Re:US election system reveals frightening vulnerabilities at...
by int_19h on Sunday October 28, 2018 @06:46PM
(#18323687)
> All elections are essentially state elections. Even the presidency is really a state level election due to the way the electoral college works. There is no nationwide election so why would there need to be a nationwide ID system for voting?
The Constitution explicitly gives Congress the power to regulate how congressional elections are held - Article 1, Section 4 - precisely because those elections are national in practice (in terms of how their outcome translates to policy). Congress already uses the power to, for example, set the date of the elections to be the same across the country, or to enforce a uniform electoral system (single-member districts). That same power could be similarly used to enact uniform voter ID requirements, and one could argue that it is the only way to ensure that states aren't abusing the system to benefit whatever party controls them. And once you go there, it makes sense to tie those requirements to a national ID.
States can use their own IDs for state elections. But I don't see why they should get away with arbitrary restrictions (or arbitrary lack of restrictions) for elections that directly apply outside of their borders. They're not sovereign countries, and federal elections are one of the issues on which federal-level regulation is clearly both reasonable and constitutional.
The Constitution explicitly gives Congress the power to regulate how congressional elections are held - Article 1, Section 4 - precisely because those elections are national in practice (in terms of how their outcome translates to policy). Congress already uses the power to, for example, set the date of the elections to be the same across the country, or to enforce a uniform electoral system (single-member districts). That same power could be similarly used to enact uniform voter ID requirements, and one could argue that it is the only way to ensure that states aren't abusing the system to benefit whatever party controls them. And once you go there, it makes sense to tie those requirements to a national ID.
States can use their own IDs for state elections. But I don't see why they should get away with arbitrary restrictions (or arbitrary lack of restrictions) for elections that directly apply outside of their borders. They're not sovereign countries, and federal elections are one of the issues on which federal-level regulation is clearly both reasonable and constitutional.