[rayiner]

It's not any easier to get a national ID in say Germany if you don't already have one. E.g. https://www.personalausweisportal.de/SharedDocs/faqs/Webs/PA...

"In order to be issued a national ID card, you need to be able to establish your identity and your German citizenship. If at the time of your application you are not able to provide any documentation of your identity, such as an expired national ID card or a birth certificate or other identity-establishing document, the issuing authority will check your identity by other suitable means (see no. 6.3.1 of the Administrative Regulation on Passports (Passverwaltungsvorschrift, PassVwV))."

If you read through administrative regulation 6.3.1, it provides for the issuing authority to look at various documents to establish identity and citizenship. If all else fails, affidavits from witnesses can be used.

U.S. states operate the same way. I'll use Georgia as an example since I've lived there: https://sos.ga.gov/page/proof-citizenship. There's twenty different ways to prove citizenship, including affidavits from third parties if all else fails.

[preg_match]

The undeniable reality is that these measures do, in fact, constitute barriers to voting and the barriers are not evenly applied. Less privileged Americans are less likely to have ID, and that’s just a statistical fact.

If the opposition cannot be trusted to even so much as acknowledge reality and fact, we must reject all notions of voter ID, with no exceptions. One begins to wonder why the right is so unbelievably hamstrung on ignoring the issue of ID availability.

Could it be, perhaps, because their goal is not righteous as they claim, but is rather a thinly-veiled attempt at voter suppression? Based off their actions, I would say any reasonable person would have no choice but to see it that way.

There are solutions to these problems. The people you’re championing would rather die than even consider them. Sit back and ponder why.

[tzs]

Georgia accepts these documents.

• Birth certificate issued by a US state

• Passport

• Certificate of Citizenship

• Naturalization Certificate

• A Report of Birth Abroad of a US Citizen

• Birth Certificate issued by the Department of State

• A US Citizen card

• An American Indian Card issued by the Department of Homeland Security with the classification code "KIC" (Issued by DHS to identify U.S. citizen members of the Texas Band of Kickapoos living near the U.S./Mexican border)

• Final adoption decree showing the child's name and U.S. birthplace

• Evidence of civil service employment by the U.S. government before June 1976

• An official U.S. military record of service showing a U.S. place of birth

• A Northern Mariana Identification Card (Issued by the INS to a collectively naturalized citizen of the U.S. who was born in the Northern Mariana Islands before November 4, 1986)

• Extract of U.S. hospital record of birth established at the time of the person's birth indicating a U.S. place of birth

• Life or health or other insurance record which indicates a U.S. place of birth and which is dated at least 5 years before the initial application date

• Federal or State census record which indicates U.S. citizenship or a U.S. place of birth

• Institutional admission papers from a nursing home, skilled nursing care facility or other institution which indicates a U.S. place of birth

• Medical (clinical, doctor, or hospital) record which indicates a U.S. place of birth and which is dated at least 5 years before the application date.

• A driver’s license or identification card issued by an agency of a U.S. state if that agency indicates on the driver’s license or identification card that the applicant has provided satisfactory evidence of United States citizenship to the agency

• One of the following if created at least 5 years before use to prove citizenship and if showing a U.S. place of birth: Seneca Indian tribal census record; Bureau of Indian Affairs tribal census records of the Navaho Indians; U.S. State Vital Statistics official notification of birth registration; an amended or delayed U.S. public birth record that is amended more than 5 years after the person's birth; or statement signed by the physician or midwife who was in attendance at the time of birth

• If other forms of documentation cannot be obtained, documentation may be provided by a written affidavit, signed under penalty of perjury, from two citizens, one of whom cannot be related to the person in question, who have specific knowledge of event(s) establishing the person in question's citizenship status. The person in question or another knowledgeable individual must also submit an affidavit stating why the documents are not available. Affidavits are only expected to be used in rare circumstances

Most of those are only going to be useful to to a small fraction of adult Georgians who don't already have proof of citizenship. The affidavit at first seems like no big deal but it probably is because it as asking for affidavits from people who have specific knowledge of events that establish your citizenship.

[Timon3]

You're omitting fundamental differences between these systems, for example that Germans are required by law to own a government ID, so only a tiny fraction of the population has to use this process. As far as I have seen this appears to be around 2-3%, and I haven't come across any studies showing that historically disadvantaged groups are more likely not to have an ID. Compare that to ~10% of Americans without proof of identification, and it just so happens that minorities make up a disproportionately big part of this group.

Second, in Germany there exist exactly 2 ID cards accepted for e.g. voting: your national ID card, and your passport. There are no per-state ID cards, there are no ID cards that are completely fine to use in all government interactions except for voting. Meanwhile the US has 50 different ID card systems, and the people who are making arbitrary decisions on which of these ID cards are acceptable are the same people who can electorally benefit from strategically banning/allowing certain kinds of IDs.

So no, rayiner, these situations aren't remotely comparable. They could be if the US government introduced a uniform national ID card, and if citizens had plenty of time to get one. For example I'd have no issues with voter ID if it were introduced only once >95% of the population owns this hypothetical national ID over a 5-year period.

The funny/sad part in all this: if conservatives actually cared about election security, all they'd have to do is listen to the arguments against voter ID and remove these roadblocks over a few years, maybe a decade. But for some reason their only approach seems to be to demand Voter ID be introduced right now, no time to prepare, no efforts made to solve any of the issues. I wonder why?