Buying alcohol, and cigarettes
Opening a bank account
Applying for food stamps, welfare, medicare, or social security
Applying for a job
Applying for unemployment
Renting or buying a house
Applying for a mortgage
Renting or buying a car
Getting on an airplane or Cruise ship
Getting married
Applying for a gun
Adopting a pet
Obtaining a hotel room
Applying for a hunting or fishing license
Purchasing a cell phone
Gambling
Donating blood
Obtaining prescription medicine
Buying an " M ’ Rated video game
Obtaining a credit card
Obtaining a permit to protest
…One could list a dozen more. People have no problems showing identification ever day for these activities.
So what’s the big deal about requiring a photo ID to vote? If you want fair elections, this would help, otherwise your going to get some voter fraud. Even if the fraud is less than 1%, that is enough to swing some local, state, and sometimes federal elections.
Well the standard rejoinder to that would use some of your own wording: if even less than 1% of people are disenfranchised by voter id laws, that’s enough to swing some elections.
Democrats have made this a “line in the sand” issue but the general population is mostly ok with some voter id requirements. To make it palatable to almost everyone, you could couple id laws with a sincere campaign to make id more accessible. But that never seems to happen which makes Dem party resistance understandable.
I think that, even if voter ID is a hurdle for some voters to overcome, it is a *reasonable *hurdle and is fair play/fair game.
Not to mention, this voter-ID issue has been debated for over 5 years now. During these five years, voters who didn’t have an ID, could have gotten one.
Finally, what if some voters cannot register to vote? Should we do away with voter-registration requirement itself? It poses a hurdle to some voters…
Which is pretty much in line with what we already know. Doing the math, we find that voter ID laws are likely to prevent or dissuade orders of magnitudes more real votes than fraudulent votes. You could probably find as many stories of people who couldn’t vote because they couldn’t get ID (on account of not having a birth certificate due to being born long ago to a midwife) as you could actual cases of voter fraud. 1% fraud could swing elections. But we get something like 0.0000044%, which… couldn’t. What does forcing 7% of the population to jump through more hoops in order to vote do?
So given those numbers, voter fraud is, at best, a solution in search of a problem. But looking at that Project Vote survey, something is worth noting: the groups least likely to have voter ID. The young, minorities, and the poor. So this just so happens to be a solution in search of a problem that will do more harm than good to the legitimacy of our electoral system (surely a fraudulent vote is not inherently worse than a legitimate vote discarded), and which, without question, favors one party over the other.
The motive for the ID requirement to open a bank account is to ensure that the bank can reliably identify the account holder, both for purposes of reporting income to the IRS and ensuring that future withdrawals are handed to the correct person. There is, in other words, a very understandable reason to require ID for bank dealings.
But the motive for the ID requirement for voting is to reduce the number of minority/poor people who choose to vote. There is not, says this theory, any sufficiently strong reason to require ID that overcomes this invidious motive. The proponents of this theory point out that while we often hear discussions about preventing voter fraud, there are very few cases of documented in-person voter fraud, and many more people who would otherwise vote but won’t because of a lack of ID. On balance, then, the Voter ID requirement does vastly more harm than good.
To the OP, I see your join date is fairly recent. This topic has been rehashed extensively on these boards. Might I suggest you peruse all 212 pages of this thread for background?
Proponents of voter ID believe that every eligible American can obtain ID with a few reasonable steps. But they are wrong. A very small number of people cannot obtain ID without extraordinary effort.
The US has one of the poorest electoral turn-outs of any advanced nation. The far greater problem for our democracy right now is the representativeness of our elections and not loss of faith in the results arising from fraud.
These are voluntary transactions. Not fundamental rights. Also, nobody should have to show ID for those either. But while it is just a bad idea regarding market transactions, it is absolutely unacceptable when it comes to voting.
Lots of people have problems showing ID for these activities. That’s why they don’t participate in them. We hold voting to a higher standard of accessibility.
In person voter fraud isn’t 1%. It’s far, far closer to 0%. But you know what will swing elections? The much, much larger number of people who are disenfranchised by voter ID laws. I think you know that, and I think that’s the entire point of these laws.
The problem is that without making it harder for even a few per cent of poor/black/student/non-driving/basically Democrat people to vote, Republicans are going to have to let go of the idea of keeping perpetual power. And that (if you are such a Republican) is an offense against democracy, America, and God Himself.
I imagine it does. They tend to be elderly African-Americans and Puerto Ricans living in Northern cities. I suspect their rate of gun purchase is very very low.
If the Democrats allow voter ID laws to stand, they may potentially lose votes - but since a large majority of Americans support voter ID, Democratic opposition to voter ID will cost the Dems votes, too.
Voter ID *sounds *reasonable, no matter whether it is truly needed or not. You can put forward a lot of statistics about “Only one fraudulent vote in ten thousand” or something like that, but voter ID *sounds *reasonable - and probably always *will *sound reasonable. Therefore it will be a vote-losing stance to oppose it.
For most of its, it’s no problem. Just use the drivers license. But guess who doesn’t have them? The elderly who no longer drive and the poor who can’t afford a car or the city dwellers who don’t need one. So they must make the effort and bear the expense of getting a birth certificate, perhaps not too bad if you still live near where you were born but much harder if you are some distance away. Then you must find the transportation to get to where you might be able to get the ID, and for the working poor that often means taking a day off work, which they either can’t do or can’t afford to do. All to solve a problem that simply does not exist. Voter ID laws have one purpose only- to disenfranchise Democratic-leaning voters.
I don’t have a problem with voter ID itself. What I have a problem with is the method I’m which it is being implemented combined with other tactics that are clearly designed to disenfranchised certain populations.
I’m curious what group(s) of people you had in mind with this line, and how many there are in this boat (genuine curiosity, not trying to argue via questions). Are you talking about the midwife example from above? Something else? Just your generic poor person that has the hardship of taking the bus to some county office building and standing in line all day?
So your argument is basically, “this is a bad idea, but it’s still a political winner, so nyah”. Okay. What’s your excuse? Other people have the excuse of being reasonably ignorant, what’s yours?
I’m curious where you got this information, since according to the study linked earlier “the majority of those who report not having identification are younger than 25 years of age”
The audit you mention found over 500 illegally cast ballots. There was only one voter-impersonation done by in-person voting. But it’s not clear that an audit is capable of finding out how many cases of voter-impersonation there are. The study itself notes this (pages 5-7). In addition, the one case is one confirmed case - they were apparently unsure of a bunch of others.
No one should have to show an ID to buy a house, apply for USA governmental benefits and such? Banks and people concerned with Fraud disagree with you.
Something tells me you’re not pulling my leg. WOW.
About half of the states have voter ID laws. Many of these states now offer a** free voter photo ID card** if you don’t have another form of valid photo ID.
So what’s the problem if it’s free to assure the integrity of the election? People who vote without voter ID’s show up to the same place on election day for the most part.
As for voter fraud, its highest in poorer urban areas, which likely have the most amount of places to vote due to the population size.