Why are people against Voter Ids?

Great Debates
21

Here in Missouri, where they passed (and subsequently struck down) a voter-ID bill they’re requiring you to present a valid birth certificate or passport in order to get a valid ID. Many people, including the elderly and people who have been adopted don’t have access to an original birth certificate and never traveled outside of the country so they don’t have a passport. If they’re going to do this, there needs to be a transition period of trust between the government and the citizens getting the ID. If they already have an ID, you shouldn’t need to provide proof of citizenship - because it can be impossible for some people.

I don’t oppose requiring ID to vote, as long as its free, and as long as its part of being brought into the world. As #4 stated - use it for citizenship, employability, age, birth cert, soc sec, etc and make it something that gets issued when a person is born. A photo ID that gets renewed every couple/few years.

Also, to put the onus of a free ID on the states is a bit absurd, especially when the federal government is setting the standards. I can go along with state implementation of the federal standard, but not also to pay for it. If they’re going to mandate something, they should sure as shit fund it as well.

22

[QUOTE=SnakesCatLady]
I’m putting this in GD, not because I have a side in this discussion, but because I simply don’t see a valid argument against voter IDs and would like to hear some. If the IDs are free and reasonably easy to get, what is the problem?
[/QUOTE]

just to clarify - assuming your 2 qualifiers, I don’t think there’s anyone who would object to them. The problem is in every current implementation, they are not easy to get for everyone and sometimes not even free.

23

[QUOTE=SnakesCatLady]
I guess what frustrates me about it is - how do I put this - I don’t see how anyone in today’s society can function without some sort of identification. Not necessarily a driver’s license, but some sort of ID. How do they cash a check? If they are on some sort of government assistance, isn’t ID required for that? (and if not, why not?) A state-issued ID doesn’t cost $30.
[/QUOTE]
This is my feeling also. Here is Virginia a DMV-issued picture ID costs $10. We just got one for my daughter (who doesn’t drive) – she needed to show legal presence (birth certificate, passport, military ID or discharge papers, resident alien card, etc.) and proof of Virginia state residency (a bank statement, utility or mortgage bill, Virginia voter’s card, etc.). No big deal. IMO, it’s not too much to ask that a person should prove his or her identity before being able to vote.

24

[QUOTE=Northern Piper]
And how much does a Saskatchewan driver’s licence (the only common ID accepted by the bars) cost? $25.00 CAN.
[/QUOTE]
Yeah, virtually free. :wink:

25

To a lot of people the cost and the ability to get to the offices are a hardship. In some states there are very few drivers licenses bureaus . Some counties have one. Normal usage of drivers license bureaus is exasperating. Can you imagine if they required a lot of people to suddenly go there.
If you can pull the money out of your pocket and drive 2 miles,dont assume everyone can, It would impact the poor and probably democrats the most.

26

[QUOTE=SnakesCatLady]
I guess what frustrates me about it is - how do I put this - I don’t see how anyone in today’s society can function without some sort of identification.
[/QUOTE]

I haven’t had a valid ID for the past 4 years.

Havne’t cashed one in a while. But my bank lets me deposit a check with cash back by signing a deposit slip, swiping my ATM card and entering my PIN. No ID required.

You need proof of identity to apply for many government programs. Once you are approved and receiving benefits, your case paperwork and such are all the ID you need for the program. Here in PA, people on foodstamps get Access cards. The card can be used as ID when you need to see a caseworker for changes, regular review or elligibility etc.

You still have to find a DMV branch to get the paperwork and take the photo. The branch I went to only takes money orders, which was another stop and another fee. A branch recently opened in my neighborhood. Before that, the nearest branch was six miles away and not near any bus or train route.

27

[QUOTE=Jess]
This is my feeling also. Here is Virginia a DMV-issued picture ID costs $10. We just got one for my daughter (who doesn’t drive) – she needed to show legal presence (birth certificate, passport, military ID or discharge papers, resident alien card, etc.) and proof of Virginia state residency (a bank statement, utility or mortgage bill, Virginia voter’s card, etc.). No big deal. IMO, it’s not too much to ask that a person should prove his or her identity before being able to vote.
[/QUOTE]

So $10 to vote. Isn’t that a poll tax?

As for legal presence, what about those who don’t have and can’t get a birth certificate? I know of several people just off the top of my head.

Like I said, I don’t oppose it assuming the 2 criteria the OP had are actually met.

28

[QUOTE=Northern Piper]
And how much does a Saskatchewan driver’s licence (the only common ID accepted by the bars) cost? $25.00 CAN. So if **Speaker ** wants to go to a bar, which he has the legal right to do without paying any money (on the way in, at least… :slight_smile: ) he has to have shelled out money for the ID. Seems a pretty straightforward analogy to me.
[/QUOTE]

How is it a legal right to go to a bar? Bars are allowed to choose their clientele and frequently do: in Ottawa, Ontario, the legal age to enter bars is 19, but many bars don’t allow anyone under 21. This isn’t like voting, which is clearly a citizen right and duty.

29

Given the number of people who whine about having to pony up $15 a year to post here, who eventually drop off and go away, I’d say that charging $30 to vote would probably drive a fair number of people away from the polls. I honestly don’t think my vote would matter enough for me to spend that money, if it came down to it.

30

Voter IDs are wrong because imposing such a requirement now would be to ADD an obstacle to the voting process. And there’s absolutely no question that the group “people without IDs” has a far higher percentage of poor people than of rich people.

It’s saying that, rather than the existing requirements to vote, we’re now going to add to that that you must also have the wherewithal and the means to first obtain an ID.

If it was not necessary before now, it’s not necessary now. Note who backs it: rich white people. It’s economic gerrymandering. Issues of security are bullshit: what, we’re afraid the terrorists are gonna vote?

31

Knowing these requirements to get a driver’s license or a state-issued identification card in Georgia may be useful to this discussion. A state-issued ID card costs $20 for 5 years or $35 for 10 years. First time applicants must provide a birth certificate, a passport or the equivalent. Non-citizens must provide sufficient INS documentation to show that they are not in the country illegally.

Frankly, I’m with Dan Blather on this one. A national ID card issued free of charge upon presentation of adequate documentation would solve a lot of problems, IMNSHO.

32

[QUOTE=lissener]
Issues of security are bullshit: what, we’re afraid the terrorists are gonna vote?
[/QUOTE]

No, we’re afraid illegal immigrants will. It’s at all unreasonable to insist that someone showing up at a polling place should be able to prove that they are who they say they are. If that causes hardship for some people, well, that’s just too bad for them.

And if someone’s not willing to go through even so little trouble and expense as that to vote, then the country’s probably better off with him not voting.

33

That should read, "It’s not at all unreasonable … " :smack:

34

Voters already have to prove their identity at the polls. And the problem with “if that causes hardship for some people” is that the “some people” are minority voters.

I’m not going to offer a response to your basic point here (although I disagree with it) - but I think the real problem is, what if someone’s not ABLE to go to that trouble and expense?

…

Let’s look back at the GA voter ID law - it’s a good example of the problems of voter ID laws and their practical implementation. The real problem, as we saw in GA, is that the state governments (and I’ll say it, particularly in Southern states) cannot be trusted to enact a fair law.

The GA law was a fiasco. It required voters to go to the DMV in order to get a voter ID card. However, there are only DMV offices in fewer than 1/2 of the counties in GA AND there was no DMV in Atlanta! Atlanta! The capital of the state with a substantial black majority. The closest DMV to Atlanta was 9 miles away. Moreover, empirical data showed that more white Georgians owned a car than black Georgians, thus providing white Georgians with more access to the DMV offices.

There were also other problems - there was no definition of how “indigent” one had to be in order to get the fee waived, for example. This level of ambiguity offered the opportunity for an unscrupulous DMV employee to restrict access to the polls - not unlike the literacy testgivers of old.

The end result of the GA law - whether intended or incidental - was to disenfranchise minority voters.

The basic gist of this is that a voter ID card is not a bad idea in principle - as it standardizes voter identification - but, upon implementation, problems of racism, partisanship, etc. crop up. These problems should not be dismissed out of hand as people “not making the effort” or “not willing to make as much effort as they would make getting a driver’s license.”

35

[QUOTE=LonesomePolecat]
No, we’re afraid illegal immigrants will.
[/QUOTE]
And to get back to the OP, is this fear based in reality? Is this really a problem that needs solving? Or will it just become another layer of big-government red tape with unintended consequences we won’t come to fully regret until it is irreversibly ensconced in hide-bound bureaucracy?

36

[QUOTE=LonesomePolecat]
And if someone’s not willing to go through even so little trouble and expense as that to vote, then the country’s probably better off with him not voting.
[/QUOTE]

Who says what is reasonable? Would you want to pay $500 for a voter ID? And if you didn’t want to spend that money, would the country be better off without you voting? For some people, it would be harder for them to come up with $35 than it would for you to come up with $500.

Do we mean the phrase “all men are created equal”? Or just those that can afford to pay a fee to vote?

And exactly what problem are we trying to solve? Just how many illegal votes are recorded each year? And is it worth disenfranchising the poor just to block those few illegal voters?

37

[QUOTE=Lynn Bodoni]
As I recall, originally voting was restricted to free (as opposed to slave or indentured) males over 21 who owned a certain amount of land. Females, minorities, and the poor didn’t have the right to vote.
[/QUOTE]

This is fairly accurate. The requirement was essentially that a person had to be a “freeholder” which meant owning a farm of enough size to support a family ( the exact measurements varied ) or a smaller ( but generally more expensive ) lot in town or be a taxpayer. Minorities were not generally excluded in what we nowadays would consider “the North” in the 18th century but subsequently racial lines hardened and that changed both legally and extralegally ( as in, “the law may say you can vote, Injun, but…” ). Also New Jersey’s original state constitution didn’t specify that a freeholder had to be male so that in that state some women ( essentially only widows ) could and did vote. When New Jersey adopted a new constitution in 1801 they corrected that oversite.

Another factor often overlooked is religion. States had various religious tests which were enforced to varying degrees. In some places Catholics and Jews could vote but mostly you had to be Protestant. Here in the Quaker State they actually had a test oath that prevented Quakers from voting though it was soon ignored as were property requirements. At the time the Constitution was ratified, in practice in Penna, which had the most developed democratic tradition, pretty much any free male could vote if he wanted to.

The move toward de jure universal free white male suffrage actually got started in the South where it was the most useful in seperating whites from blacks. South Carolina was the first of the original state to achieve it and Rhode Island the last in 1843 after the Dorr Rebellion. New states entering the Union didn’t have property requirements ( though some specified that only taxpayers could vote ). Here’s an interesting paper on the subject ( WARNING PDF ).

Just my 2sense

38

[QUOTE=cosmosdan]
An insult to our founding fathers and our Constitution. We don’t need more of that crap.
[/QUOTE]

Were those the founding fathers that created the system in which women and balcks were not permitted to vote at all? Or am I thinking of some different founding fathers?

39

[QUOTE=Doctor Who]
Let’s look back at the GA voter ID law - it’s a good example of the problems of voter ID laws and their practical implementation. The real problem, as we saw in GA, is that the state governments (and I’ll say it, particularly in Southern states) cannot be trusted to enact a fair law.
[/quote]

Yeah, 'cuz as we all know, there’s never been any funny business with the polls in Northern states … :rolleyes:

[QUOTE=Doctor Who]
The GA law was a fiasco. It required voters to go to the DMV in order to get a voter ID card. However, there are only DMV offices in fewer than 1/2 of the counties in GA AND there was no DMV in Atlanta! Atlanta! The capital of the state with a substantial black majority. The closest DMV to Atlanta was 9 miles away. Moreover, empirical data showed that more white Georgians owned a car than black Georgians, thus providing white Georgians with more access to the DMV offices.
[/quote]

I’ve lived my entire life in Georgia, and I’ve never had any trouble finding a DMV office when I needed my license renewed–even when I didn’t own a car for more than ten years. This simply isn’t the barrier you’ve made it out to be.

[QUOTE=Doctor Who]
There were also other problems - there was no definition of how “indigent” one had to be in order to get the fee waived, for example. This level of ambiguity offered the opportunity for an unscrupulous DMV employee to restrict access to the polls - not unlike the literacy testgivers of old.
[/quote]

In that case, why don’t folks like you create some kind of fund to pay fees for them? There isn’t any way that every law can be made perfectly fair for everyone. Perhaps the people who claim to be so concerned about the problem should accept some personal responsibility for solving it.

And there’s no comparison with the literacy tests of old, as you haven’t proven that DMV employees in the state clearly discriminate on the basis of race. You are perhaps making the mistake of assuming that DMV employees in Georgia are all, or almost all, white and racist.

At worst, the law only needs some tweaking, not to be scrapped altogether.

[QUOTE=Doctor Who]
The end result of the GA law - whether intended or incidental - was to disenfranchise minority voters.
[/quote]

I haven’t seen any real proof of this, only unsupported assertions by opponents of the law.

[QUOTE=Doctor Who]
The basic gist of this is that a voter ID card is not a bad idea in principle - as it standardizes voter identification - but, upon implementation, problems of racism, partisanship, etc. crop up. These problems should not be dismissed out of hand as people “not making the effort” or “not willing to make as much effort as they would make getting a driver’s license.”
[/QUOTE]

(shrug) Now, come on. It just isn’t that difficult to get the necessary ID. If someone won’t go through at least as much trouble to vote as he will to renew a driver’s licence, do we really want him voting in the first place?

40

[QUOTE=Bricker]
Were those the founding fathers that created the system in which women and balcks were not permitted to vote at all? Or am I thinking of some different founding fathers?
[/QUOTE]

In my defense, when I typed this, I failed to hit submit… and subsequent to that, the point I was making was made eloquently by others. Then I came back and hit ‘submit’ without previwing to see what time had wrought.

Somehow, I feel I look less like an idiot if I explain the steps that brought me to looking like an idiot.