# Voter ID law with 9+ year's notice in advance **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [October 21, 2014, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voter-id-law-with-9-years-notice-in-advance/702066 "2014-10-21T19:41:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2014, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voter-id-law-with-9-years-notice-in-advance/702066/141 "2014-10-24T20:12:25Z")
The thread devolved as I feared. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2014, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voter-id-law-with-9-years-notice-in-advance/702066/142 "2014-10-25T13:59:27Z")
Says the guy who came in not knowing about absentee ballots, and refusing to address the real reason for these laws. No, this thread has been _rescued_. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2014, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voter-id-law-with-9-years-notice-in-advance/702066/143 "2014-10-25T14:53:27Z")
Yes, how dare we discuss the merits of voter ID in a thread about discussing the merits of voter ID? ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2014, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voter-id-law-with-9-years-notice-in-advance/702066/144 "2014-10-25T14:54:37Z")
> [@Dr.Drake](#): > > I dispute the logic here, and I give you the example of Canada. If you’re going to use us as an example, it behooves you to present a fuller picture. We have a federal government agency specifically dedicated to maintaining voter rolls, and said agency works with other government agencies, including the tax people, to keep those rolls up to date. As a result, we have fewer hassles with the whole “register to vote” thing. Before an election, households get a mailing saying “according to our records, these are the eligible voters who live at this address. To make corrections, contact…” Right off the bat, most of the burden is shifted from the voters to the state, and nobody is trying to shift it back to the voters, as is the case with various American ID-laws. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2014, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voter-id-law-with-9-years-notice-in-advance/702066/145 "2014-10-25T15:04:32Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > The thread devolved as I feared. I have to assume that means you expected everybody to come in and say “You’re right! Why didn’t we see that obvious point?!?!” That trick never works. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2014, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voter-id-law-with-9-years-notice-in-advance/702066/146 "2014-10-25T15:17:52Z")
> [@Dr.Drake](#): > > I guess I just don’t understand why voter ID is a problem, but requiring ID is not a problem in so many other aspects of life. Why is voting special? Why does the honor system work here, but nowhere else? (Unless you’d like to argue that trained graphologists are assessing a statistically significant portion of the signatures.) I’ve had to show ID to accept employment. That seems a bit more fundamental to daily life than voting. Voting is unique because who you vote for is highly dependent on where you are currently living. I will be voting for more than half a dozen offices next month, each with a different pool of voters. The city boundary line passes through my street, so if my address were slightly different, say 1050 instead of 1040, I would be in a different town with an entire series of different offices, even though my postal city and zip code would stay the same. This may be uniquely American, but that doesn’t matter if you’re in America. People move all the time. I’ve seen multiple estimates but it’s likely that 10-20% of the population move every year. Renters, students, retirees and other groups are even more likely to move than homeowners. The issue therefore is twofold: getting the proper voter ID in the first place and then updating the voter ID with each move. That’s one major reason why Velocity’s thought experiment is so silly - it simply doesn’t matter how much lead time you require; the burden starts anew with every new address. I’m curious how this is handled in Canada. Where do you go to register a change of address? How quickly must it happen? Who notifies the election registers? What provisions are made for recent changes? ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2014, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voter-id-law-with-9-years-notice-in-advance/702066/147 "2014-10-25T17:50:57Z")
Thanks, **Exapno** ; that is a really good point. In Canada, elections are much more centralized. They update your registration with data from the driving licence people, Revenue Canada (=Canadian equivalent of the IRS), and other places ([cite](http://www.elections.ca/content.aspx?section=vot&dir=reg/des&document=index&lang=e#sources)). I think your point that Americans vote for more offices with a more complex distribution is an excellent argument for why the American system may indeed be exceptional, and make a system of voter ID more difficult. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2014, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voter-id-law-with-9-years-notice-in-advance/702066/148 "2014-10-25T18:28:34Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Yes, how dare we discuss the merits of voter ID in a thread about discussing the merits of voter ID? Again, this thread isn’t about the merits or demerits of voter ID. There are plenty of discussions about that elsewhere already. It’s about the _technical_aspects of giving voters many years of notice in advance before an election, and whether that would make it more practical for many voters without ID to get one. This is like having a thread about a debate over the _technical ramifications_ of the ban on partial-birth abortion itself…devolve into a debate over the \*morality \*of abortion. ---
**Author:** ![That\_Don\_Guy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/that_don_guy/32/538_2.png) [@That\_Don\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/That_Don_Guy)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2014, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voter-id-law-with-9-years-notice-in-advance/702066/149 "2014-10-25T18:54:38Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > Again, this thread isn’t about the merits or demerits of voter ID. There are plenty of discussions about that elsewhere already. > > It’s about the _technical_aspects of giving voters many years of notice in advance before an election, and whether that would make it more practical for many voters without ID to get one. The problem is, making it more practical for “many” voters without ID to get one isn’t sufficient. It has to be practical for “all” voters without ID to get one, or the whole thing is meaningless. It’s called a “right” to vote for a reason. It can be done, if you have the ability to take the ID machine to people who, for whatever reason, simply cannot get to the established locations where IDs can be made. However, and pardon me if this strays from the subject a little, making it “too easy” to get a voter ID (and it _has to be_ “too easy” in order for it to work) also makes it too easy for people who aren’t eligible to vote to get one, or for somebody to get multiple IDs in neighboring cities. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2014, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voter-id-law-with-9-years-notice-in-advance/702066/150 "2014-10-25T21:25:17Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > Again, this thread isn’t about the merits or demerits of voter ID. There are plenty of discussions about that elsewhere already. > > It’s about the _technical_aspects of giving voters many years of notice in advance before an election, and whether that would make it more practical for many voters without ID to get one. > > This is like having a thread about a debate over the _technical ramifications_ of the ban on partial-birth abortion itself…devolve into a debate over the \*morality \*of abortion. No, it is exactly the opposite. You’re the one who is presenting the issue as a moral one. The rest of us are talking about those technical ramifications. That Republicans want fewer people to vote is a technical ramification, not a moral one. That’s clear in the way they put huge costs into the way of “free” voter ID. (Did you bother to read my post that your timeframe is meaningless because time is not the issue?) That’s also clear in the way they oppose making it easier to vote through mail-in ballots, early voting, expanded voter sites, and other mechanisms. Nobody - literally nobody if I’m reading the thread correctly - is against voter ID itself and so moral issues simply don’t come into play. Everybody - again literally everybody - who is criticizing you has done so because you will not listen when we say that the technical ramifications make the implementation in reality highly immoral. I know that people are quick to say that conservatives and liberals live on different planets, but your continued insistence that black is white is head-beatingly frustrating. ---
**Author:** ![Stringbean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Stringbean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stringbean)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2014, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voter-id-law-with-9-years-notice-in-advance/702066/151 "2014-10-25T23:22:58Z")
It never ceases to amaze how stupid, lazy, and pathetic the American Left thinks the poor. I couldn’t have said it any better: getting an ID is _not_ equivalent to obtaining a portable, Large Hadron Collider. ---
**Author:** ![Cheesesteak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cheesesteak/32/3694_2.png) [@Cheesesteak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheesesteak)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2014, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voter-id-law-with-9-years-notice-in-advance/702066/152 "2014-10-25T23:37:26Z")
> [@Stringbean](#): > > I couldn’t have said it any better: getting an ID is _not_ equivalent to obtaining a portable, Large Hadron Collider. True, it’s probably no harder than passing a simple literacy test. The reality is that this whole concept has nothing to do with getting ID, or voter fraud, and everything to do with putting up a roadblock in front of certain voters in an effort to reduce how many of them vote. Frankly, the fact that those who want to protect us from voter fraud have never studied the problem, is proof that they don’t actually care about it. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2014, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voter-id-law-with-9-years-notice-in-advance/702066/153 "2014-10-25T23:41:54Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > I realize this thread is far beyond rescue by this point, but again, the point of this thread isn’t to debate the merits or demerits of voter ID - we’ve had exhaustive discussion about that. > > It’s a practical one; whether giving 9 years’ notice would stop many voters from saying they could not gather the time or resources to comply. If voting ID is a bad idea in 2014 it will still be a bad idea in 2023. It’s not an issue of time. You mentioned firearms. Suppose Congress proposed banning all firearms. But then in the face of overwhelming protest they agreed to postpone the ban for nine years. Do you think that would settle the problem? ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2014, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voter-id-law-with-9-years-notice-in-advance/702066/154 "2014-10-25T23:44:28Z")
> [@Stringbean](#): > > It never ceases to amaze how stupid, lazy, and pathetic the American Left thinks the poor. Total nonsense. It’s not the poor people we don’t trust. It’s the people who would abuse the poor that we’re keeping an eye on. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2014, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voter-id-law-with-9-years-notice-in-advance/702066/155 "2014-10-25T23:49:51Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > If voting ID is a bad idea in 2014 it will still be a bad idea in 2023. It’s not an issue of time. > > You mentioned firearms. Suppose Congress proposed banning all firearms. But then in the face of overwhelming protest they agreed to postpone the ban for nine years. Do you think that would settle the problem? Actually, with a bunch of caveats, I do. What we’re talking about is a cultural change: people need time to adjust their culture to the point where such a change is sustainable. IF we want to implement Voter ID, we need the following changes: - It needs to be something that is not a roadblock to potential voters, and also something that is not _percevied_ as a roadblock to potential voters. I don’t really see that happening in the current political climate, or the foreseeable future, but changing people’s opinions takes time. - There needs to be time to reform the existing system. Anything done on a national scale affects a lot of individuals and a number of sectors, and five years’ planning goes a long way toward insuring that people aren’t suddenly screwed. Plus, there needs to be time to study the other places that have voter ID so that we can replicate the successes and avoid the failures. - Nine years means that the changes are not for the benefit of anyone in power, which means it’s not political point-scoring. I think that’s important. - Some electoral reform is probably a good idea before we even consider reforming the voting system, anyway. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2014, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voter-id-law-with-9-years-notice-in-advance/702066/156 "2014-10-25T23:56:02Z")
> [@Dr.Drake](#): > > I guess I just don’t understand why voter ID is a problem, but requiring ID is not a problem in so many other aspects of life. Why is voting special? Why does the honor system work here, but nowhere else? (Unless you’d like to argue that trained graphologists are assessing a statistically significant portion of the signatures.) I’ve had to show ID to accept employment. That seems a bit more fundamental to daily life than voting. We’ve had unfortunate experience with this before. There were things like literacy tests that were weren’t racist on paper. But they were used to keep black people from voting. The same will happen with voter ID laws. They will be abused to prevent people from voting. The reason ID’s aren’t a problem in other areas is because people have political power. If somebody tried to misuse an ID program, then people would use the political power to fix the problem. As long as people have political power, they can work on fixing any problems they have. But when the problem is that people have had their political power taken away, they have lost the means to fix the problem. And every other problem will soon follow because they can’t defend themselves. That’s why voting is so important. Everything else depends on being able to vote. If you have that, you can obtain everything else. If you lose that, you will lose everything else. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2014, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voter-id-law-with-9-years-notice-in-advance/702066/157 "2014-10-26T00:08:04Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > That’s why voting is so important. Everything else depends on being able to vote. If you have that, you can obtain everything else. If you lose that, you will lose everything else. Have you looked around lately? Everything else depends on access to money. You can vote like it’s going out of style, and yet the lobbyists’ voices will shout much louder and be heard. Individuals who donate tens of thousands of dollars and yet do not vote have more influence than individuals who donate nothing and yet vote. A voting bloc may be significant, but that requires marching in lockstep with an identifiable demographic. A poor black Republican or a Democrat in rural Texas or, may the gods forfend, a third-party voter can vote all they like, but it will do no good. ---
**Author:** ![erysichthon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d07c76/32.png) [@erysichthon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erysichthon)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2014, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voter-id-law-with-9-years-notice-in-advance/702066/158 "2014-10-26T01:47:06Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > The usual argument is that “voting is a right.” But the same goes for firearm ownership, and I’m sure we all want people to provide ID when buying guns. Funny how any mention of voting being a right immediately leads to GUNS! Why are firearms always the equivalent right? Freedom of speech is also a right. Nobody is expected to show photo ID before exercising that right. You don’t have to show identification to write a letter to the editor of your local newspaper, publish a book, start a blog, wear a T-shirt with a slogan on it, put a bumper sticker on your car, or stand on a soapbox and make a speech in the park. You need ID to buy a gun because they’re dangerous. They are mechanisms designed and built for one purpose: to kill. Guns make it really, really easy to kill, and people use them for that quite a lot. That’s why we require identification to buy guns: not because it’s a right and you need ID to exercise your rights, but because _guns are fucking dangerous_ and obtaining one shouldn’t be as easy as buying a Slurpee. You can’t kill somebody with a vote. I also dispute the “you need an ID for everything these days” argument. No, you don’t. That’s just a diversion, a sly attempt to normalize a “your papers, please” sort of society. I don’t need an ID to visit a public park and sit in the sunshine and watch the clouds. My taxes helped pay for the park, but mysteriously the GOP doesn’t think I should prove that I have the right to be there. Why are Republicans so concerned about voter fraud, which simply doesn’t exist in any statistically measurable, meaningful way? The simple, straightforward explanation, the Occam’s Razor explanation, is that they’re _not_ concerned about it. Voter ID laws have but one purpose: to put a thumb on the scale for Republicans, who are scared shitless about demographic shifts that will make them a permanent minority. Any politician who says otherwise is being disingenuous. (Just to be clear, by “being disingenuous” I mean “lying.”) If minorities and the poor reliably voted Republican, the GOP would propose blanketing the Earth with mail-in, postage-prepaid ballots dropped from airplanes. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2014, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voter-id-law-with-9-years-notice-in-advance/702066/159 "2014-10-26T02:03:12Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > You mentioned firearms. Suppose Congress proposed banning all firearms. But then in the face of overwhelming protest they agreed to postpone the ban for nine years. Do you think that would settle the problem? It would give gun owners plenty of time to turn their guns in. With 9 years to do so, no gun owner could claim they weren’t given enough time to comply. Even gun owners who don’t have a car, or live in a rural area, or have little income. Now, would that be a \*good \*idea? That’s debatable, and a different question. But again - this is a thread about practicality and the effect of time. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2014, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voter-id-law-with-9-years-notice-in-advance/702066/160 "2014-10-26T03:20:43Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > It would give gun owners plenty of time to turn their guns in. With 9 years to do so, no gun owner could claim they weren’t given enough time to comply. Even gun owners who don’t have a car, or live in a rural area, or have little income. > Now, would that be a \*good \*idea? That’s debatable, and a different question. But again - this is a thread about practicality and the effect of time. Okay, you get your nine years as soon as you build your network of orbital mind-control lasers to convince everyone that what you plan to do in nine years is necessary, be it requiring voter ID or confiscating their guns. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voter-id-law-with-9-years-notice-in-advance/702066.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voter-id-law-with-9-years-notice-in-advance/702066.md?page=9)