Just got my Board of Elections reminder postcard for Ohio’s Nov. 3 election. Acceptable ID: Ohio driver’s license, state ID, military ID, “or a current (within the past six months) utility bill, bank statement, government check, paycheck or other government document with your name and current address.” However, “a passport… is NOT an acceptable form of ID for voting purposes.”
Other than legislative whim, why not? A U.S. passport is as secure and reliable, if not more so, than any of the other documents.
Maybe because it doesn’t establish that you live in Ohio? I can only assume that they accept military ID because troops are the awesome, and non-military people who travel outside of Ohio and even the country (shudder!) are a little suspicious…
How strange. I would have assumed that a passport at the top level of ID documents.
Here a passport is always accepted as a form of ID for voting, drivers license etc also are good but I needed a passport and a birth cert to get my drivers license.
Having served as a poll worker in Ohio, I can tell you it is because a passport does not establish your address.
A DL or recent bill does. Yes, a DL or other government issued ID could be years old and you could have moved. But you are supposed to get those updated, yeah right.
IF there ever is a problem voting, demand a provisional ballot. But then you must follow up with your local Board of Elections and clear up whatever issue was causing you to vote provisionally, then your vote is counted.
The idea that you would need to establish where you live for the purpose of voting in a national election would be a dubious one to people from most countries.
I’m also in Ohio, and I’m voting for two municipal court judges, a clerk of the municipal court, a member of the city council, a member of the board of elections, and a new tax levy for the community college. My address is pretty important for those.
(Also three state constitutional amendments, which are Ohio-wide.)
The President and Vice President are indeed elected in a Federal election. It happens when each state’s slate of electors elects the President and Vice President. How those electors are chosen is up to each state. In practice, if any state didn’t adhere to democratic practice with how electors are chosen and how they behave when they elect, the Electoral College would be tossed out and the country would indeed have a Federal election for the Chief Executive and National Sidekick without the proxy of electors.
Hey, we did it with regards to how Federal Senators are elected.
A bit more info; most elections are a combination of Federal, State and local candidates, bonds and the like.
Since your passport is good for a decade, and instructs you to write your address in pencil, it’s not a good document for proving that yes, you live in Precinct 8, and that you’re eligible to vote for Bob Peterson or Jim Johnson for Precinct Constable, or that you live in Texas and you can vote on various bond issues, or in County X, or whatever.
Even at the Federal candidate level, those elections are administered and counted at a State level, and the passport doesn’t do anything but prove you’re American.
Oh, we get a card. Shows my name, address, precinct, polling place, etc. We’re just not allowed to use it to vote. That would be too easy. For some reason, voting is not supposed to be easy in the U.S. Must be part of our Puritan heritage, or against someone’s political principles, or something.
We get a postcard, too (as noted in the OP). Why that, and my passport, would be insufficient to show residence is beyond me. The card was sent by the Board of Elections. It came to me at my home, and here I am, presenting it to a pollworker along with my passport. That ought to suffice… but doesn’t.
That’s really dependent on where you live. Until this last major election, you could bring that with you in Texas and vote with no other ID. You could always just show up with valid ID and vote- they’ll look you up in the registered voter book.
Funny, the Canadian information just came in today.
We have to bring either (1) the card with our name and address and (2) government-issued ID with address, OR
Two pieces of ID, one of which must have the address; passport + utility bill, for instance, or student ID card and bank statement, or letter of confirmation of residence from a soup kitchen and a library card.
OR
two pieces of ID with your name, and an oath from an accompanying person with appropriate ID who will vouch for you.
And, of course, our polling places are open on five different days for a total of 44 hours.
If a passport isn’t good enough because it doesn’t have an address why is your military ID valid when it has no address on it either. Assuming you’re registered, which includes your address, they should just look up your name on the list either way.
Because it isn’t really about proving you have the right to vote. It’s about trying to keep the wrong sort of people from voting. People with military IDs are much less likely to be the wrong sort of people.
IIRC, if the only problem is that you didn’t have an acceptable ID document, you can put the last four digits of your Social Security number (or your drivers license/ID number if you remember it but don’t have it with you) on the provisional ballot’s identification envelope and it will be counted without any further involvement.
I believe that if you’re in the military, you can continue to vote as if you still lived at your last registered address, so the military ID would prove that you don’t need to have a local address.