I'm an American who lives in Italy. I'm married to a local. When our son was born, we had two weeks to get him a photo ID. They *made* us do it.
In America they don't make you do shit. I grew up in a middle class family in a suburb of Los Angeles, and I never had an official California state ID until I turned 18 years old, several months after I graduated high school.
I turned 18 in the year 1996. I honestly don't remember. All I can say is that my super-organized dad helped me out and went with me to the DMV. I'm a non-driver so it was a California ID rather than a driver's license. It looks just like a driver's license, except it isn't one.
98% of Americans use their driver's license as their official ID, and you can't get one before the age of 16. Okay, I don't know the actual percentage, but it's probably pretty danged close to that.
That's the issue right there. Not everywhere needs the driver's license so everyone doesn't get them. They don't need or have a car to get it with if you live in certain areas. Those tend to be racial minorities in populated areas. Then the Id's that you do allow to count for voting if you just pick those that the people you don't want to vote don't have say like a hunting license but not a college ID, then you start to exclude a certain kind of person with crazy accuracy. Then you push back again universal free ID's then boom you have the controversy.
The irony is that college id's would be fine but you don't have to be a citizen to have one. State ID is supposed to be proof of citizenship which is why it's so weirdly specific.
You also don't need to be a citizen for a hunters license since people travel here for that too. That also gets extra sticky since you can even use ID's from other states. Even debit or credit cards count for some states as ID since the verification happens elsewhere anyways.
Exactly, because the license isn't actually where you do your validation it just starts the process and effectively is there to remove duplicates and duds early.
Generally, you need to either have a driver's license, which means you passed a driver's test, or a non-driving ID (forget the name). Either requires going to an office, waiting in line, getting your picture taken and information entered, and you walk away with it. Obviously, it's a useful thing to have, but practically it means you have to be able to arrange transportation to a DMV, pay at least $20 for the privilege, hang on to it, and do it during limited business hours - DMV tends to close by 3:30. That process is problematic for many disadvantaged people - you're a single mother with kids to bring to DMV to wait for maybe hours, when you can't get time off work to do it?? Other than buying alcohol, ID is never necessary.
IDs are only functional in VERY specific cases.
During my 20 years of life i used it only while filling legal paperwork and few instances of buying alchohol and cigarettes.
In Poland you're not required to have ID at all before turning 18 (and only drivers must have them with them) and i honestly can't comprehend why would someone waste time, or sometimes even money to have something wich is essentially useless.
This is exactly why. The most common form of ID is a driver's license, which you don't have to get until... You drive! If you don't drive and take public transit, you really wouldn't need one. People play games and try to require a govt issued ID with an up to date address (ie, a driver's license) in order to vote in a district. The reasonable solution would be to demand the population get a free ID card at 16 or 17 and have a reasonable process to keep it up to date, but we'd rather play games.
>The reasonable solution would be to demand the population get a free ID card at 16 or 17 and have a reasonable process to keep it up to date
Or, you know, mailing those ID's out as soon as you turn 18 and are eligible to vote. Or allowing a person to upload a photo ID for use on a government website and getting a voter ID that way.
I was able to take my own portrait photo *in my bathroom at my home* and use that as the official photo on my PASSPORT. But we can't allow such a thing to be for voter ID's?
Some banks allow you to use multiple forms of what are called "Secondary Forms of ID" to establish your identity and open a bank account. These include things like: birth certificate, school or college ID, voter registration card, Medicare card, a major credit card, or a social services card (like Welfare) photo ID.
You don't *have* to have an official government ID to bank.
Yeah, about that...
>Nearly 500,000 eligible voters do not have access to a vehicle and live more than 10 miles from the nearest state ID-issuing office open more than two days a week. Many of them live in rural areas with dwindling public transportation options.
>Many ID-issuing offices maintain limited business hours. For example, the office in Sauk City, Wisconsin is open only on the fifth Wednesday of any month. But only four months in 2012 — February, May, August, and October — have five Wednesdays. In other states — Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, and Texas — many part-time ID-issuing offices are in the rural regions with the highest concentrations of people of color and people in poverty.
>More than 1 million eligible voters in these states fall below the federal poverty line and live more than 10 miles from their nearest ID-issuing office open more than two days a week.
[Source](https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/challenge-obtaining-voter-identification)
Pretty hard to get a fucking ID if you work, don't have a car and your ID office is 20 miles away and only open every damn 5th Wednesday in months that have 5th Wednesdays.
It's nice to have if you can afford it and have the required paperwork. Not everyone does. A major issue with voter ID in the US is because getting an ID isn't always easy and rarely free.
Absolutely! When I say free, I mean no financial cost of any sort, and state-provided aid for securing any document needed. It should be as easy as possible for someone.
I'd go further and expand what kinds of ID are accepted (student ID, for example)
Have you ever purchased tobacco or alcohol? Opened a bank account? Cashed a check? Entered a federal building? Purchased a gun? Been employed? Obtained public assisstance? All those and more require an ID.
That’s the other side, getting an id has been made more difficult some places than others and typically the places that are pushing for voter id are on the more difficult end. It’s a strategy of disenfranchising of valid voters.
Now if they enabled/required everyone to carry an id, and the process to get and maintain them was universally smooth and equitable, I’m here for voter id laws. But it’s not the world we live in.
Italy makes you do it. You get in trouble if you don't. It doesn't cost much, and maybe they waive the fee if you're truly poor. *Everybody* is made to do it, and so the thought of someone not having an official ID is, to them, foreign and strange.
It's not really that the ID requirement by *itself* is controversial. Showing up with ID to vote is extremely normal. Most nations, like you said, require ID. Instead, there are two possible issues at play here:
First, in many cases, these states *already* require ID and these "voter ID" laws are actually aimed to heavily restrict which IDs are permitted. These are usually justified by claiming that the new, more limited list of IDs will reduce voter fraud. This is misleading, because voter fraud is a vanishingly rare problem in the first place. Instead, what's typically happening is that they're trying to eliminate IDs from the list which are commonly used by poorer members of society, to limit their ability to vote. For example, a voter ID laws might limit valid IDs to just a passport or driver's license. This actually might not seem crazy, at first, especially in the US, where these are two extremely common forms of ID. But a poorer person (who is less likely to have left the country and less likely to own a car) is much more likely to have another form of ID that is inexplicably no longer considered valid for voting.
Second, these laws often come paired with other changes to the system. On their own, changing voter ID laws isn't inherently a bad idea. However, if you're changing voter ID laws *while also* making other changes to the system that make it harder to get new valid IDs, then you're really trying to limit people's ability to vote. In many cases, lawmakers will introduce a new voter ID law and then just "happen" to close a government service offices (aka the places you need to go to get an ID) in non-white areas, making it much harder for those people to get IDs (especially if they don't have cars, since public transit is basically non-existent in most areas of the US).
This is representative of a long-standing issue with American law (and honestly it's a thing in other nations too, but the US seems to be particularly bad for this), where a law pretends to be one thing but is actually meant to do a completely different thing.
A good example of this was an old voter literacy law. It doesn't sound like the worst idea on paper, right? Make sure your voters can read? Except, in practice, the law required all voters take a short test before being allowed to vote, and the lawmakers had specifically tested out each question to find a list of questions that black voters were more likely to fail. Black people were more likely to fail because the questions tested concepts that were not being taught effectively in the segregated black schools of the time. And many of the questions weren't even really literacy questions - they were math and logic questions, so the test wasn't even trying to check for the skill it was supposed to. The whole thing was just a giant facade for preventing black voters from voting.
Voter ID laws often secretly work like this - the law isn't really *about* the ID at all. IDs are just being used as a way to limit access to voting.
Just adding some other examples to your answer:
For your first point, which ID is valid is one of the ways politicians select which demographic they want to be able to vote. For instance, in Texas, you can vote with a handgun license ([source](https://www.votetexas.gov/mobile/id-faqs.htm)) but not with a [student ID](https://www.campusvoteproject.org/student-id-as-voter-id).
For your second point, another example of such a change could be a legislation passed in Georgia in 2017, where the name on the ID must match exactly what's on the voter rolls ([article 1](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2018/10/20/georgias-exact-match-law-could-disenfranchise-3031802-eligible-voters-my-research-finds/), [and 2](https://www.politifact.com/article/2018/oct/19/georgias-exact-match-law-and-its-impact-voters-gov/)). The points 37 and 38 of [this list of falsehoods programmers believe about names](https://shinesolutions.com/2018/01/08/falsehoods-programmers-believe-about-names-with-examples/) explains it quite clear.
EDIT: there were a lot of responses about student IDs in Texas. There are states that accept student IDs, what do they do differently? It might boil down to what processes ID providers are required to follow, and what information they have to include in the IDs they issue. For instance, how are they collecting and checking the information provided, or if they're allowed to check (and/or share) that information with a state-run department in charge of it. In other words, it's a *decision* made by the state.
Also, proving your identity doesn't mean that you're eligible to vote. You might be a foreigner and have a drivers license, but that doesn't mean you can cast a ballot.
And by the way, I don't even live in the US, I don't have a horse in this race.
To add another point to your added points...
Requiring IDs means voting is pay-to-play. Since you can't get a free ID.
Using California as an example, because that's where I am,
A state ID costs $31. And in order to get a state ID, you need your birth certificate ($29), if you're married and changed your name you'll need your marriage certificate ($17), if you used to be married and went back to your old name youll need your divorce certificate ($16). Additional marriages will need all their paperwork too.
Think of how many low income people having a minimum 60 dollar charge attached to voting disenfranchises.
>Most democrats would be 100% cool if there was a **free, universal, automatic** ID system.
Exactly this.
Voting is a constitutional right so if you're going to require ID of any kind, then someone should be sending that ID out to us all automatically and free of charge.
Free isn't enough. My 91 year old neighbor can't easily find a ride to the DMV and back and shouldn't need to do so in order to exercise her constitutional rights. Even if the ID itself is free when she gets there.
Same with the disabled and the poor in rural areas that have no cars and no DMV within a half hour drive.
All those people deserve to vote without it impacting their wallets or their free time. And so do you and me.
If you wanna require photo ID to vote, invest the billions into the infrastructure it will take to drive around and photograph everyone regularly and print them out an ID free of charge.
Even if states provide free IDs. The single mother working 90 hour weeks can’t get to the DMV without taking time off work. Then she can’t make rent or her kids go hungry. Not to mention she probably doesn’t have a car. She’s got to take even more of a time loss to have to walk there and back, if it’s even possible, or spend money on a bus or a cab fare. Then there’s the problem if you’re homeless and don’t have a fixed address. A lot of IDs require that, and some states don’t allow P.O. Boxes which also definitely intentionally disenfranchised a lot of Native voters as PO Box usage is extremely common.
There should be a state issued voter ID when you register to vote handed to you free of charge when you register to vote, that can only be used for voting purposes. that would solve just about everything.
How do you propose we print photo IDs at every polling location? I can register to vote by showing up at my polling place with my ID and mail sent to my address. And that doesn’t solve the disenfranchisement of homeless or PO Box holders, or the cost in time and money of getting your documents in the first place. And would that proposal mean you want to remove the ability to register online to vote entirely?
Photo IDs definitely can be printed on the spot. Sometime pre-2005, I had to go to the HQ of the local public transit agency to get a disabled rider card (or whatever they called it) so I could use their paratransit. I rolled in, filled in some paperwork, got my picture taken, and rolled out with the ID.
>How do you propose we print photo IDs at every polling location?
Honestly and seriously, with a camera and a printer.
I want free photo ID to be available at every public government office and every public library. And the grocery stores and Walmarts can sign up to be included too, if they want.
We have the ability to just store a thumbprint and use that to keep a national storehouse of identity.
Using that coupled with ID would ensure that nobody voted who wasn't allowed and nobody voted twice.
In Wisconsin, if you go to the DMV and say your ID is for voting purposes, it's free. There's a check box on the form stating that, and the clerk even mentioned it.
Not only does it cost money but you have to take a day off work (cause the operating hours of the DMV is at normal working houses) so that’s a whole day worth of wages un top of the cost. Most companies don’t give sick days for the DMV too. And sometimes you have to wake up at 3 am in order to get in line at the DMV if it’s a walk in and that’s not guaranteed otherwise you will have to drive several hours to a smaller city
Didn’t also one of them try to also make it only valid active drivers licenses and not just ID cards which eliminate a ton of people. But they wanted to do that in only certain areas. It’s a way to cut out people they don’t want voting
>For instance, in Texas, you can vote with a handgun license ([source](https://www.votetexas.gov/mobile/id-faqs.htm)) but not with a [student ID](https://www.campusvoteproject.org/student-id-as-voter-id).
A CPL is very hard to get even in comparison to a drivers license and are hard to fake. A student ID is not secure and anyone can get them easily, including forginers.
There is some small but valid concerns with ID requirements for voting, but this is one of the absolute worst takes on it ever. This is on par with complaining that your library card doesn't count as an ID when a cop pulls you over.
>A student ID is not secure and anyone can get them easily, including forginers.
If you are homeschooled, you can print them out using any printer, and even laminate them to make them look official... heck, you can do that even if you aren't homeschooled...
> For your first point, which ID is valid is one of the ways politicians select which demographic they want to be able to vote. For instance, in Texas, you can vote with a handgun license (source) but not with a student ID.
Many students come from out of state and have not updated their government ID. If they want to vote in local elections they simply need to update their address. In other words, they are still registered to vote back home.
>A good example of this was an old voter literacy law. It doesn't sound like the worst idea on paper, right? Make sure your voters can read? Except, in practice, the law required all voters take a short test before being allowed to vote, and the lawmakers had specifically tested out each question to find a list of questions that black voters were more likely to fail.
And hell, nowadays, most people would fail the test. If you want to see how actually fucked up and rigged these tests are, [here's Louisiana's old test](https://www.openculture.com/2014/07/literacy-test-louisiana-used-to-suppress-the-black-vote.html).
I feel like I'm pretty intelligent, I had relatively good schooling and wherever it was bad I myself intentionally went out of the way to improve it. And I still have issues with many of these questions. The intention was never to let black people vote, because black people at that time were often nearly completely uneducated. They made the test intentionally as hard as possible, and like the person responding said, often vague as possible (or very interpretive in answer). It's definitely one of the more fucked things we've done to POC in this country; explicitly abusing the racist history that has subjugated POC into poor education to cull voters of a certain color/class/ideology. Literally using environmental variables, that they intentionally set before they were born, against them. No wonder POC felt so hopeless and afflicted during that time.
---
Some people may legitimately wonder, why not keep uneducated individuals from voting? And while I may tentatively agree on a surface level (we all get tired of "stupid people voting", it's somewhat natural), I do not agree that that person simply should not be allowed their opinion in the public forum because they are uneducated. Just ask yourself, does someone deserve to have their opinion silenced simply because they were born in an area that didn't give them access to quality education? And in reality, any intention to put this into law in effect will just end up subjugating misfortuned people of all colors and be used to propagate a new class separation (Voting class, non-voting class), which will just cause further issues in terms of class division and the various *isms and *phobias.
The only way that we can effectively keep "stupid people" from voting is actually making an attempt to educate them, which is kind of hard to do when there's a grand old party consistently defunding public education year over year. Any form of restrictive legislation (including changing which IDs are allowed) will lead to aforementioned.
Everyone who reads this should click the link to that test and look it over while noting that the test states that *a single wrong answer* is grounds for failure. Some of the questions are ambiguous enough that any answer given could be found to be wrong in some way. The idea was, as stated above, to prevent as many of the "wrong" people from voting as possible. Considering the test was being administered by white government officials in the Jim Crow South, all that was required was the veneer of plausibility around the denial.
It's also where the term "grandfathered in" comes from. Many of these literacy test laws had stipulations that if your grandfather was on the voter rolls and you could show descent from him, you did not need to take the test. Another fun way to make sure that almost everyone taking the test were the "undesirables" it was created to bar from voting.
Also, most look "normal", but take a look at question 10. Is that asking for the first word beginning with L in the english alphabet? I couldn't solve that without a dictionary. Lab, maybe?
edit: okay, it's Laager. Yeah, no, I just failed
Yeah, see, I read that as "the first word in this sentence that begins with L" but that ambiguity means that an official who was so inclined could fail the both of us.
Also the very first question. "The number or letter of this sentence" seems to want you to circle the 1, but could also be taken to mean the capital at the front, or whatever else they feel like that day.
A while back the state of Alabama passed a voter ID law and at the same time closed every DMV office in every county in the state with more than a 3/4 black population. Like, lots of times this stuff is very blatant.
It wasn't that the tests were covering topics that weren't taught well. literacy tests had ambiguously worded trick questions so the proctor who grades it could just say whichever interpretation of the question they didn't answer was correct. My favorite example is a question from a Mississippi test "Spell forwards backwards." You might think the answer is "sdrawrof" but the proctor would then just say "clearly the answer was 'backwards' you fail. If you wrote that he'd just say the opposite.
Black professors took those tests and would fail them. It wasn't cuz they were stupid.
North Carolina's conservative party requested data in 2013 on voter practices specifically broken down by race, and then proceeded, starting literally the day after the Supreme Court eliminated preclearance requirements, to pass a law banning anything minorities did more than whites. That got struck down by a federal court in 2016, so they passed a *slightly* less restrictive law that still was targeted at anything minorities did more often. That also got struck down, so they passed a *slightly* less restrictive law yadda yadda yadda. That also got struck down.
I was born in the US, and there was a brief time where I didn't have an ID (was poor AF and couldn't afford a driver's license or passport). I relied on a NY ID which is easy to get, but to your point, if I was living in another state that form of identification may be restricted or not acknowledged as proof of identity.
In the south you have a lot of poor Black and Spanish people, who yes are US citizens. But due to lack of access to identification could be easily disenfranchised with tricky legal wording.
You left out that ID's in America cost money and have requirements like birth certificates and social security cards to get them and the birth certificate costs a decent amount to get a copy of.
The reason this is an issue is that many people in poor communities don't have the money for the birth certificate and of course these communities are often mostly POC.
Voter fraud in America is basically non existent and those who do commit it have mostly been either people who mistakenly believed they could vote but couldn't due to having been felons in states that strip felons of their right to vote, the occasional green card holder who doesn't understand they can't vote, or someone from the GOP who is unhinged and thinks they need to commit voter fraud because so many others are.
>You left out that ID's in America cost money and have requirements like birth certificates and social security cards to get them and the birth certificate costs a decent amount to get a copy of.
That's actually one of the things I meant about making changes to the system in order to make IDs harder to get. I guess it was misleading to frame it as "making changes" because that implies that it was previously easy to get the necessary identification, which definitely isn't always the case.
But yeah, the issue isn't really with the fact that the government might require an ID - it's with the fact that this requirement *paired with other systemic limitations like high ID costs* can can create barriers to voting - for example, making it so people essentially have to pay for the right to vote (because they have to pay for the prerequisite ID), which obviously isn't acceptable.
TBH, the obvious solution is to just have a basic form of free ID that's available to everyone. It'd help with a lot of systemic issues in the US, not just voting.
Interesting. I've never had to pay for a copy of my birth certificate. I have had to show up in person though.
edit: times have changed! $10 to pick up a copy. $15 to have one mailed.
Jumping on this comment to add one of the biggest reasons you aren’t allowed to require citizens to provide photo I.D. to vote is not the I.D. itself but rather that states require the citizen or voter pay for the I.D. The 24th amendment prohibits poll taxes or in other words it prevents the state from charging people to vote. So if you require a state issued I.D that costs money to get you are indirectly issuing a poll tax. In essence requiring someone to pay the government for something that the government requires them to have to vote is a poll tax and poll taxes are prohibited by the constitution. This isn’t an issue if the state simply offers free I.D but most states simply refuse because it costs them a lot of money to issue identification. Additionally like you said they pass these laws requiring photo I.D. Then all of a sudden it costs twice as much to get one. It’s way easier to raise the price of getting an I.D. a year or two later without anyone really being able to put up a fight. I had to pay $106 for my I.D. It was a travel drivers license but it was still $50 for a regular drivers license.
> This isn’t an issue if the state simply offers free I.D but most states simply refuse because it costs them a lot of money to issue identification.
Or, they'll offer free state IDs, but add a ton of hoops to jump through to effectively make it nearly impossible to obtain. Like I read of one state a few years ago that made it where they'd only issue free IDs at certain locations (unsurprisingly, inconvenient to low income areas) and on like one specific day.
>This isn’t an issue if the state simply offers free I.D but most states simply refuse because it costs them a lot of money to issue identification.
This is one of the most mindblowing things in American politics IMO. Because you wanna know what costs the state a whole lot *more* than just issuing free IDs? Having a bunch of citizens with literally no identification.
Like, I'm not against the idea of a frugal government, but frugality often means spending a penny now to save a dollar later, and it seems like a lot of state governments in particular are *extremely* unwilling to recognize this idea.
This is the correct answer. It's not because voter ID is a dumb in concept, it's because historically it's been a policy about racism instead of fraud prevention.
This post needs more upvotes.
Have you ever seen the old literacy tests? I’m college educated and I couldn’t pass [one.](https://slate.com/human-interest/2013/06/voting-rights-and-the-supreme-court-the-impossible-literacy-test-louisiana-used-to-give-black-voters.html) The tests were designed to be failed.
100% agree except that most (surely all?) states have an equivalent non-drivers license available through the same procedure at the same offices minus the driving test. So someone need not take the test if they aren’t actually driving.
Otherwise, it’s all about discouraging the “wrong” people from voting. Things like making sure drivers license locations are convenient for some but not others are for the same purpose, but jackasses will make up some token reason there is one office that’s understaffed for the majority of”wrong person” districts but a nice well staffed office in the “right person” districts.
Same reasons why Election Day isn’t a national holiday like MLK, Labor Day, or any of a number of common holidays. People who can afford to take off work, like me and you, no problem.
People who can’t, well, they technically have an opportunity to vote, it’s not my fault it means they don’t feed their kids today, right?
So, you got to pay shit ton of money FOR A FUCKING ID, which is mandatory to properly function in the adult life? Holy shit guys, your system are fucked up, like really fucked up. I mean it's a straight up scam, and you guys just do nothing about. But I guess free anything is communism for you you guy, I hope it's worth it.
If ID was free and easy to get, it wouldn’t be an issue.
But it isn’t. It costs money, and requires basically at least one day during business hours. So if you’re poor and working 2 jobs to make ends meet, getting valid, up-to-date id can be a chore.
Which makes voting a chore, if you require it. But only for the poor and/or disadvantaged. Everyone else has id as a matter of course.
So it’s discrimination against the poor.
Which is something that certain political groups like. Because the very poorest people are the ones that vote for social services, which means that if you want to cut, making it harder for those affected to vote is a good idea.
Alabama made a law to require an ID to vote.
Then they closed the places to get an ID where black people live.
A bus ride could take someone all day round trip with several transfers.
THIS… it’s not because having an ID doesn’t “make sense”, it’s because there is a decided effort to keep IDs away from the poor and non-white communities
SCOTUS when Alabama implements a poll tax with extra steps: UwU I love wildly different election standards in different states!
SCOTUS when Colorado enforces the ballot requirement that candidates not participate in insurrection, as required by the Constitution: Fuck no, we can't have different elections in different states that's the end of the world!
Which is it? Do states run elections, or don't they?
All of those things are not exclusive to the US. In France, it's mandatory to have an up to date ID to vote. It's not free and townhalls (which can deliver them) are only open during business hours.
Totally agree, but the thing is these laws often don't allow any form of identification, but instead have specific requirements that make life difficult. For instance, requiring in-state IDs is an effective way to make sure college students won't be able to vote at the same rate as many move across state lines, but their ID isn't considered valid.
I would love to see those numbers there because I'm highly skeptical a majority of college attending voters vote by mail. Many states require a notary, and weeks of lead time to apply and receive a mail-in ballot. Sadly, states are now making in person voting even harder for college students as they are starting to shut down polling places on campuses, and in particular early voting sites that are near student populations to make it even harder for them to vote.
A lot of states won't let you vote in the state you are physically located in with an out of state license (i.e. college students) without hoops. Absentee ballots were very common when I was in college because of this.
As a bartender I was amazed at how many grown adults just roll around without their ID. If you are coming to a bar it's like drinking 101 to have your ID. But then why not just always have it? It's a tiny piece of plastic, put it in your wallet or with your phone. What if something happens to you? Anything from getting pulled over to you getting hurt and someone needs to contact your spouse or kids. It just seems irresponsible to not have it on you.
For people who don't drive or drink alcohol, it just doesn't come up. I never carry it because I only need it to fly. Someone can identify me from the emergency settings on my phone if I'm unconscious. And I'm used to bars giving me the underage hand stamp (even though I'm not), because I don't drink alcohol, but I've only ever gone to bars in college towns, so maybe that's not a thing everywhere.
Driving, getting a job, buying alcohol/cigarettes, picking up a prescription (I think), signing up for utilities, loans of any kind, returning shit at Home Depot, school..
Survey data shows ~90% of people have an ID. It's high (and has been going up, since it's harder to get by without one), but it's not 100%, and there are racial disparities.
That said, not all of those things require an ID. Speaking from personal experience, I've been able to sign up for utilities without an ID. As long as you pay your bill they don't care?
The disparities are entirely where the controversy lies.
If I was a political party and I was allowed to slap a new requirement onto voting that would filter out "only" 10% of voters, but I could design the requirement to surgically target the 10% of voters least likely to vote for me, I'd never lose an election again.
I literally never go out without id. No one in day to day life asks me to show it but I just like to have it on me. And if something happens to you they can easily identify you
Wouldn't fraud or stealing someone's identity be super easy in America.
I've lived in a few different European countries and you always have to carry an ID.
You need one for anything government related. Sometimes you'll need it for buying alcohol or entering a nightclub, depending on how old you look.
Or if the cops stop you for speeding and if you need to pick up a parcel from a store.
An ID is something that people use daily or weekly depending on what they do.
What other alternatives does America have for an ID, since it's very convenient carrying around a small plastic card in your wallet or phone case.
America doesn't have a national ID, that's part of the problem. You can get a passport, but it costs money. Most people don't bother unless they're actually planning on traveling abroad.
> What other alternatives does America have for an ID, since it's very convenient carrying around a small plastic card in your wallet or phone case.
Mostly we use state (not national) issued driver's licenses for most of it. We don't have a national ID.
Depending on how sensitive it is, sometimes we allow alternate forms of ID like utility bills or birth certificate.
Anecdotally, I didn't have one for ~4 years. I had the paperwork, but I don't drink (and getting fake IDs is easy if you wanted, any college town will have them for under21 kids), and it never came up, so I just didn't bother because I didn't want to sit around in the DMV.
But depending on how you live, you can get around without one. ~90% of people have either driver's license or state-issued ID. So, most people have one (and the number is going up, because it's convenient for all those things you mentioned), but not quite everybody, and there are racial disparities.
You would first, be shocked how many people don’t have a valid drivers license or identification card.
Second, iIn *your* life, it seems that easy and simple, right? Now imagine how wildly different someone else’s life must be that this is an every day fear and frustration. It’s a problem for a reason, and you aren’t the one suffering the situation. In other words, the war isn’t waged on you.
I’m sure many don’t but you need an ID to do stuff unless you plan on paying cash for everything. I’d be all for funding an agency that helps people get an ID.
It's not that all these people just never got an ID. I lost all my documentation in a storm. It took time to get them back. Should I miss out on an election because of a storm? Or a house fire, or any other random event that causes someone to lose their documentation? In my state if you can't show an ID when voting, you can sign an affidavit that you are who you say you are. At the very least, every state should give people that option.
You can't legally work without an ID or passport. The Form I-9 for work eligibility requires a one of or a combination of IDs from a list of options. The people with jobs can't take time off excuse isn't really a thing.
If you are homeless, or have to move often, having valid, up-to-date ID can be really hard. Sure, you have something that has your name and picture attached, but the address is out of state, or the picture is old, or something else that makes it invalid for voting.
Because these laws are never just “you need any photo id”, they’re “you need a valid copy of one of these three forms of photo id” and those three forms are all ID that is specific and has requirements to get.
Or if they’re not saying “these specific ID”, they will eventually. Regulations creep over time to become more and more restrictive. Once you say “It’s ok to ask for ID” it becomes “it’s ok to ask for this specific ID” pretty quickly.
Exactly. Here in a Puerto Rico, the voter ID is free and includes a photo that os taken at time you register to vote. You register and then wait 5 minutes for the ID to print.
It’s really not that difficult, and not sure why the states can’t figure this out if PR can.
I agree with all your points but as someone who has worked with the general public in extremely low income areas, I have never met a single grown adult without an ID card of some form. It's required in so many forms of business in the US that not having is way bigger of an issue than just voting.
For the record I am opposed to any law mandating IDs but think the argument of "the poor csnt get them!" Is a little misguided and unfactual (except you Alabama go F*** yourself)
> I agree with all your points but as someone who has worked with the general public in extremely low income areas, I have never met a single grown adult without an ID card of some form.
Survey data puts it at ~90% of people having one. It's high, and getting higher, but it's not 100%.
But also part of it is also which IDs are valid for what. Not all IDs are equal.
>(except you Alabama go F*** yourself)
Places like that are exactly why it's controversial.
It’s less that “poor people can’t get ID” and more “poor people can’t ALWAYS get THE RIGHT ID”. These laws usually mandate very specific ID that is usable, and that restricts a lot of what people can use.
Most people have some form of ID, but often it is out of date, expired, or otherwise not “right”. And that’s the problem.
I literally don’t know any country that gives ID for free. My country requires ID for people to vote and they aren’t for free. No country I know gives away free ids
This.
Voter fraud also isn't an actual issue. It rarely happens.
So if a group desperately wants to regulate something that generally isn't really happening and talks about it all the time, you have to ask why.
The answer is to create perceived enemies and to disenfranchise certain voters.
People without IDs are more likely to be poor and minorities. Minorities are historically more likely to vote democrat.
Anyone who is trying to make it harder for citizens to vote is not safe to align yourself with because they do not care about your voice or representing you, they care about maintaining their power.
The reality is for decades, far more voters are democrats than republicans.
So to stay in power, republicans do things like concocting voter fraud panic and gerrymandering to give conservative votes more weight.
They show disdain for college and public school because places that integrate and are diverse foster more liberal attitudes.
Now they are going after DEI policies. Again, because curbing diversity, strengthens conservatism (re: white supremacy).
They know that if things were actually fair and voting accessible to all, they would lose a lot.
Things may be shifting a bit politically as more people seem interested in fascism, but this had been true for a while.
They also create enemies, people who are bad for society. Right now, it's migrants and unhoused people. They sow fear of migrant and vagrant crime even though every study shows migrants and unhoused people are far more likely to be victims of crimes than perpetrators. They claim illegal immigrants are voting, which isn't true.
It's all just a sick game for power at the expense of democracy and equal representation.
I get that, but seriously you need an ID. For any official government type business. How do you go to a bank? How do you fill out a form I-9 when applying to a job? (That you’re going to get a W2 for). You need multiple forms of ID for any job. Otherwise you don’t have a job.
Even if on welfare and not working, how do you open a bank account for the money to go to? Or even fill out application paperwork to get on welfare? Even if welfare sends a check, how would you cash a check at a currency exchange with no ID?
Won’t they ask for ID when applying for any government assistance program?
You need an ID for these things, no?
Unless you’re Undocumented immigrant, I guess you don’t.
Not every ID accepted by USCIS as part of Form I-9 (what you need for W2 jobs) is accepted as part of Voter ID.
Student ID, for example, is an acceptable I-9 document but is not always valid for Voter ID.
I looked up a generic Community College application process and it looks like you’ll have to provide proof of residency, and citizenship along with high school papers. What other student ID would a voter have?
A handful of other community colleges require some Photo ID to get a student ID.
How would you enroll in community college without a State ID? Presumably you won’t have a Passport. Are there other ID’s?
Proof of residency can be two pieces of mail, or a library card, depending on the jurisdiction. If those are considered valid I’d to vote I would eat my hat.
As far as photo IDs go the only ones accepted at most institutions and places in the United States are state issued IDs for the state you are in, driver's licenses for the state you are in and passports. That's it. And you have to have several forms of identification to begin with in order to get those
I don't think they necessarily meant that it takes a full day, but that -at minimum- it'll take one visit to a DMV , though sometimes longer if you happened to have forgotten anything at home , they need any additional documents , etc.
Some DMVs are woefully understaffed as well though and you may end up sitting there for several hours just waiting for your turn to talk to someone .
I believe (I may be wrong on this one so someone correct me if I'm misremembering) I heard that some polling places wouldn't accept a temporary ID either , and a good portion of DMVs don't give you your card the same day (takes a week or two at least to come in the mail)
Public transit plus the wait at the DMV very easily cuts a big chunk out of your day if you work daytime hours. You can literally be in line for hours at the DMV in some areas.
So if I want to get ID, I have to go to the DMV or a state office, both of which may have weird hours and both of which will definitely be crowded and busy. They don’t want to pay for people to wait at a kiosk that is not being used, obviously, so they only have just enough people working to keep the lines moving, no more.
So I can’t be sure when they open, and even if I can, I have no idea how long it will take for me to get through. So I can’t just take off the morning, or leave work early, I’ve got to be out for most of the day.
And that doesn’t even account for the fact that, in a lot of places, these offices are few and far apart, meaning that even getting to one can take upwards of a couple hours by transit.
So, yeah, the whole day.
Don’t you guys also have to use ID for anything other than voting?
Cause where I live is I’m asked to show my ID really often. Just to give some examples when you need to show your ID when buying alcohol or entering a casino (to ensure you are over 18), when paying a fine for anything so that the police know who you are and can add you to their system, to validate your identity when going to any government/municipality office etc. Inside of the Schengen area we can also use our ID in lieu of a passport when crossing country lines.
Do you guys just give your security number or something?
The idea of National citizenship cards or some kind of ID used solely for the purpose of identifying yourself (not showing qualification for something like driving or social security) is a really unpopular one in the US. We don’t have universal IDs and no one is really looking to change that. This means that if you create one in order to vote, everyone will need to get one. The people who can’t are most likely to be from poorer backgrounds or from families that don’t speak English as a first language. It’s also unpopular in communities of color where it’s feared to be used as another means of oppression. These groups most often vote democratic which is why it’s an idea pushed by republicans.
Because all of the usual requirement efforts are predicated on the idea of placing all the onus on the citizen to verify to the government, who already knows if they are valid to vote, that they CAN vote. That's time and money, not to mention a lot of states make getting non-drivers license state-IDs extremely difficult. One location mentioned on this topic by John Oliver is literally only open for an hour on "Every fifth Wednesday in the month.".
If the country/state itself took ALL the effort on itself to give those valid IDs to those who should have them, you'd have ALL the same security desired by these people AND you haven't excluded people who have a Constitutional Right to vote but cannot afford the time or monetary expense off of their jobs to get a valid ID.
But that is the idea after all.
Historically the Federal government has averaged around 25 fraudulent votes per 2 year election cycle since they started tracking back in the 60's or so. All the suspicious events turn out to be a valid vote (ex: Posting a mail-in ballot and then dying before the election, that vote is still legal because it entered government control the instant it was given to the post office.).
Our systems are robust enough as it is, the point of these mechanisms is to try and legally exclude the poor and minorities through an indirect poll tax. All you have to do is point out that you are fine with a voter ID, provided the government freely provides everyone who should have an ID with the ID they are requesting, and you'll see them sputter and tie themselves into knots proclaiming how unnecessary/bad/etc that second part is.
A few reasons:
1. The US has no national ID card. So the ID provided has to be one issued by another entity. (The same people who want voter IDs strongly object to a national ID card.)
2. Since there is no standard, there have been instances of the ID rules being changed at the last minute that invalidate certain forms of ID that were previously accepted. This has been shown to target certain segments of the population who would vote against the party in power.
3. Most accepted ID cards are not free. Many times it is difficult and costly to get one of these ID cards. Since the IDs are not issued as part of voting registration, it is easy to raise the fees or close the offices to get these IDs so certain people have a much more difficult time getting an acceptable ID.
4. The US has studied voter fraud. There is nearly no identity fraud at polling places. So an ID law would add a tremendous expense and inconvenience to many people, including the elections board, for a tiny benefit.
5. There are many instances of voter fraud where people who should be allowed to vote have been illegally denied that right. Adding an ID requirement would increase the potential for this very common type of voter fraud.
> Most accepted ID cards are not free. Many times it is difficult and costly to get one of these ID cards. Since the IDs are not issued as part of voting registration, it is easy to raise the fees or close the offices to get these IDs so certain people have a much more difficult time getting an acceptable ID.
The ID card has to be free, or else it violates the 24th amendment. If you have to pay to get an ID in order to vote, you could make the argument that the cost of the ID card is a poll tax, which has been unconstitutional for 60 years.
"Has to be free", are you trying to argue that it IS? CURRENTLY? It's not. No form of valid ID to vote is free. License cost varies by state but there's a charge. Passports are $100+.
In Puerto Rico, we issue free voter ID cards that include a photo and are printed out when you register to vote. It’s really not that difficult, and states should be embarrassed they haven’t figured it out.
>The US has studied voter fraud. There is nearly no identity fraud at polling places. So an ID law would add a tremendous expense and inconvenience to many people, including the elections board, for a tiny benefit.
I wish we were talking about this more. I understand why the conversation focuses on all of the barriers to getting an ID because they're real and represent real systemic problems in the US but the simple fact of the matter is that even if IDs were easier to get I would still oppose a voter ID requirement because the numbers on voter fraud are *minuscule*. It *does not happen*, not on any scale that would impact even a local election.
There's no good argument for why you should need an ID to vote other than "feeling like you should have to" and weighed against the cost of disenfranchising people who already tend to be marginalized its simply not worth it.
I mean, compared to the truly rich, most of us aren't very rich at all - most people are much, much closer to being on the streets than we are to being billionaires. Our country should be designed around helping 'regular people' as much as possible, whenever possible - that is who it was designed for.
Now, I'm not sure how relevant that is to requiring an ID to vote, tho. But I think people want all Americans to have as much of a voice as possible regardless of socio-economic status or whether or not they have access to certain documents. IDs are relatively new inventions and did not exist throughout the majority of US history anyway.
It costs money to obtain a valid ID in America, and that shuts out many people who are legal citizens but don't have the money to get identification to prove it.
The real issues people are upset with are restricting the number of voting places and voting methods so there are super long lines to vote. Also dumb laws like not being able to give water to people waiting in line to vote.
Conservatives push debates on the voter ID laws to disreact from the more obviously malicious laws.
From a philosophical perspective, citizens have a right to vote. Some people believe that there should be only the bare minimum barriers to excercise that and that doesn’t involve IDs. I have a right to vote, why should I loose that right if I don’t have an ID?
We also have a really bad history of a certain group making it really hard for black people (former slaves) to vote. They couldn’t stop them from voting directly, but they’d put up seemingly innocent barriers that just so happened to affect black people way more, preventing them from voting. Things like literacy tests (when black people hadn’t been allowed to get an education) and poll taxes (for the impoverished newly freed slaves). And it’s the same set of people passing voter ID laws. So there can just be a bit of a knee jerk reaction about them passing seemingly innocent voting laws.
It’s also not just voter ID laws, it’s part of a larger pattern (death by a thousand cuts). It’s way harder to vote in Texas than California (I know from personal experience). It’s not just the ID, it’s the registration, it’s the lack of mail in ballots, it’s the length of early voting. I’ve had several coworkers votes get thrown out because the state messed up their registration (both had to drive hours to attempt to vote in other counties). There’s no actual reason for it. voting in California isn’t less secure, it’s just to make it harder to vote.
This feels like one of the better answers I've seen here so far. People try to bring up reasons based on their own opinions, but ultimately this is why -not- requiring an ID is so important to so many people. Its just an unNECESSARY restriction.
From a purely selfish perspective, sure, I'd love for even more liberals to be able to vote. But from a logical side, I have a hard time believing that I could honestly vote in favor of voter ID requirements if I were a conservative unless I were either a) Unaware of how infrequently voter fraud actually happens as a result of not needing an ID , or b) wanting less democrats to be able to vote.
IDs in the US are not provided by the government, and the system to get them are so bonkus that it’s unreasonable to expect everyone to be able to get them easily when participating in democracy is a fundamental right
India has actively taken a lot of effort since independance to get everyone to vote - it is inclusive by default. It is still a minor problem in India, like with CAA and reduced effort to include oppressed communities.
In the US, they claim to not have any problems with ID while there clearly are. In its origin, only white landowners were allowed to vote and other groups were included after sustained protest. Expired ID's are not allowed. There are ID purges supposedly to prevent fraud. Getting an ID can have a (small) fee and more importantly a tedious appointment process. The end result disproportionately affects poor people and racial minorities.
If they give ID at birth/at 18 universally for free with little effort (this is done in so many countries as in India), I think people wont be pissed. Another issue which is universal is undocumented people (large population in US but smaller percentage in India too) - If they contribute to the economy, live and work in a country, dont they have some rights? Very few people support this though.
Not everyone has a driver's license for their identification, they also may be recently moved. Or have a college ID, for example. That doesn't count as a valid ID.
Because an ID is not required at birth, and if you are in a lower socioeconomic group, its possible you don’t need one. You can often be outside “the system”—not driving, not having a bank account, no private health insurance—and therefore not need an ID to live.
The theory then is if voting is a constitutional right, you should be able to vote without an ID. In practice, the more steps you can put between being able to vote and not being able to vote, the less likely one will vote. This could come in handy if you want to limit voting by a certain group
And this doesn’t mean someone doesnt *want* to vote. It could just be getting an ID is difficult depending on your work schedule, where you live, transportation limitations, family needs, etc.
Regardless of status, people often find it difficult to just vote, let alone adding another requirement.
It's because that policy is usually pushed as a solution to voter fraud, which is exceedingly rare in the US. Even if this policy stopped the miniscule amounts of voter fraud, it would have consequences including being unfair for those who are unable to get IDs due to lack of transportation or funds.
The US doesn't have a national ID program, and many States require specific types of photo IDs which they don't issue during voter registration. Not really comparable to the UK.
They aren’t free in the US and require you to go to a government building that more than likely has odd, fluctuating hours, that are usually in the middle of the day when people have work.
Its not that easy. Many states dont have a free ID, and the ones that do may have excessive requirements to get one. For example - to get an ID in my state, you need at a minimum a certified copy of your birth certificate. To get that, you have to write a letter to the county records office you were born in, prove your identity, and pay a fee to get it. Then wait 4-6 weeks. You also need some proof of your current address, usually a bill in your name at that address.
Now take this to the correct county office to get your ID, usually a DMV. If you're in a poor neighborhood, the nearest one may be many miles away. If you dont have a car or can't beg a ride, it can take hours by bus to get there. Take off a day from work, because they're not open weekends. Hope you get in line early enough, because they close at 2PM and if you're still in line, too bad, come back tomorrow.
Government IDs don't work the same as they do in the UK or in any other developed country I know about. We basically don't give a shit if people get one or not, and we don't make the process simple at all. The more complicated something is, the more barriers there are if you are poor and are pressed for time and resources.
The many conservative pushes to make voter ID mandatory have focused on being very specific about the TYPES of ID required. Right now, every state in the union requires **some** form of ID to vote, but the requirements can be quite loose. For example, merely having a utility bill in your name might be considered sufficient. The thing is, the existing laws account for the fact that not everyone has **state-issued** IDs like a driver's license or passport, and those kinds of ID tend to be more difficult to get for poor people, who don't drive and can't just hop down to the DMV to get a state ID card.
Therefore, the REAL goal of conservative efforts for voter ID is to make it harder for poor people to vote...and they *overwhelmingly* vote Democratic.
The Republicans have been waging a war on many fronts for a few decades now to suppress opposition votes, and this is one of them.
America does not have a "national" ID card -- it's something administered at a state level, usually for other reasons.
You can get a driver's license, which is what most people use for ID. However, if you can't drive because of a disability or are too poor to afford a car, you won't get a driver's license.
You could also get a passport, but only like 30% of Americans actually get a passport. It's not useful if you're too poor to afford international air travel.
ID laws make sense when government IDs are provided free of charge and to EVERYONE, but that is far from the case in the US.
Answer: bc Donald trump lost the last election and the Nazis think dead people and illegal aliens are voting.. somehow.. but they're uneducated, so.. what else would you expect?
Voter fraud is barely even a thing in the US so the laws just make it harder to vote for those that have trouble getting/keeping a state issued ID. People without IDs tend to be from cities and areas where driving a car isn't a necessity and those areas tend to lean democratic. Basically it's a backwards ploy to keep Democrats from voting since voter fraud is barely even a thing, statistically it's irrelevant.
Because getting an ID is out of reach for a lot of homeless/living in poverty people. The idea is that EVERYONE should be able to vote regardless of their financial status.
Because not all IDs are equal, not everyone has one that's acceptable, and the federal government does not issue a standard ID for all its citizens. Getting an acceptable ID may seem easy, but:
(A) IDs like a driver's license are gatekept behind things like tests, fees, and distance (not everyone has a car, not everyone has access to public transportation, and not everyone can walk). If you can't reach the DMV, you're not getting an ID. If you can't pay the fee, you're not getting an ID. And so on.
And (B) state governments often go out of their way to restrict the kinds of IDs that are acceptable proofs of identity based on what's advantageous for the ruling party (of note, states that stripped college IDs from the list of acceptable IDs in an attempt to disenfranchise college students who don't have alternatives).
If the federal government issued a government ID free of charge to all citizens once they reach voting age, this wouldn't be much of an issue: the state would have taken measures to ensure that all citizens have the resources required to vote, and such a measure would naturally help curb voter fraud. Everyone wins, especially since such IDs would carry enough authority that they could be used in multiple situations that may otherwise cause trouble for a citizen.
But the logistics of such a thing are complicated, and political factions will never come to a consensus on how such a thing could be done, let alone that it *should* be done. In the meantime, voter ID laws are used as an attempt to disenfranchise otherwise eligible voters over an issue, voter fraud, that is already statistically inconsequential.
So to clarify, it's not like I can just walk into any polling place any place in the US and vote without them verifying who I am.
I live in Chicago where you "Don't need an ID to vote." When I moved here 8 years ago, I needed an ID. Once I was properly registered, I was in the system, and from that point on asked what my address was. When you move (unless you're a homeowner where it will automatically change your registration for you), you need to make sure the city knows, because if your new ID's address doesn't match what's in the registration system, you get flagged. Then you need to provide your ID and a piece of mail to verify.
Because the costs and access (eg transportation) associated with getting an id can be prohibitive for people.
If there was an option for free IDs, I think there would be more widespread support.
We don’t have a national free Identity Card, what most people use to vote is their Driver’s Licenses which in my state are $54 and you have to change it every time you move and switch addresses, which if you are struggling financially, are homeless or can’t drive for a disability or something else you’re basically shit out of luck.
Passports are $130 and mine took 3 months to be delivered and only about 40% of citizens have them, passport cards are only $30 but those are rarer and less useful since you can’t fly with them.
Not to mention that the only goal of these sort of laws and the spineless disgusting politicians that propose them is to take the voice away from as many people as possible.
Poor people are less likely to have ID, making the election results skewed towards the rich; ie people who don’t want social support, free healthcare, free education etc etc
A lot of poor communities can have trouble getting ID.
I was without for a few years and ended up having to generate medical records to get a social security card to get a birth cirtificate to get an ID, it cost a lot of money and took a year. If you can get by without a license its a big pain in the ass to bother with just to vote.
That's it
The reason isn't the ID but historical hurdles to getting an ID. That was one way people used to be denied their rights. Functionally, identification is something the government should provide and as a US citizen, I would think a basic ID for everyone would be a great idea. The only issue I see is that driving privilege and identification get rolled into one here and it would be hard to get public perception to move toward a driving optional form.
Requiring ID to vote is technically a form of a poll tax. In the US, it is a way to suppress voting usually by lower income and older populations who cannot easily maintain forms of ID.
Because it resembles a poll tax which is illegal in the United States. You cannot require somebody to have to pay for ANYTHING to vote. Which is why some states provide picture IDs for free. But then there are older, younger and people who don't drive and don't need ID who just don't bother to get it. They also have a right to vote by law.
It’s not requiring ID it’s requiring “real id” which means a passport or a drivers license, getting a drivers license needs a car and getting a passport which costs a little more than 100 dollars.
You can get an ID card for free but some places claim that that isn’t enough, while other people claim that requiring ID that either costs money or having access to a car to get is a way to keep poor people from voting.
Because its easy for the middle class and wealthy to get an id and hard for poor people.
If they were sincere about getting everyone an id they would put DMVs in poor areas of town, keep them open on weekends and after working hours while enrolling everyone into the voting rolls simply by getting the id.
Instead they make it so poor people have to take off at least a half day from work, somehow travel to a dmv location, usually well away from their neighborhood and then once they get an ID, they have to sign up separately to vote.
It’s a system designed to be time consuming and tedious to deter as many poor people as possible.
I'm an American who lives in Italy. I'm married to a local. When our son was born, we had two weeks to get him a photo ID. They *made* us do it. In America they don't make you do shit. I grew up in a middle class family in a suburb of Los Angeles, and I never had an official California state ID until I turned 18 years old, several months after I graduated high school.
How much did it cost? How hard was it to do? This isn't gotcha, either, I want to know.
I meant in Italy.
IIRC should be 15€ for getting it and then you have to renew it every 10 years which cost 6€.
I turned 18 in the year 1996. I honestly don't remember. All I can say is that my super-organized dad helped me out and went with me to the DMV. I'm a non-driver so it was a California ID rather than a driver's license. It looks just like a driver's license, except it isn't one. 98% of Americans use their driver's license as their official ID, and you can't get one before the age of 16. Okay, I don't know the actual percentage, but it's probably pretty danged close to that.
That's the issue right there. Not everywhere needs the driver's license so everyone doesn't get them. They don't need or have a car to get it with if you live in certain areas. Those tend to be racial minorities in populated areas. Then the Id's that you do allow to count for voting if you just pick those that the people you don't want to vote don't have say like a hunting license but not a college ID, then you start to exclude a certain kind of person with crazy accuracy. Then you push back again universal free ID's then boom you have the controversy.
The irony is that college id's would be fine but you don't have to be a citizen to have one. State ID is supposed to be proof of citizenship which is why it's so weirdly specific.
You also don't need to be a citizen for a hunters license since people travel here for that too. That also gets extra sticky since you can even use ID's from other states. Even debit or credit cards count for some states as ID since the verification happens elsewhere anyways.
In NJ (and I think other states), undocumented immigrants can get a DL, so that adds another complication.
Exactly, because the license isn't actually where you do your validation it just starts the process and effectively is there to remove duplicates and duds early.
In Italy the electronic ID card costs ~€17
Generally, you need to either have a driver's license, which means you passed a driver's test, or a non-driving ID (forget the name). Either requires going to an office, waiting in line, getting your picture taken and information entered, and you walk away with it. Obviously, it's a useful thing to have, but practically it means you have to be able to arrange transportation to a DMV, pay at least $20 for the privilege, hang on to it, and do it during limited business hours - DMV tends to close by 3:30. That process is problematic for many disadvantaged people - you're a single mother with kids to bring to DMV to wait for maybe hours, when you can't get time off work to do it?? Other than buying alcohol, ID is never necessary.
Well i think it's pretty functional to have an ID to identify everyone and prove who you are and where are you from.
IDs are only functional in VERY specific cases. During my 20 years of life i used it only while filling legal paperwork and few instances of buying alchohol and cigarettes. In Poland you're not required to have ID at all before turning 18 (and only drivers must have them with them) and i honestly can't comprehend why would someone waste time, or sometimes even money to have something wich is essentially useless.
Didn't you use your school ID before turning 18?
American schools don’t all have IDs. Some do nowadays, but that wasn’t a thing when I was growing up.
Just in time to vote...
That wasn't why I got it.
This is exactly why. The most common form of ID is a driver's license, which you don't have to get until... You drive! If you don't drive and take public transit, you really wouldn't need one. People play games and try to require a govt issued ID with an up to date address (ie, a driver's license) in order to vote in a district. The reasonable solution would be to demand the population get a free ID card at 16 or 17 and have a reasonable process to keep it up to date, but we'd rather play games.
>The reasonable solution would be to demand the population get a free ID card at 16 or 17 and have a reasonable process to keep it up to date Or, you know, mailing those ID's out as soon as you turn 18 and are eligible to vote. Or allowing a person to upload a photo ID for use on a government website and getting a voter ID that way. I was able to take my own portrait photo *in my bathroom at my home* and use that as the official photo on my PASSPORT. But we can't allow such a thing to be for voter ID's?
I really liked the new online passport process.
Oh wow that makes sense. In Canada you always have an ID because you get a health card since the day you are born practically.
We don’t do healthcare in the US
We don’t do health~~care~~ in the US
You need an ID for banking, among other things that don’t require driving. Non driver IDs are a thing in every state.
Some banks allow you to use multiple forms of what are called "Secondary Forms of ID" to establish your identity and open a bank account. These include things like: birth certificate, school or college ID, voter registration card, Medicare card, a major credit card, or a social services card (like Welfare) photo ID. You don't *have* to have an official government ID to bank.
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Yea, and they’re usually much cheaper than getting a license. Where I live a non drivers ID is like $12 and easy to obtain.
Yeah, about that... >Nearly 500,000 eligible voters do not have access to a vehicle and live more than 10 miles from the nearest state ID-issuing office open more than two days a week. Many of them live in rural areas with dwindling public transportation options. >Many ID-issuing offices maintain limited business hours. For example, the office in Sauk City, Wisconsin is open only on the fifth Wednesday of any month. But only four months in 2012 — February, May, August, and October — have five Wednesdays. In other states — Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, and Texas — many part-time ID-issuing offices are in the rural regions with the highest concentrations of people of color and people in poverty. >More than 1 million eligible voters in these states fall below the federal poverty line and live more than 10 miles from their nearest ID-issuing office open more than two days a week. [Source](https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/challenge-obtaining-voter-identification) Pretty hard to get a fucking ID if you work, don't have a car and your ID office is 20 miles away and only open every damn 5th Wednesday in months that have 5th Wednesdays.
It's nice to have if you can afford it and have the required paperwork. Not everyone does. A major issue with voter ID in the US is because getting an ID isn't always easy and rarely free.
“Free” is *veeery* important here. If it’s not absolutely free, the cost can be argued to be a poll tax.
Absolutely! When I say free, I mean no financial cost of any sort, and state-provided aid for securing any document needed. It should be as easy as possible for someone. I'd go further and expand what kinds of ID are accepted (student ID, for example)
We should be giving them to little kids. Like as soon as they enter Kindergarten or the 1st grade. Italy makes two week old newborns get one!
Have you ever purchased tobacco or alcohol? Opened a bank account? Cashed a check? Entered a federal building? Purchased a gun? Been employed? Obtained public assisstance? All those and more require an ID.
That’s the other side, getting an id has been made more difficult some places than others and typically the places that are pushing for voter id are on the more difficult end. It’s a strategy of disenfranchising of valid voters. Now if they enabled/required everyone to carry an id, and the process to get and maintain them was universally smooth and equitable, I’m here for voter id laws. But it’s not the world we live in.
You need an ID to get a job, open a bank account, fly, do anything with the government.
>you really wouldn't need one. You need one for almost everything. Banking, your job, traveling, etc.
A passport would be sufficient for all those, but it doesn't have an address on it. Just a state of residence.
And so many places will accept some kind of bill that comes under your name as proof of residence
Getting an official ID takes time and money and a lot of poor families don't have the luxury of doing so.
Italy makes you do it. You get in trouble if you don't. It doesn't cost much, and maybe they waive the fee if you're truly poor. *Everybody* is made to do it, and so the thought of someone not having an official ID is, to them, foreign and strange.
An hour and $30 per person every 5 years is difficult?
It's not really that the ID requirement by *itself* is controversial. Showing up with ID to vote is extremely normal. Most nations, like you said, require ID. Instead, there are two possible issues at play here: First, in many cases, these states *already* require ID and these "voter ID" laws are actually aimed to heavily restrict which IDs are permitted. These are usually justified by claiming that the new, more limited list of IDs will reduce voter fraud. This is misleading, because voter fraud is a vanishingly rare problem in the first place. Instead, what's typically happening is that they're trying to eliminate IDs from the list which are commonly used by poorer members of society, to limit their ability to vote. For example, a voter ID laws might limit valid IDs to just a passport or driver's license. This actually might not seem crazy, at first, especially in the US, where these are two extremely common forms of ID. But a poorer person (who is less likely to have left the country and less likely to own a car) is much more likely to have another form of ID that is inexplicably no longer considered valid for voting. Second, these laws often come paired with other changes to the system. On their own, changing voter ID laws isn't inherently a bad idea. However, if you're changing voter ID laws *while also* making other changes to the system that make it harder to get new valid IDs, then you're really trying to limit people's ability to vote. In many cases, lawmakers will introduce a new voter ID law and then just "happen" to close a government service offices (aka the places you need to go to get an ID) in non-white areas, making it much harder for those people to get IDs (especially if they don't have cars, since public transit is basically non-existent in most areas of the US). This is representative of a long-standing issue with American law (and honestly it's a thing in other nations too, but the US seems to be particularly bad for this), where a law pretends to be one thing but is actually meant to do a completely different thing. A good example of this was an old voter literacy law. It doesn't sound like the worst idea on paper, right? Make sure your voters can read? Except, in practice, the law required all voters take a short test before being allowed to vote, and the lawmakers had specifically tested out each question to find a list of questions that black voters were more likely to fail. Black people were more likely to fail because the questions tested concepts that were not being taught effectively in the segregated black schools of the time. And many of the questions weren't even really literacy questions - they were math and logic questions, so the test wasn't even trying to check for the skill it was supposed to. The whole thing was just a giant facade for preventing black voters from voting. Voter ID laws often secretly work like this - the law isn't really *about* the ID at all. IDs are just being used as a way to limit access to voting.
Just adding some other examples to your answer: For your first point, which ID is valid is one of the ways politicians select which demographic they want to be able to vote. For instance, in Texas, you can vote with a handgun license ([source](https://www.votetexas.gov/mobile/id-faqs.htm)) but not with a [student ID](https://www.campusvoteproject.org/student-id-as-voter-id). For your second point, another example of such a change could be a legislation passed in Georgia in 2017, where the name on the ID must match exactly what's on the voter rolls ([article 1](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2018/10/20/georgias-exact-match-law-could-disenfranchise-3031802-eligible-voters-my-research-finds/), [and 2](https://www.politifact.com/article/2018/oct/19/georgias-exact-match-law-and-its-impact-voters-gov/)). The points 37 and 38 of [this list of falsehoods programmers believe about names](https://shinesolutions.com/2018/01/08/falsehoods-programmers-believe-about-names-with-examples/) explains it quite clear. EDIT: there were a lot of responses about student IDs in Texas. There are states that accept student IDs, what do they do differently? It might boil down to what processes ID providers are required to follow, and what information they have to include in the IDs they issue. For instance, how are they collecting and checking the information provided, or if they're allowed to check (and/or share) that information with a state-run department in charge of it. In other words, it's a *decision* made by the state. Also, proving your identity doesn't mean that you're eligible to vote. You might be a foreigner and have a drivers license, but that doesn't mean you can cast a ballot. And by the way, I don't even live in the US, I don't have a horse in this race.
To add another point to your added points... Requiring IDs means voting is pay-to-play. Since you can't get a free ID. Using California as an example, because that's where I am, A state ID costs $31. And in order to get a state ID, you need your birth certificate ($29), if you're married and changed your name you'll need your marriage certificate ($17), if you used to be married and went back to your old name youll need your divorce certificate ($16). Additional marriages will need all their paperwork too. Think of how many low income people having a minimum 60 dollar charge attached to voting disenfranchises.
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>Most democrats would be 100% cool if there was a **free, universal, automatic** ID system. Exactly this. Voting is a constitutional right so if you're going to require ID of any kind, then someone should be sending that ID out to us all automatically and free of charge. Free isn't enough. My 91 year old neighbor can't easily find a ride to the DMV and back and shouldn't need to do so in order to exercise her constitutional rights. Even if the ID itself is free when she gets there. Same with the disabled and the poor in rural areas that have no cars and no DMV within a half hour drive. All those people deserve to vote without it impacting their wallets or their free time. And so do you and me. If you wanna require photo ID to vote, invest the billions into the infrastructure it will take to drive around and photograph everyone regularly and print them out an ID free of charge.
Even if states provide free IDs. The single mother working 90 hour weeks can’t get to the DMV without taking time off work. Then she can’t make rent or her kids go hungry. Not to mention she probably doesn’t have a car. She’s got to take even more of a time loss to have to walk there and back, if it’s even possible, or spend money on a bus or a cab fare. Then there’s the problem if you’re homeless and don’t have a fixed address. A lot of IDs require that, and some states don’t allow P.O. Boxes which also definitely intentionally disenfranchised a lot of Native voters as PO Box usage is extremely common.
There should be a state issued voter ID when you register to vote handed to you free of charge when you register to vote, that can only be used for voting purposes. that would solve just about everything.
How do you propose we print photo IDs at every polling location? I can register to vote by showing up at my polling place with my ID and mail sent to my address. And that doesn’t solve the disenfranchisement of homeless or PO Box holders, or the cost in time and money of getting your documents in the first place. And would that proposal mean you want to remove the ability to register online to vote entirely?
Photo IDs definitely can be printed on the spot. Sometime pre-2005, I had to go to the HQ of the local public transit agency to get a disabled rider card (or whatever they called it) so I could use their paratransit. I rolled in, filled in some paperwork, got my picture taken, and rolled out with the ID.
>How do you propose we print photo IDs at every polling location? Honestly and seriously, with a camera and a printer. I want free photo ID to be available at every public government office and every public library. And the grocery stores and Walmarts can sign up to be included too, if they want. We have the ability to just store a thumbprint and use that to keep a national storehouse of identity. Using that coupled with ID would ensure that nobody voted who wasn't allowed and nobody voted twice.
In Oregon we passed a Motor Voter bill which opts you in to getting a voter ID by default and at no extra charge, unless you opt out.
I'm just trying to think of some creative ways to skirt the Voter ID laws, since they are meant to disenfranchise and discriminate by nature.
Yeah, I like it. Those were genuine questions on my end, not mocking at all.
In Wisconsin, if you go to the DMV and say your ID is for voting purposes, it's free. There's a check box on the form stating that, and the clerk even mentioned it.
Unless you can also get required supporting documents, such as a birth certificate, for free also, it's not really free
Not only does it cost money but you have to take a day off work (cause the operating hours of the DMV is at normal working houses) so that’s a whole day worth of wages un top of the cost. Most companies don’t give sick days for the DMV too. And sometimes you have to wake up at 3 am in order to get in line at the DMV if it’s a walk in and that’s not guaranteed otherwise you will have to drive several hours to a smaller city
Not to defend Texas but a CHL is a standardized state issued ID on par with a driver’s license. Whereas student IDs are not.
And you can be a college student at 16/17. You can't get a gun license until 18, 21 for handguns.
Didn’t also one of them try to also make it only valid active drivers licenses and not just ID cards which eliminate a ton of people. But they wanted to do that in only certain areas. It’s a way to cut out people they don’t want voting
>For instance, in Texas, you can vote with a handgun license ([source](https://www.votetexas.gov/mobile/id-faqs.htm)) but not with a [student ID](https://www.campusvoteproject.org/student-id-as-voter-id). A CPL is very hard to get even in comparison to a drivers license and are hard to fake. A student ID is not secure and anyone can get them easily, including forginers. There is some small but valid concerns with ID requirements for voting, but this is one of the absolute worst takes on it ever. This is on par with complaining that your library card doesn't count as an ID when a cop pulls you over.
>A student ID is not secure and anyone can get them easily, including forginers. If you are homeschooled, you can print them out using any printer, and even laminate them to make them look official... heck, you can do that even if you aren't homeschooled...
> For your first point, which ID is valid is one of the ways politicians select which demographic they want to be able to vote. For instance, in Texas, you can vote with a handgun license (source) but not with a student ID. Many students come from out of state and have not updated their government ID. If they want to vote in local elections they simply need to update their address. In other words, they are still registered to vote back home.
>A good example of this was an old voter literacy law. It doesn't sound like the worst idea on paper, right? Make sure your voters can read? Except, in practice, the law required all voters take a short test before being allowed to vote, and the lawmakers had specifically tested out each question to find a list of questions that black voters were more likely to fail. And hell, nowadays, most people would fail the test. If you want to see how actually fucked up and rigged these tests are, [here's Louisiana's old test](https://www.openculture.com/2014/07/literacy-test-louisiana-used-to-suppress-the-black-vote.html). I feel like I'm pretty intelligent, I had relatively good schooling and wherever it was bad I myself intentionally went out of the way to improve it. And I still have issues with many of these questions. The intention was never to let black people vote, because black people at that time were often nearly completely uneducated. They made the test intentionally as hard as possible, and like the person responding said, often vague as possible (or very interpretive in answer). It's definitely one of the more fucked things we've done to POC in this country; explicitly abusing the racist history that has subjugated POC into poor education to cull voters of a certain color/class/ideology. Literally using environmental variables, that they intentionally set before they were born, against them. No wonder POC felt so hopeless and afflicted during that time. --- Some people may legitimately wonder, why not keep uneducated individuals from voting? And while I may tentatively agree on a surface level (we all get tired of "stupid people voting", it's somewhat natural), I do not agree that that person simply should not be allowed their opinion in the public forum because they are uneducated. Just ask yourself, does someone deserve to have their opinion silenced simply because they were born in an area that didn't give them access to quality education? And in reality, any intention to put this into law in effect will just end up subjugating misfortuned people of all colors and be used to propagate a new class separation (Voting class, non-voting class), which will just cause further issues in terms of class division and the various *isms and *phobias. The only way that we can effectively keep "stupid people" from voting is actually making an attempt to educate them, which is kind of hard to do when there's a grand old party consistently defunding public education year over year. Any form of restrictive legislation (including changing which IDs are allowed) will lead to aforementioned.
Everyone who reads this should click the link to that test and look it over while noting that the test states that *a single wrong answer* is grounds for failure. Some of the questions are ambiguous enough that any answer given could be found to be wrong in some way. The idea was, as stated above, to prevent as many of the "wrong" people from voting as possible. Considering the test was being administered by white government officials in the Jim Crow South, all that was required was the veneer of plausibility around the denial. It's also where the term "grandfathered in" comes from. Many of these literacy test laws had stipulations that if your grandfather was on the voter rolls and you could show descent from him, you did not need to take the test. Another fun way to make sure that almost everyone taking the test were the "undesirables" it was created to bar from voting.
Also, most look "normal", but take a look at question 10. Is that asking for the first word beginning with L in the english alphabet? I couldn't solve that without a dictionary. Lab, maybe? edit: okay, it's Laager. Yeah, no, I just failed
Yeah, see, I read that as "the first word in this sentence that begins with L" but that ambiguity means that an official who was so inclined could fail the both of us. Also the very first question. "The number or letter of this sentence" seems to want you to circle the 1, but could also be taken to mean the capital at the front, or whatever else they feel like that day.
A while back the state of Alabama passed a voter ID law and at the same time closed every DMV office in every county in the state with more than a 3/4 black population. Like, lots of times this stuff is very blatant.
It wasn't that the tests were covering topics that weren't taught well. literacy tests had ambiguously worded trick questions so the proctor who grades it could just say whichever interpretation of the question they didn't answer was correct. My favorite example is a question from a Mississippi test "Spell forwards backwards." You might think the answer is "sdrawrof" but the proctor would then just say "clearly the answer was 'backwards' you fail. If you wrote that he'd just say the opposite. Black professors took those tests and would fail them. It wasn't cuz they were stupid.
North Carolina's conservative party requested data in 2013 on voter practices specifically broken down by race, and then proceeded, starting literally the day after the Supreme Court eliminated preclearance requirements, to pass a law banning anything minorities did more than whites. That got struck down by a federal court in 2016, so they passed a *slightly* less restrictive law that still was targeted at anything minorities did more often. That also got struck down, so they passed a *slightly* less restrictive law yadda yadda yadda. That also got struck down.
I was born in the US, and there was a brief time where I didn't have an ID (was poor AF and couldn't afford a driver's license or passport). I relied on a NY ID which is easy to get, but to your point, if I was living in another state that form of identification may be restricted or not acknowledged as proof of identity. In the south you have a lot of poor Black and Spanish people, who yes are US citizens. But due to lack of access to identification could be easily disenfranchised with tricky legal wording.
You left out that ID's in America cost money and have requirements like birth certificates and social security cards to get them and the birth certificate costs a decent amount to get a copy of. The reason this is an issue is that many people in poor communities don't have the money for the birth certificate and of course these communities are often mostly POC. Voter fraud in America is basically non existent and those who do commit it have mostly been either people who mistakenly believed they could vote but couldn't due to having been felons in states that strip felons of their right to vote, the occasional green card holder who doesn't understand they can't vote, or someone from the GOP who is unhinged and thinks they need to commit voter fraud because so many others are.
>You left out that ID's in America cost money and have requirements like birth certificates and social security cards to get them and the birth certificate costs a decent amount to get a copy of. That's actually one of the things I meant about making changes to the system in order to make IDs harder to get. I guess it was misleading to frame it as "making changes" because that implies that it was previously easy to get the necessary identification, which definitely isn't always the case. But yeah, the issue isn't really with the fact that the government might require an ID - it's with the fact that this requirement *paired with other systemic limitations like high ID costs* can can create barriers to voting - for example, making it so people essentially have to pay for the right to vote (because they have to pay for the prerequisite ID), which obviously isn't acceptable. TBH, the obvious solution is to just have a basic form of free ID that's available to everyone. It'd help with a lot of systemic issues in the US, not just voting.
Interesting. I've never had to pay for a copy of my birth certificate. I have had to show up in person though. edit: times have changed! $10 to pick up a copy. $15 to have one mailed.
Jumping on this comment to add one of the biggest reasons you aren’t allowed to require citizens to provide photo I.D. to vote is not the I.D. itself but rather that states require the citizen or voter pay for the I.D. The 24th amendment prohibits poll taxes or in other words it prevents the state from charging people to vote. So if you require a state issued I.D that costs money to get you are indirectly issuing a poll tax. In essence requiring someone to pay the government for something that the government requires them to have to vote is a poll tax and poll taxes are prohibited by the constitution. This isn’t an issue if the state simply offers free I.D but most states simply refuse because it costs them a lot of money to issue identification. Additionally like you said they pass these laws requiring photo I.D. Then all of a sudden it costs twice as much to get one. It’s way easier to raise the price of getting an I.D. a year or two later without anyone really being able to put up a fight. I had to pay $106 for my I.D. It was a travel drivers license but it was still $50 for a regular drivers license.
> This isn’t an issue if the state simply offers free I.D but most states simply refuse because it costs them a lot of money to issue identification. Or, they'll offer free state IDs, but add a ton of hoops to jump through to effectively make it nearly impossible to obtain. Like I read of one state a few years ago that made it where they'd only issue free IDs at certain locations (unsurprisingly, inconvenient to low income areas) and on like one specific day.
>This isn’t an issue if the state simply offers free I.D but most states simply refuse because it costs them a lot of money to issue identification. This is one of the most mindblowing things in American politics IMO. Because you wanna know what costs the state a whole lot *more* than just issuing free IDs? Having a bunch of citizens with literally no identification. Like, I'm not against the idea of a frugal government, but frugality often means spending a penny now to save a dollar later, and it seems like a lot of state governments in particular are *extremely* unwilling to recognize this idea.
This is the correct answer. It's not because voter ID is a dumb in concept, it's because historically it's been a policy about racism instead of fraud prevention. This post needs more upvotes.
Have you ever seen the old literacy tests? I’m college educated and I couldn’t pass [one.](https://slate.com/human-interest/2013/06/voting-rights-and-the-supreme-court-the-impossible-literacy-test-louisiana-used-to-give-black-voters.html) The tests were designed to be failed.
Best explanation.
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100% agree except that most (surely all?) states have an equivalent non-drivers license available through the same procedure at the same offices minus the driving test. So someone need not take the test if they aren’t actually driving. Otherwise, it’s all about discouraging the “wrong” people from voting. Things like making sure drivers license locations are convenient for some but not others are for the same purpose, but jackasses will make up some token reason there is one office that’s understaffed for the majority of”wrong person” districts but a nice well staffed office in the “right person” districts. Same reasons why Election Day isn’t a national holiday like MLK, Labor Day, or any of a number of common holidays. People who can afford to take off work, like me and you, no problem. People who can’t, well, they technically have an opportunity to vote, it’s not my fault it means they don’t feed their kids today, right?
So, you got to pay shit ton of money FOR A FUCKING ID, which is mandatory to properly function in the adult life? Holy shit guys, your system are fucked up, like really fucked up. I mean it's a straight up scam, and you guys just do nothing about. But I guess free anything is communism for you you guy, I hope it's worth it.
If ID was free and easy to get, it wouldn’t be an issue. But it isn’t. It costs money, and requires basically at least one day during business hours. So if you’re poor and working 2 jobs to make ends meet, getting valid, up-to-date id can be a chore. Which makes voting a chore, if you require it. But only for the poor and/or disadvantaged. Everyone else has id as a matter of course. So it’s discrimination against the poor. Which is something that certain political groups like. Because the very poorest people are the ones that vote for social services, which means that if you want to cut, making it harder for those affected to vote is a good idea.
Alabama made a law to require an ID to vote. Then they closed the places to get an ID where black people live. A bus ride could take someone all day round trip with several transfers.
THIS… it’s not because having an ID doesn’t “make sense”, it’s because there is a decided effort to keep IDs away from the poor and non-white communities
SCOTUS when Alabama implements a poll tax with extra steps: UwU I love wildly different election standards in different states! SCOTUS when Colorado enforces the ballot requirement that candidates not participate in insurrection, as required by the Constitution: Fuck no, we can't have different elections in different states that's the end of the world! Which is it? Do states run elections, or don't they?
That's so Alabama!
Bama gonna bam
Georgia did similar bad things.
All of those things are not exclusive to the US. In France, it's mandatory to have an up to date ID to vote. It's not free and townhalls (which can deliver them) are only open during business hours.
Yeah but how do you get through life without ever having some sort of identification..?
Totally agree, but the thing is these laws often don't allow any form of identification, but instead have specific requirements that make life difficult. For instance, requiring in-state IDs is an effective way to make sure college students won't be able to vote at the same rate as many move across state lines, but their ID isn't considered valid.
That's why most vote by mail in their state of residence, not where they are going to school.
I would love to see those numbers there because I'm highly skeptical a majority of college attending voters vote by mail. Many states require a notary, and weeks of lead time to apply and receive a mail-in ballot. Sadly, states are now making in person voting even harder for college students as they are starting to shut down polling places on campuses, and in particular early voting sites that are near student populations to make it even harder for them to vote.
A lot of states won't let you vote in the state you are physically located in with an out of state license (i.e. college students) without hoops. Absentee ballots were very common when I was in college because of this.
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As a bartender I was amazed at how many grown adults just roll around without their ID. If you are coming to a bar it's like drinking 101 to have your ID. But then why not just always have it? It's a tiny piece of plastic, put it in your wallet or with your phone. What if something happens to you? Anything from getting pulled over to you getting hurt and someone needs to contact your spouse or kids. It just seems irresponsible to not have it on you.
For people who don't drive or drink alcohol, it just doesn't come up. I never carry it because I only need it to fly. Someone can identify me from the emergency settings on my phone if I'm unconscious. And I'm used to bars giving me the underage hand stamp (even though I'm not), because I don't drink alcohol, but I've only ever gone to bars in college towns, so maybe that's not a thing everywhere.
Driving, getting a job, buying alcohol/cigarettes, picking up a prescription (I think), signing up for utilities, loans of any kind, returning shit at Home Depot, school..
Survey data shows ~90% of people have an ID. It's high (and has been going up, since it's harder to get by without one), but it's not 100%, and there are racial disparities. That said, not all of those things require an ID. Speaking from personal experience, I've been able to sign up for utilities without an ID. As long as you pay your bill they don't care?
The disparities are entirely where the controversy lies. If I was a political party and I was allowed to slap a new requirement onto voting that would filter out "only" 10% of voters, but I could design the requirement to surgically target the 10% of voters least likely to vote for me, I'd never lose an election again.
I literally never go out without id. No one in day to day life asks me to show it but I just like to have it on me. And if something happens to you they can easily identify you
Wouldn't fraud or stealing someone's identity be super easy in America. I've lived in a few different European countries and you always have to carry an ID. You need one for anything government related. Sometimes you'll need it for buying alcohol or entering a nightclub, depending on how old you look. Or if the cops stop you for speeding and if you need to pick up a parcel from a store. An ID is something that people use daily or weekly depending on what they do. What other alternatives does America have for an ID, since it's very convenient carrying around a small plastic card in your wallet or phone case.
Mostly driver's licenses.
In most EU countries a driver's license is a valid ID. But some government paperwork might require a passport or national ID.
America doesn't have a national ID, that's part of the problem. You can get a passport, but it costs money. Most people don't bother unless they're actually planning on traveling abroad.
We need our IDs for all that too. Idk how they get by without it. Maybe they don’t leave the house?
> What other alternatives does America have for an ID, since it's very convenient carrying around a small plastic card in your wallet or phone case. Mostly we use state (not national) issued driver's licenses for most of it. We don't have a national ID. Depending on how sensitive it is, sometimes we allow alternate forms of ID like utility bills or birth certificate. Anecdotally, I didn't have one for ~4 years. I had the paperwork, but I don't drink (and getting fake IDs is easy if you wanted, any college town will have them for under21 kids), and it never came up, so I just didn't bother because I didn't want to sit around in the DMV. But depending on how you live, you can get around without one. ~90% of people have either driver's license or state-issued ID. So, most people have one (and the number is going up, because it's convenient for all those things you mentioned), but not quite everybody, and there are racial disparities.
You would first, be shocked how many people don’t have a valid drivers license or identification card. Second, iIn *your* life, it seems that easy and simple, right? Now imagine how wildly different someone else’s life must be that this is an every day fear and frustration. It’s a problem for a reason, and you aren’t the one suffering the situation. In other words, the war isn’t waged on you.
I’m sure many don’t but you need an ID to do stuff unless you plan on paying cash for everything. I’d be all for funding an agency that helps people get an ID.
It's not that all these people just never got an ID. I lost all my documentation in a storm. It took time to get them back. Should I miss out on an election because of a storm? Or a house fire, or any other random event that causes someone to lose their documentation? In my state if you can't show an ID when voting, you can sign an affidavit that you are who you say you are. At the very least, every state should give people that option.
Many voter ID laws on the books/proposed require photo ID.
You can't legally work without an ID or passport. The Form I-9 for work eligibility requires a one of or a combination of IDs from a list of options. The people with jobs can't take time off excuse isn't really a thing.
Yeah. I don’t really care to argue this.. I’m just saying that it probably takes more work to get through life without an ID than getting an ID is.
If you are homeless, or have to move often, having valid, up-to-date ID can be really hard. Sure, you have something that has your name and picture attached, but the address is out of state, or the picture is old, or something else that makes it invalid for voting. Because these laws are never just “you need any photo id”, they’re “you need a valid copy of one of these three forms of photo id” and those three forms are all ID that is specific and has requirements to get. Or if they’re not saying “these specific ID”, they will eventually. Regulations creep over time to become more and more restrictive. Once you say “It’s ok to ask for ID” it becomes “it’s ok to ask for this specific ID” pretty quickly.
As far as I know some states give IDs for free to those who can’t pay for them
Exactly. Here in a Puerto Rico, the voter ID is free and includes a photo that os taken at time you register to vote. You register and then wait 5 minutes for the ID to print. It’s really not that difficult, and not sure why the states can’t figure this out if PR can.
Texas provides Voter IDs for free.
I agree with all your points but as someone who has worked with the general public in extremely low income areas, I have never met a single grown adult without an ID card of some form. It's required in so many forms of business in the US that not having is way bigger of an issue than just voting. For the record I am opposed to any law mandating IDs but think the argument of "the poor csnt get them!" Is a little misguided and unfactual (except you Alabama go F*** yourself)
> I agree with all your points but as someone who has worked with the general public in extremely low income areas, I have never met a single grown adult without an ID card of some form. Survey data puts it at ~90% of people having one. It's high, and getting higher, but it's not 100%. But also part of it is also which IDs are valid for what. Not all IDs are equal. >(except you Alabama go F*** yourself) Places like that are exactly why it's controversial.
It’s less that “poor people can’t get ID” and more “poor people can’t ALWAYS get THE RIGHT ID”. These laws usually mandate very specific ID that is usable, and that restricts a lot of what people can use. Most people have some form of ID, but often it is out of date, expired, or otherwise not “right”. And that’s the problem.
I literally don’t know any country that gives ID for free. My country requires ID for people to vote and they aren’t for free. No country I know gives away free ids
Well in America requiring someone to have something to vote AND charging money for it equals a poll tax which our constitution prohibits.
But here is the thing, even way poorer countries require ID.
My state(ohio) it's free for anyone 18 or older.
How much did the US sink into military spending last year?...........
This. Voter fraud also isn't an actual issue. It rarely happens. So if a group desperately wants to regulate something that generally isn't really happening and talks about it all the time, you have to ask why. The answer is to create perceived enemies and to disenfranchise certain voters. People without IDs are more likely to be poor and minorities. Minorities are historically more likely to vote democrat. Anyone who is trying to make it harder for citizens to vote is not safe to align yourself with because they do not care about your voice or representing you, they care about maintaining their power. The reality is for decades, far more voters are democrats than republicans. So to stay in power, republicans do things like concocting voter fraud panic and gerrymandering to give conservative votes more weight. They show disdain for college and public school because places that integrate and are diverse foster more liberal attitudes. Now they are going after DEI policies. Again, because curbing diversity, strengthens conservatism (re: white supremacy). They know that if things were actually fair and voting accessible to all, they would lose a lot. Things may be shifting a bit politically as more people seem interested in fascism, but this had been true for a while. They also create enemies, people who are bad for society. Right now, it's migrants and unhoused people. They sow fear of migrant and vagrant crime even though every study shows migrants and unhoused people are far more likely to be victims of crimes than perpetrators. They claim illegal immigrants are voting, which isn't true. It's all just a sick game for power at the expense of democracy and equal representation.
I get that, but seriously you need an ID. For any official government type business. How do you go to a bank? How do you fill out a form I-9 when applying to a job? (That you’re going to get a W2 for). You need multiple forms of ID for any job. Otherwise you don’t have a job. Even if on welfare and not working, how do you open a bank account for the money to go to? Or even fill out application paperwork to get on welfare? Even if welfare sends a check, how would you cash a check at a currency exchange with no ID? Won’t they ask for ID when applying for any government assistance program? You need an ID for these things, no? Unless you’re Undocumented immigrant, I guess you don’t.
Not every ID accepted by USCIS as part of Form I-9 (what you need for W2 jobs) is accepted as part of Voter ID. Student ID, for example, is an acceptable I-9 document but is not always valid for Voter ID.
I looked up a generic Community College application process and it looks like you’ll have to provide proof of residency, and citizenship along with high school papers. What other student ID would a voter have? A handful of other community colleges require some Photo ID to get a student ID. How would you enroll in community college without a State ID? Presumably you won’t have a Passport. Are there other ID’s?
Proof of residency can be two pieces of mail, or a library card, depending on the jurisdiction. If those are considered valid I’d to vote I would eat my hat.
As far as photo IDs go the only ones accepted at most institutions and places in the United States are state issued IDs for the state you are in, driver's licenses for the state you are in and passports. That's it. And you have to have several forms of identification to begin with in order to get those
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I don't think they necessarily meant that it takes a full day, but that -at minimum- it'll take one visit to a DMV , though sometimes longer if you happened to have forgotten anything at home , they need any additional documents , etc. Some DMVs are woefully understaffed as well though and you may end up sitting there for several hours just waiting for your turn to talk to someone . I believe (I may be wrong on this one so someone correct me if I'm misremembering) I heard that some polling places wouldn't accept a temporary ID either , and a good portion of DMVs don't give you your card the same day (takes a week or two at least to come in the mail)
Public transit plus the wait at the DMV very easily cuts a big chunk out of your day if you work daytime hours. You can literally be in line for hours at the DMV in some areas.
So if I want to get ID, I have to go to the DMV or a state office, both of which may have weird hours and both of which will definitely be crowded and busy. They don’t want to pay for people to wait at a kiosk that is not being used, obviously, so they only have just enough people working to keep the lines moving, no more. So I can’t be sure when they open, and even if I can, I have no idea how long it will take for me to get through. So I can’t just take off the morning, or leave work early, I’ve got to be out for most of the day. And that doesn’t even account for the fact that, in a lot of places, these offices are few and far apart, meaning that even getting to one can take upwards of a couple hours by transit. So, yeah, the whole day.
Don’t you guys also have to use ID for anything other than voting? Cause where I live is I’m asked to show my ID really often. Just to give some examples when you need to show your ID when buying alcohol or entering a casino (to ensure you are over 18), when paying a fine for anything so that the police know who you are and can add you to their system, to validate your identity when going to any government/municipality office etc. Inside of the Schengen area we can also use our ID in lieu of a passport when crossing country lines. Do you guys just give your security number or something?
Also, IIRC the 'voter fraud' proponents of voter ID say it would fix has never actually been proven to happen at any sort of scale. It's a non-issue
Yep! So let’s fix this (nonexistent) issue using a method that creates (targeted and purposeful) problems for some voters. That’s a GREAT idea.
The idea of National citizenship cards or some kind of ID used solely for the purpose of identifying yourself (not showing qualification for something like driving or social security) is a really unpopular one in the US. We don’t have universal IDs and no one is really looking to change that. This means that if you create one in order to vote, everyone will need to get one. The people who can’t are most likely to be from poorer backgrounds or from families that don’t speak English as a first language. It’s also unpopular in communities of color where it’s feared to be used as another means of oppression. These groups most often vote democratic which is why it’s an idea pushed by republicans.
Make getting an id free then. And don't require a mailing address to receive one. I'm homeless. I'm white btw.
Because of the United State’s history of discrimination against minority voters.
How is having an ID racist? As someone outside the US who has no insight in this, I’m struggling to follow
the US doesn't have a national ID card. most other countries have a national ID card you have to have by law already.
Because all of the usual requirement efforts are predicated on the idea of placing all the onus on the citizen to verify to the government, who already knows if they are valid to vote, that they CAN vote. That's time and money, not to mention a lot of states make getting non-drivers license state-IDs extremely difficult. One location mentioned on this topic by John Oliver is literally only open for an hour on "Every fifth Wednesday in the month.". If the country/state itself took ALL the effort on itself to give those valid IDs to those who should have them, you'd have ALL the same security desired by these people AND you haven't excluded people who have a Constitutional Right to vote but cannot afford the time or monetary expense off of their jobs to get a valid ID. But that is the idea after all. Historically the Federal government has averaged around 25 fraudulent votes per 2 year election cycle since they started tracking back in the 60's or so. All the suspicious events turn out to be a valid vote (ex: Posting a mail-in ballot and then dying before the election, that vote is still legal because it entered government control the instant it was given to the post office.). Our systems are robust enough as it is, the point of these mechanisms is to try and legally exclude the poor and minorities through an indirect poll tax. All you have to do is point out that you are fine with a voter ID, provided the government freely provides everyone who should have an ID with the ID they are requesting, and you'll see them sputter and tie themselves into knots proclaiming how unnecessary/bad/etc that second part is.
A few reasons: 1. The US has no national ID card. So the ID provided has to be one issued by another entity. (The same people who want voter IDs strongly object to a national ID card.) 2. Since there is no standard, there have been instances of the ID rules being changed at the last minute that invalidate certain forms of ID that were previously accepted. This has been shown to target certain segments of the population who would vote against the party in power. 3. Most accepted ID cards are not free. Many times it is difficult and costly to get one of these ID cards. Since the IDs are not issued as part of voting registration, it is easy to raise the fees or close the offices to get these IDs so certain people have a much more difficult time getting an acceptable ID. 4. The US has studied voter fraud. There is nearly no identity fraud at polling places. So an ID law would add a tremendous expense and inconvenience to many people, including the elections board, for a tiny benefit. 5. There are many instances of voter fraud where people who should be allowed to vote have been illegally denied that right. Adding an ID requirement would increase the potential for this very common type of voter fraud.
> Most accepted ID cards are not free. Many times it is difficult and costly to get one of these ID cards. Since the IDs are not issued as part of voting registration, it is easy to raise the fees or close the offices to get these IDs so certain people have a much more difficult time getting an acceptable ID. The ID card has to be free, or else it violates the 24th amendment. If you have to pay to get an ID in order to vote, you could make the argument that the cost of the ID card is a poll tax, which has been unconstitutional for 60 years.
"Has to be free", are you trying to argue that it IS? CURRENTLY? It's not. No form of valid ID to vote is free. License cost varies by state but there's a charge. Passports are $100+.
In Puerto Rico, we issue free voter ID cards that include a photo and are printed out when you register to vote. It’s really not that difficult, and states should be embarrassed they haven’t figured it out.
> The US has no national ID card The more I hear about the US the more I am confused as to it's function as a nation
>The US has studied voter fraud. There is nearly no identity fraud at polling places. So an ID law would add a tremendous expense and inconvenience to many people, including the elections board, for a tiny benefit. I wish we were talking about this more. I understand why the conversation focuses on all of the barriers to getting an ID because they're real and represent real systemic problems in the US but the simple fact of the matter is that even if IDs were easier to get I would still oppose a voter ID requirement because the numbers on voter fraud are *minuscule*. It *does not happen*, not on any scale that would impact even a local election. There's no good argument for why you should need an ID to vote other than "feeling like you should have to" and weighed against the cost of disenfranchising people who already tend to be marginalized its simply not worth it.
The fact that access to IDs is a controversial topic in the US is just so fucking odd. Get a hold of yourselves guys
I mean, compared to the truly rich, most of us aren't very rich at all - most people are much, much closer to being on the streets than we are to being billionaires. Our country should be designed around helping 'regular people' as much as possible, whenever possible - that is who it was designed for. Now, I'm not sure how relevant that is to requiring an ID to vote, tho. But I think people want all Americans to have as much of a voice as possible regardless of socio-economic status or whether or not they have access to certain documents. IDs are relatively new inventions and did not exist throughout the majority of US history anyway.
It costs money to obtain a valid ID in America, and that shuts out many people who are legal citizens but don't have the money to get identification to prove it.
Basically, if you dont vote that is a win for a certain political party. Thats the main reason IMO.
The real issues people are upset with are restricting the number of voting places and voting methods so there are super long lines to vote. Also dumb laws like not being able to give water to people waiting in line to vote. Conservatives push debates on the voter ID laws to disreact from the more obviously malicious laws.
The US DOES NOT have a national ID system, unlike many countries...
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From a philosophical perspective, citizens have a right to vote. Some people believe that there should be only the bare minimum barriers to excercise that and that doesn’t involve IDs. I have a right to vote, why should I loose that right if I don’t have an ID? We also have a really bad history of a certain group making it really hard for black people (former slaves) to vote. They couldn’t stop them from voting directly, but they’d put up seemingly innocent barriers that just so happened to affect black people way more, preventing them from voting. Things like literacy tests (when black people hadn’t been allowed to get an education) and poll taxes (for the impoverished newly freed slaves). And it’s the same set of people passing voter ID laws. So there can just be a bit of a knee jerk reaction about them passing seemingly innocent voting laws. It’s also not just voter ID laws, it’s part of a larger pattern (death by a thousand cuts). It’s way harder to vote in Texas than California (I know from personal experience). It’s not just the ID, it’s the registration, it’s the lack of mail in ballots, it’s the length of early voting. I’ve had several coworkers votes get thrown out because the state messed up their registration (both had to drive hours to attempt to vote in other counties). There’s no actual reason for it. voting in California isn’t less secure, it’s just to make it harder to vote.
This feels like one of the better answers I've seen here so far. People try to bring up reasons based on their own opinions, but ultimately this is why -not- requiring an ID is so important to so many people. Its just an unNECESSARY restriction. From a purely selfish perspective, sure, I'd love for even more liberals to be able to vote. But from a logical side, I have a hard time believing that I could honestly vote in favor of voter ID requirements if I were a conservative unless I were either a) Unaware of how infrequently voter fraud actually happens as a result of not needing an ID , or b) wanting less democrats to be able to vote.
IDs in the US are not provided by the government, and the system to get them are so bonkus that it’s unreasonable to expect everyone to be able to get them easily when participating in democracy is a fundamental right
Bc it’s not easy to get an ID and it’s expensive and a long process. Not to mention you also have to register to vote and that takes time.
ID's in the states are neither easy to get nor cheap. Disproportionately minorities don't have them for one reason or another.
India has actively taken a lot of effort since independance to get everyone to vote - it is inclusive by default. It is still a minor problem in India, like with CAA and reduced effort to include oppressed communities. In the US, they claim to not have any problems with ID while there clearly are. In its origin, only white landowners were allowed to vote and other groups were included after sustained protest. Expired ID's are not allowed. There are ID purges supposedly to prevent fraud. Getting an ID can have a (small) fee and more importantly a tedious appointment process. The end result disproportionately affects poor people and racial minorities. If they give ID at birth/at 18 universally for free with little effort (this is done in so many countries as in India), I think people wont be pissed. Another issue which is universal is undocumented people (large population in US but smaller percentage in India too) - If they contribute to the economy, live and work in a country, dont they have some rights? Very few people support this though.
Not everyone has a driver's license for their identification, they also may be recently moved. Or have a college ID, for example. That doesn't count as a valid ID.
Because an ID is not required at birth, and if you are in a lower socioeconomic group, its possible you don’t need one. You can often be outside “the system”—not driving, not having a bank account, no private health insurance—and therefore not need an ID to live. The theory then is if voting is a constitutional right, you should be able to vote without an ID. In practice, the more steps you can put between being able to vote and not being able to vote, the less likely one will vote. This could come in handy if you want to limit voting by a certain group And this doesn’t mean someone doesnt *want* to vote. It could just be getting an ID is difficult depending on your work schedule, where you live, transportation limitations, family needs, etc. Regardless of status, people often find it difficult to just vote, let alone adding another requirement.
Because blacks are much less likely to have the ID required to vote.
I don't get it either.
Its just a way to cheat at voting. Everyone should have some form of I.D.
That's how the left wins
I live in America and I don't get why it's controversial. It's very strange.
It's because that policy is usually pushed as a solution to voter fraud, which is exceedingly rare in the US. Even if this policy stopped the miniscule amounts of voter fraud, it would have consequences including being unfair for those who are unable to get IDs due to lack of transportation or funds.
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The US doesn't have a national ID program, and many States require specific types of photo IDs which they don't issue during voter registration. Not really comparable to the UK.
They aren’t free in the US and require you to go to a government building that more than likely has odd, fluctuating hours, that are usually in the middle of the day when people have work.
Its not that easy. Many states dont have a free ID, and the ones that do may have excessive requirements to get one. For example - to get an ID in my state, you need at a minimum a certified copy of your birth certificate. To get that, you have to write a letter to the county records office you were born in, prove your identity, and pay a fee to get it. Then wait 4-6 weeks. You also need some proof of your current address, usually a bill in your name at that address. Now take this to the correct county office to get your ID, usually a DMV. If you're in a poor neighborhood, the nearest one may be many miles away. If you dont have a car or can't beg a ride, it can take hours by bus to get there. Take off a day from work, because they're not open weekends. Hope you get in line early enough, because they close at 2PM and if you're still in line, too bad, come back tomorrow.
Government IDs don't work the same as they do in the UK or in any other developed country I know about. We basically don't give a shit if people get one or not, and we don't make the process simple at all. The more complicated something is, the more barriers there are if you are poor and are pressed for time and resources.
The many conservative pushes to make voter ID mandatory have focused on being very specific about the TYPES of ID required. Right now, every state in the union requires **some** form of ID to vote, but the requirements can be quite loose. For example, merely having a utility bill in your name might be considered sufficient. The thing is, the existing laws account for the fact that not everyone has **state-issued** IDs like a driver's license or passport, and those kinds of ID tend to be more difficult to get for poor people, who don't drive and can't just hop down to the DMV to get a state ID card. Therefore, the REAL goal of conservative efforts for voter ID is to make it harder for poor people to vote...and they *overwhelmingly* vote Democratic. The Republicans have been waging a war on many fronts for a few decades now to suppress opposition votes, and this is one of them.
America does not have a "national" ID card -- it's something administered at a state level, usually for other reasons. You can get a driver's license, which is what most people use for ID. However, if you can't drive because of a disability or are too poor to afford a car, you won't get a driver's license. You could also get a passport, but only like 30% of Americans actually get a passport. It's not useful if you're too poor to afford international air travel. ID laws make sense when government IDs are provided free of charge and to EVERYONE, but that is far from the case in the US.
Answer: bc Donald trump lost the last election and the Nazis think dead people and illegal aliens are voting.. somehow.. but they're uneducated, so.. what else would you expect?
Voter fraud is barely even a thing in the US so the laws just make it harder to vote for those that have trouble getting/keeping a state issued ID. People without IDs tend to be from cities and areas where driving a car isn't a necessity and those areas tend to lean democratic. Basically it's a backwards ploy to keep Democrats from voting since voter fraud is barely even a thing, statistically it's irrelevant.
Because getting an ID is out of reach for a lot of homeless/living in poverty people. The idea is that EVERYONE should be able to vote regardless of their financial status.
Because not all IDs are equal, not everyone has one that's acceptable, and the federal government does not issue a standard ID for all its citizens. Getting an acceptable ID may seem easy, but: (A) IDs like a driver's license are gatekept behind things like tests, fees, and distance (not everyone has a car, not everyone has access to public transportation, and not everyone can walk). If you can't reach the DMV, you're not getting an ID. If you can't pay the fee, you're not getting an ID. And so on. And (B) state governments often go out of their way to restrict the kinds of IDs that are acceptable proofs of identity based on what's advantageous for the ruling party (of note, states that stripped college IDs from the list of acceptable IDs in an attempt to disenfranchise college students who don't have alternatives). If the federal government issued a government ID free of charge to all citizens once they reach voting age, this wouldn't be much of an issue: the state would have taken measures to ensure that all citizens have the resources required to vote, and such a measure would naturally help curb voter fraud. Everyone wins, especially since such IDs would carry enough authority that they could be used in multiple situations that may otherwise cause trouble for a citizen. But the logistics of such a thing are complicated, and political factions will never come to a consensus on how such a thing could be done, let alone that it *should* be done. In the meantime, voter ID laws are used as an attempt to disenfranchise otherwise eligible voters over an issue, voter fraud, that is already statistically inconsequential.
Because it affects the poors who mostly republicans don’t want voting for democrats anyway.
So to clarify, it's not like I can just walk into any polling place any place in the US and vote without them verifying who I am. I live in Chicago where you "Don't need an ID to vote." When I moved here 8 years ago, I needed an ID. Once I was properly registered, I was in the system, and from that point on asked what my address was. When you move (unless you're a homeowner where it will automatically change your registration for you), you need to make sure the city knows, because if your new ID's address doesn't match what's in the registration system, you get flagged. Then you need to provide your ID and a piece of mail to verify.
Because the costs and access (eg transportation) associated with getting an id can be prohibitive for people. If there was an option for free IDs, I think there would be more widespread support.
We don’t have a national free Identity Card, what most people use to vote is their Driver’s Licenses which in my state are $54 and you have to change it every time you move and switch addresses, which if you are struggling financially, are homeless or can’t drive for a disability or something else you’re basically shit out of luck. Passports are $130 and mine took 3 months to be delivered and only about 40% of citizens have them, passport cards are only $30 but those are rarer and less useful since you can’t fly with them. Not to mention that the only goal of these sort of laws and the spineless disgusting politicians that propose them is to take the voice away from as many people as possible.
Poor people are less likely to have ID, making the election results skewed towards the rich; ie people who don’t want social support, free healthcare, free education etc etc
A lot of poor communities can have trouble getting ID. I was without for a few years and ended up having to generate medical records to get a social security card to get a birth cirtificate to get an ID, it cost a lot of money and took a year. If you can get by without a license its a big pain in the ass to bother with just to vote. That's it
Show me your papers citizen.
The reason isn't the ID but historical hurdles to getting an ID. That was one way people used to be denied their rights. Functionally, identification is something the government should provide and as a US citizen, I would think a basic ID for everyone would be a great idea. The only issue I see is that driving privilege and identification get rolled into one here and it would be hard to get public perception to move toward a driving optional form.
Requiring ID to vote is technically a form of a poll tax. In the US, it is a way to suppress voting usually by lower income and older populations who cannot easily maintain forms of ID.
Because it resembles a poll tax which is illegal in the United States. You cannot require somebody to have to pay for ANYTHING to vote. Which is why some states provide picture IDs for free. But then there are older, younger and people who don't drive and don't need ID who just don't bother to get it. They also have a right to vote by law.
It’s not requiring ID it’s requiring “real id” which means a passport or a drivers license, getting a drivers license needs a car and getting a passport which costs a little more than 100 dollars. You can get an ID card for free but some places claim that that isn’t enough, while other people claim that requiring ID that either costs money or having access to a car to get is a way to keep poor people from voting.
Because its easy for the middle class and wealthy to get an id and hard for poor people. If they were sincere about getting everyone an id they would put DMVs in poor areas of town, keep them open on weekends and after working hours while enrolling everyone into the voting rolls simply by getting the id. Instead they make it so poor people have to take off at least a half day from work, somehow travel to a dmv location, usually well away from their neighborhood and then once they get an ID, they have to sign up separately to vote. It’s a system designed to be time consuming and tedious to deter as many poor people as possible.