[kevinh]

He's being downvoted because voter fraud, if on the scale that Trump believes it is (millions of people), would be readily visible and provable.

Instead it's a mechanism for enabling voter ID laws, which prevent demographics that trend Democrat from voting.

[rdtsc]

> it's a mechanism for enabling voter ID laws, which prevent demographics that trend Democrat from voting.

Which demographics are those?

[eli]

According to a GAO report: young people, newly registered voters and African-Americans were disproportionately affected.

https://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-14-634

[rdtsc]

However I see that

---

Five of these 10 studies found that ID requirements had no statistically significant effect on turnout; in contrast 4 studies found decreases in turnout and 1 found an increase in turnout that were statistically significant.

---

And all the states includes in the study seems to have disagreed with the methodology used:

---

In comments on draft report excerpts the Kansas, Tennessee, and Arkansas Secretary of State Offices disagreed with GAO's criteria for selecting treatment and comparison states and Kansas and Tennessee questioned the reliability of one dataset used to assess turnout.

---

To me it seems the answer is then "let's have community outreach to help every eligible over get an acceptable ID. Even subsidize free ID that can be used for voting" not "let's not have any IDs".

Also coming from Europe and knowing that other countries with even more poverty and somehow manage to have an ID https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_ID_(India) and here despite all the insinuations and allegations of voter fraud and all the talk and energy spent on elections people are still against IDs.

[eli]

I picked the GAO report because they have a reputation for solid, unbiased work. But a quick google will find you many other citations. Quite a few people have come independently to the conclusion that it decreases turnout among populations that tend to vote Democrat.

So that's a problem. Making ID cards free would probably help, but the other issue is that you're weighing the potential disenfranchisement of some marginalized people on one side against a phantom "voter fraud" boogeyman on the other side. In-person voter fraud basically never happens. There's no need to take any steps to stamp it out.

There are so many better ways to spend that time and effort -- improving the vote-by-mail process, to pick an easy example.

[sweep4r]

How do voter ID laws prevent democrats from voting? We have to be fully identified in Europe to vote and parties from the left win elections just fine.

[schwabacher]

ID laws are most likely to exclude young, black, low income and (legal) immigrant voters who are less likely to have drivers licenses than others and are more likely to vote for democrats. (here is one study https://apnews.com/1dba56c5f8f7430f859748aff4405b10/study-vo...)

Some of the laws are explicitly designed to favor demographics that skew conservative and exclude others - for example Texas accepts gun licenses as valid IDs but excludes student IDs.

[rsynnott]

We need ID to vote in Ireland (in theory; it's spot-checked), but the range of things accepted as ID are much greater. In particular, a debit or credit card can be used, as can a social security card. Since basically everyone either has a job (and thus needs a bank account) or draws some sort of social welfare, or both, nearly everyone has one of these anyway.

Most developed countries just have a mandatory ID card, of course.

The US states requiring ID would be much less worrying if they would accept something that everyone has. It's the selectiveness about forms of ID that makes the motives clear...

[dragonwriter]

> The US states requiring ID would be much less worrying if they would accept something that everyone has.

Sure, but a key purpose of voter IDs laws, as proponents will sometimes admit in public (or in remarks that aren't intended to become public but do) is to tip the partisan scales in elections.

[an_account]

A lot of people in the US (even ones with jobs) are unbanked so wouldn’t have even an ATM card.

[rsynnott]

Ah, right. Most employers here wouldn't be enthusiastic about paying people any way other than transfer to a bank/credit-union account these days.

[rdtsc]

Is it possible to have national ID laws and not let states like Texas mess with those.

Maybe that's not what you meant it seems a bit racist assuming that young black youth who want to vote are too incompetent to get an ID. But presumably poor white or asian ones are smarter and more resourceful. Having lived in poor neighborhoods with various races I'd say that not true based on my experience.

[Pulcinella]

You're the one bringing up incompetence. It's hard to get a driver's license or state ID when you have no car, work a full time job or two, the legislature closed your "local" DMV and the closest one is an hour away by bus.

[rdtsc]

I was trying to figure out what OP meant by the fact that black young won't be able to get IDs to vote. So presumption of incompetence was a guess there.

[dragonwriter]

Black people are more likely to be poor in the first place.

(Not that a policy which selectively disenfranchised the poor would be acceptable if it were race neutral in effect.)

And, it may or may not be Constitutionally possible to have a centralized national ID, but it's certainly not politically likely.

[eru]

> [...] it seems a bit racist assuming that young black youth who want to vote are too incompetent to get an ID.

No need to assume, you can just check the statistics.

[sweep4r]

There are two things I don't understand.

1) How come there isn't a standard, mandatory, country-wide ID card system in place?

2) If you can vote without an ID card, what prevents illegals from voting as somebody else?

[Fej]

1. The American tradition is distrust of government, especially the federal government. A mandatory national ID card would cause riots in the streets.

That being said, it kinda exists already in the form of the Social Security card & number. If a baby is born in a hospital, they get one at birth. If not, the parents can apply for one. It is the de facto way to prove citizenship. Everyone who processes sensitive information asks for it (banks, etc.)

2. Persons in the US illegally don't vote because the benefit is nonexistent and the punishment is very harsh.

[sweep4r]

2. doesn't really convince me--they are illegals, who are staying in a country with no regard for the law. "Harsh punishment" doesn't sound like something that would deter them from doing something like voting, as that could improve their lives greatly.

Anyway I want to know, aren't you identified in any way at all when you vote? Don't you have to pretend you're someone who's on a list, at least?

[Pilfer]

>Anyway I want to know, aren't you identified in any way at all when you vote? Don't you have to pretend you're someone who's on a list, at least?

You can see how easy it is to register to vote in California yourself at the official government website https://covr.sos.ca.gov/ You can complete the first 4 steps of the app without submitting it, just complete the first 4 steps to see what's needed.

You do not need to provide any form of identification to register. When asked, just select "I do not have a California driver license or California identification card." You don't need to provide a social security number, which the govt uses to keep track of your taxes, social security benefits; and is used by banks, hospitals, and credit agencies to verify identity. It is assigned by the govt just after birth and practically every citizen born after ~1940 will have one, and all legal immigrants will have one.

You do not need to provide a mailing address to register. You can say "I do not have a street address."

The only items you have to provide to register to vote are a name, birthdate, and what county you live in. And you just need to check a box stating "I am a U.S. citizen". That's it, it's very very easy to register in California.

One restriction is, you can't register with a very silly name (e.g. "Mr. NotMy RealName" because periodically they will search though voter rolls and purge them. However, if you register with a regular sounding name I don't think it would raise any issue.

[pedrosorio]

Do you really believe the cost-benefit analysis is in favor of voting for a single illegal immigrant when the punishment is deportation and their influence on the outcome of the vote is ~0?

Or do you believe there is an underground organization that mobilizes this "illegal vote" by insuring millions of people against the adverse consequences of being caught voting in order to push for the legalization of all undocumented immigrants?

[eru]

You must be joking. No individual vote changes much.

And not all crimes are the same: most people just want to live a quiet live. So just because they are breaking immigration laws doesn't make them a priori more likely to eg commit murder or voting fraud. (I heard that the undocumented immigrants are much more careful to eg stick to traffic laws, since they don't want to get any attention?)

[andrewla]

To answer your question directly, at least in New York -- yes, you need to pretend that you're someone on a list, and were that person to later show up (or if they had shown up and you tried to pretend to be them) then there would be an issue. In New York this entails giving your name to the official, and signing your name next to your entry in a big book that lists all registered voters in the precinct, after which you are issued a ballot. New York is not supposed to ask for any identification, unless the voter is missing from the rolls.

I assume it is similar in California. Some research indicates that in California, if this is a new registrant, then some identification, or at least proof of residency, must be provided [1]. If documents cannot be provided to the satisfaction of the officials, then a provisional ballot will be offered instead, pending verification of residency.

[1] http://elections.cdn.sos.ca.gov/regulations/hava_id_regs_fro...

[andrewla]

Also, in the interest of clarifying the conversation, the term "illegal immigrant" in the US is used somewhat loosely to refer to two distinct groups.

One is people who committed the crime of "illegal entry" -- they smuggled themselves into the country somehow.

The other group, much more common, is people who visited legally (on a tourist or other visa) but have stayed, in violation of their visa.

It's a mistake to think of the second group as criminals in the technical sense -- they have not committed a criminal offense, only a civil offense. It would be like saying that everyone who exceeds the posted speed limits is a criminal "with no regard for the law".

[walshemj]

quite a lot of anglo saxon countries distrust national id's and a national register can be abused eg rounding up he jews in Europe.

More recently I worked for a Lebanese company in the uk and one of my Lebanese coworkers had had a close family member killed as when he was stopped by a militia had had the wrong religion on his card

[OJFord]

> How come there isn't a standard, mandatory, country-wide ID card system in place?

This doesn't exist in the UK. The USA is bigger, more distrusting of government, and would presumably have to deliberate over whether it was really to be a national system, or rather - perhaps mandatory - state-level systems.

[crooked-v]

The voter ID laws in question are written to allow forms of ID overwhelmingly possessed by Republican demographics (for example, gun licenses), while disallowing forms of ID overwhelmingly possessed by Democratic demographics (for example, college-issued ID cards).

On top of this, these laws generally come with extra burdens when getting a generic state-issued ID card (for example, requiring more paperwork to be shown for it), or are passed at the same time that state DMV offices in Democratic-leaning areas have their operating hours cut.

[dragonwriter]

The US has no national ID and states have no universal mandatory ID; there are existing biases in practical access to ID, and those have been unaddressed or exacerbated in schemes requiring ID for voting.

A dramatic example would be Alabama adopting a voter ID requirement and then shortly after it became effective, closing the driver's license offices (where IDs are issued; driver's licenses are the main form of state ID and alternative non-driver IDs are generally issued by the same offices sice they use infrastructure originally built for driver's licenses) in 8 of 10 black-majority counties, including all those where that majority was 75%+ and including the five that voted most strongly Democratic in the preceding Presidential election.

http://www.al.com/opinion/index.ssf/2015/09/alabama_sends_me...

[rsynnott]

> We have to be fully identified in Europe to vote

Depends on the country. The UK doesn't require ID (except in Northern Ireland). Ireland requires ID, but it can be practically anything (bank cards, social security cards, student ID, work ID, birth certs, some bus passes...) Most other countries in Europe have mandatory ID for all citizens anyway, so requiring it to vote in less onerous. In the US, there's no national ID card, and the states which require ID to vote typically require ID that not everyone has, and that lower-income people who live in cities are particularly unlikely to have.

[SeanLuke]

Countries in Europe with voter ID also generally have mandatory IDs for all citizens and residents. But the United States does not have a mandatory ID.

As a result, voter ID laws often turn on which form of ID you are permitted to provide. Many states with voter ID laws also have conveniently defined their set of acceptable IDs to be those which Republican voters are much more likely to have than Democrat voters, due to income and cultural disparities. Additionally some of these states offer some kind of universal ID for purposes of voting, but it will not be free or will be unusually difficult to obtain.

This bias towards Republican voters is not by accident: multiple Republican-controlled legislatures have been quite open about their intent. It is one of several strategies being employed by Republicans to counter Democrat-leaning trends in voter demographics.

[zimpenfish]

> We have to be fully identified in Europe to vote

Not true in the UK - last General Election, I walked into the Polling Station, handed over a polling card, confirmed the address WRITTEN ON THE CARD, and then voted as me.

I could have picked up anyone's card from the block of flats I live in. Hell, I could probably have voted more than once if I'd been careful and timed multiple visits to avoid hitting the same checking people.

And this is without even getting to the "you don't need a polling card to vote" bit.