what I’m used to” and that’s one of the definitions of “normal”. Sort of how for me it’s weird to fry with anything other than olive oil and for people from Parts Abroad I’m the one who’s nuts for not using butter like God intended 
On a slightly related note…
In Vietnam, foreigners are subject to various restrictions involving where they stay (or at least, this used to be the case), and they are required to go through various bureaucratic hoops such as registering with the local police and leaving ID with their hotel desk clerk.
In most reasonable hotels in Vietnam, these regulations are only very loosely enforced, but a friend of mine encountered a particularly uppity and obnoxious clerk who demanded he leave ID.
So he left a video store membership card. The clerk, who spoke no English, nodded sagely, and thought he’d won.
No that is not true. It is not legal to drive without your license (minor fine). It is not illegal to have no ID on you. In fact you can go through life without one. You do not need a Drivers License or an ID only version of it at least not by law. Not having one would make life a bit more difficult at times. You might be confusing the fact that the right to remain silent does not include withholding basic biographical information when questioned.
What does a national ID card have to do with this? We don’t have national elections. Any state could do this within their existing state IDs. And it wouldn’t be mandatory–you could still vote the old fashioned way.
My concern is whether there’d be adequate security. People complain about the current electronic voting booths. Online voting is much worse; it’s on the network where everyone can try to hack it. No physical access needed. I’d need some serious convincing that the voting servers are secure.
You need to be licensed to operate an automobile, and the cops have the right to ask to see that license if they think you’ve violated the traffic rules. If you’re just walking down the street or something, then no you are not under any obligation to identify yourself to the police or anyone else.
Not 100% accurate. Depends on the situation.
But in most situations, “I don’t have one on me,” or “I don’t have to show you my ID” leaves the cops (rightfully) powerless.
I have no idea what you are talking about. It’s a hijack anyway.
What Loach is saying (I think) is that if you are walking down the street, not breaking any laws, and the Police ask to see your ID, you cannot be hauled off for not having it.
There’s an almost trivial solution to your concerns; using public key cryptography you could authenticate (and if desired, encrypt) on-line ballots, which could then only be decrypted and authenticated by the holder of the receivers corresponding private key. This could be accomplished by sending out a CD with the voter’s public and private key, and then doing a keypass operation across a nominally insecure Internet connection (i.e. grabbing the public key of the receiver and using it and the private key to encrypt the message, then transmitting it along with the plaintext public key).
Someone could perform this operation using a standard web broswer, or a dedicated web client application (a scaled down “web browser” that only connects to the receiver’s site). At a polling site, this could be done using a stripped down CD “live” Linux or BSD distribution with just the keyset and minimal functionality for the voting app (published as an open source application) eliminating concerns about hidden white rabbit exploits in the code. The unique identification–embedded in the plaintext of the voting data–of the public key with the ballot allows a one-to-one correspondence of ballot to key, so that no key can surreptiously be used to draft more than one ballot. The keys can either be anonymously blind-issued (i.e. a notation is made that keys were issued to Voter A but no record of the specific keyset is maintained) or could be indexed in a database for later verification.
Of course, this doesn’t address personal identification of the voter as the intended recipient of the voting keys, but neither does the current system, so it is no worse in that regard, and considerably more secure than punched paper ballots or snail-mail absentee ballots. A physical paper trail isn’t necessary, but electronic or hardcopy verification could be performed by sending a message or printing out a record of voting with a checksum of the ballot attached. The only feasible vulnerabilities to this system would be at the voter themselves or at the tally point. I once bored a date into a stupor discussing this concept.
Stranger
Sorry, that’s what I meant. Not a driver being pulled over by the police but a person walking down the street. A slightly right of centre newspaper in the UK (and to a certain extent Cops) made it seem like you had to have ID on you at all times or you’d be in trouble with the police.
The Police can only ask to see your ID if you get caught in a Sting operation.