From a sheer systems design standpoint, it’s one of those things that seems like a reasonable thing and the opposition has never made a lot of sense to me.
From an audit trail standpoint, if we are taking measures to better ensure integrity of elections it seems like you would want to do both. Do it with whatever measures are necessary to ensure that people who would have difficulty obtaining an ID have some means to do it.
It just seems like if we have a goal of removing questions about election integrity, we should go the whole way.
Voter ID laws will help prevent people impersonating one another and stealing each other's votes. But they also prevent legitimate voters from casting votes, if they don't satisfy the voter ID requirement. If the latter effect is larger than the former effect, your voter ID law has introduced a net negative impact on the U.S. election system.
Because the goal of an election system is to accurately count legitimate votes, not just to not count illegitimate votes.
> It just seems like if we have a goal of removing questions about election integrity, we should go the whole way.
Election integrity is also compromised if citizens are not permitted to vote.
If you'd like to better understand the opposition to voter ID laws, Google can do a lot for you. The ACLU is not a bad place to start, though:
https://www.aclu.org/other/oppose-voter-id-legislation-fact-...
If getting a state-issued picture ID was free, easy, and convenient, I don't think nearly as many people would object to the requirement. But somehow that's never mentioned by those that want to "ensure election security". Because for far too many of those people, what they actually want is fewer minorities and low-income people voting.
I agree this is inadequately discussed/addressed.
It might still be remarkably expensive overall to implement, but voter IDs could be handled at the local level, as voter registration often is, with similarly lightweight documentation requirements. Ideally, registration and ID application/issuance (for the next election) would be mandated for every polling place.
It could have the added benefit of being an additional/secondary piece of identification (technically even government-issued), something that can be out of reach of someone low on income and/or time, even once they've obtained the state ID.
Handling this at the local level introdces opportunities for limiting supply in areas where it is beneficial to the local party in charge to suppress the vote.
> Ideally, registration and ID application/issuance (for the next election) would be mandated for every polling place.
Why? What is the benefit? Voter fraud of this kind in minimal so what justifies the added cost?
> It could have the added benefit of being an additional/secondary piece of identification ... something that can be out of reach of someone low on income and/or time, even once they've obtained the state ID.
Why should people need a secondary ID? The issue is that low income people don't always have ID and you're suggesting the could need two forms of ID to vote. What makes this easier to obtain for low income people than other forms of ID?
That may be true but has nothing to do with my original point, which I perhaps didn't make clear enough originally, is that the lack of discussion around ease and cost of IDs tends to result in the tacit assumption that the only suitable IDs would be existing, state-issued ones, whereas easier, cheaper options could be mandated.
> Why? What is the benefit? Voter fraud of this kind in minimal so what justifies the added cost?
I'm making no assertion as to the underlying benefit of requiring IDs in the first place, but lighter weight documentation requirements would be easier than a state ID and presumably cheaper. Co-location with polling places would make it at least approximately as easy/available as the voting itself (far more so than a state DMV).
> you're suggesting the could need two forms of ID to vote
I'm doing no such thing, and it's an uncharitable reading of my comment to accuse me of it, considering I pointed out an added benefit. Opening a first bank account would be easier with two forms of photo ID.
This wasn't clear thanks for clarifying. But I have little faith that a new form of ID would be any easier to obtain than current options. Ideally we'd just make the current state IDs easier to obtain but even then they still shouldn't be necessary for voting if we truely want to count the opinion of as many citizens as possible.
It's hard to see how having yet another option could make getting any ID overall more difficult, but, of course, merely easier isn't adequate.
It has to be so easy and frictionless (in addition to being free) as to avoid voter suppression. As such, it would have to be at least as easy as current voter registration (which itself is not necessarily easy enough to begin with).
I have more faith that, if this is possible, it would be doable by augmenting existing election bureacracies to include photo ID issuance, than retrofitting existing DMV bureacracies (and adding locations?!). (I also think that even just attempting a DMV retrofit is likely to end up being a boondoggle/moneypit of breathtaking proportions, at least for the larger states [1])
[1] Witness http://articles.latimes.com/2013/feb/14/local/la-me-dmv-proj...
From a "systems design standpoint" it's adding a feature for a high cost that that isn't needed and makes the result of the system worse as fewer people will participate. Overengineering at the expense of the user.
In a perfect world I understand your point and in an ideal system everyone would be easily able to get the ID they need. In reality some people will find it harder than others to obtain the ID. The difficulty could be raised in areas where people in power wish to suppress the vote by limiting supply and people with less free time or money may not be able to get it.
Making it even harder for people to vote is undemocratic and there is no reason to add this extra layer because there isn't really a problem that is solved by it. If there was strong eveidence then the trade-off might be acceptable but this really isn't the case. There is also a high added cost to the system. The discussion only exists because fewer voters generally means proportionally higher turnout for republicans and this is why they are cynically suggesting it.
The true intentions of the populace in an election would be effected much more by the number of people who are excluded by a voter ID system than they ever would be by the statistically insignificant levels of direct voter fraud.
I genuinely hope this helps you understand the other point of view.
FUD about voter fraud has been debunked over and over again, sometimes even by Republican officials. It's hard to do and just doesn't seem to be happening.