[xg15]

> The U.S. is suspicious of many types of documentation. E.g. none needed for voting in many areas, etc. The culture tends towards erring on less bureaucracy.

I used to respect that viewpoint - but, honestly, I can't take it seriously anymore after we learned first of NSA mass surveillance and then of the loaded discussion about voter fraud and the byzantine voter registration procedures.

The US is still drawing up a specter from the cold war era while ignoring that those danger never materialized when national IDs where actually issued - and while actively developing tech that is far more invasive than a simple ID.

I think by now, introducing a federal ID could even help the fight against racism: If there was a single federal ID that was easily obtainable for any US citizen, that would remove the need for all the different and in part discriminatory registration systems, while still allowing voter fraud concerns to be addressed.