Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by tyen_ 1466 days ago
> It’s a barrier for poor people to exercise their rights.

This is delusional. ID is required for so many daily activities and the price of an ID (if they charge for it) is less than $10.
3 comments
hedora 1466 days ago
In Ohio, it's much easier to vote with a drivers license than with a state ID card. People that are disabled or can't afford a car have state ID cards.

Also, poll taxes are unconstitutional in the US. $10 is more than $0.

link
mulmen 1466 days ago
It takes very little to imagine how this causes inequality. Maybe you can’t get the state ID either! Voter ID and State ID aren’t necessarily the same thing. Maybe you need both! Maybe you can get your State ID at a local office but the Voter ID only from the county courthouse two towns away. Maybe you don’t have a car and a day off. Maybe they are only available on certain days and times. Maybe those times change at the last minute.

When all those maybes line up you get inequality. This is well established behavior across the United States. If you want to learn more I suggest starting with this: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_Rights_Act_of_1965

My thoughts on this have evolved over the years. I encourage you to dig deeper into this. Voter ID might not do or mean what you think it does.

link
jcranmer 1466 days ago
In Alabama, it's $36.25 (cite: https://www.alea.gov/dps/driver-license/license-and-id-cards).
link
systemvoltage 1466 days ago
So instead of opposing the entire idea of voter IDs, why do we not pass a Federal law that makes getting an ID free of charge?

Seems like that's the root cause or the main contention.

link
shadowgovt 1466 days ago
There's a big can of worms here. The thumbnail sketch is "Americans have some (as viewed from outside the US) odd and severe hangups about being tracked by the government that is, ostensibly, theirs."

Reasons range from the practical / legal ones listed by the ACLU (https://www.aclu.org/other/5-problems-national-id-cards) to a small-but-vocal subset of voters who actually believe (because so much of the US is descended from Christian zealots fleeing persecution in their home countries for heterodoxy) that a card issued by your government that is required to participate in society is a literal "mark of the beast" as per the biblical Book of Revelations and therefore something to be resisted as part of a struggle against anti-Christendom.

link
systemvoltage 1466 days ago
No, I meant, passing a law that says "$0 for all state IDs". Not talking about National ID.
link