Identification and Soviet papers are two completely different things. In the Soviet Union and in China until very recently even your travel was restricted by your papers. They weren't just identification, they literally defined where you could go. There is no comparison with a simple, national ID system like the one used in India.

Our voting system was largely based on community to enforce voting rights. Meaning you live a small town, everyone knows who you are, and if you aren't supposed to vote you won't get away with it because everyone knows everyone. Today even in small towns many people have no idea who their neighbors are.

Your notion on voting rights runs contrary to the concept of citizenship in general, is quite recent, and radical. There is nothing old school about it.

I believe the minimum criteria to vote is citizenship. To ensure that only citizens are voting, some paper, ledger, or row in a database must exist somewhere and a means to check that criteria must exist.

Oh and letting politicians decide after the fact whose votes count is recipe for disaster.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_rights_in_the_United_St...

As an aside: once documentation is required, we enter a position where we do not have our rights until proven otherwise.

According to whom exactly?

As others have pointed out in this discussion, that's not how the US system was designed. There is no inalienable right to vote.

As a society, we decided that tenants, people of non-white races, women, and 18-20 year olds should be allowed to vote. We also eliminated odious standards like counting then-slaves as 60% human.

- The 15th amendment prohibits denying the right to vote on certain grounds (race, color) but doesn't go beyond that. - The 19th prohibits denying the right to vote based on sex. - The 24th prohibits denying the right to vote (in certain federal elections) based on outstanding tax bills. - The 26th prohibits denying citizens over 18 the right to vote based on age.

But this seems like a weirdly specific list. If the reason isn't on the list, is it still fair game? For instance, AFAIK some states don't let convicted felons vote.

We have a second amendment that talks about well-regulated militia broadly interpreted to mean all sorts of things, some I agree with, some I do not.

Likewise, we have multiple, progressive amendments to the constitution with a clear goal of enabling voting to the broadest possible scope.

I live in a state that requires that you be a citizen, age 18, and not be in prison or on parole. I think that’s a fair compromise over disqualification of felons, as you create 2nd tier of citizen by denying that right.

The 14th and 15th amendments to the Constitution.

In fact, that's the whole purpose of the now-awkward electoral college: state legislatures choosing knowledgeable electors to vote for president/VP.

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This an unpopular opinion, but I honestly think there's something to that.

My state political party operates on a caucus system, where I don't directly vote for local, state, or federal candidates in the primary (ironically, president is the exception to this); rather I elect a district representative to attend the convention, speak with the candidates, and vote the best one. I don't have time/choose not to have time to do this same level of diligence, and like in many other areas, I am happy to delegate it to one of my known, trusted neighbors. I believe it produces a better, more intelligent, less hysterical media outcome.

This is also why I'm not necessarily against non-pathological obstacles in voting. In 2018, my county did a (inexpensive) mail-only election. I wouldn't be surprised is the deadlines, etc. proved to be an obstacle. But....is it really that bad to have that small hoop for people to participate? I don't think so.

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P.S. You know poll taxes aren't taxes at polling stations, right? It just means "flat (non-proportional) tax".

India, Mexico, Argentina, Germany, Taiwan, Brazil, Iceland, Costa Rica, etc, require it. Among Americans all major demographics show majority support for voter ID reqs.

Instances of voter fraud in the US are vanishingly rare. It's a really dumb crime; stiff penalties, lots of legwork, and an infinitesimal likelihood of influencing outcomes.

I was a Cook County election judge in the last cycle and will be one during the next cycle as well. We don't require identification, though judges can challenge a check-in and ask for identification, and the vote will get cast provisionally if none is provided.

Buses with "voters", who have "out of home voting permit" papers on them, are coming to the "problematic" voting stations, to tip elections for the "proper candidate". Usually it's organized by managers of political indifferent or loyalist workers of government institution.

Actual vote fraud is about political machinery. Now in the US the real election shenanigans are much cheaper and more effective... the big pools of black money and gerrymandering are the tools of modern political machines.

"Actual vote fraud is about political machinery".

That's not 'vote[r] fraud'. The meaning of the term is independent of whether this type of fraud is common or not, how the threat of it is misused politically, etc.

Hence, the voter fraud boogieman in the US remains just that - a convenient boogieman.

None the less, we're down the list at no. 26 when it comes to voter integrity[1]. This is from 2014, so it's not encumbered by today's politics.

Ahead of us: Norway, Germany, Netherlands, Iceland, Czech Republic, Austria, South Korea, Slovenia, Israel, Cyprus, Lithuania, Australia, Rwanda, Japan, Chile, Italy, Grenada, Malta, Argentina, Georgia and Mongolia.

All except Australia req. Voter ID.

I (and everyone else) needs to present ID for cold medicine. I don't see this being burdensome.

[1]https://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2014/11/study-ranks-...

I've never heard anybody suggest that an election outcome has been affected by any part of this. And we vote on paper too, no computer fuckups.

To which I can only think, "So what?"

Why does the United States need to be like other countries? The whole reason people settled this land was because they didn't want to be like other countries.

It's OK for countries to have different systems. In fact, it's better because the diversity allows for experimentation. France is awesome because they do things the French way there. Germany is awesome for all its Germanity. If all the countries are the same, then there's no point in having more than one country or ever going anywhere.

I wouldn't ask Americans to give up their system any sooner than I'd ask the French to give up wine.

Among Americans all major demographics show majority support for voter ID reqs.

Again, "So what?" There's a vast difference between doing what is popular and doing what is right. Keeping it in the political realm, you imagine the mess the nation would be if we just went with the popular vote and let people vote directly for the president? It would disenfranchise 273 million people who don't live in New York, California, Texas, or Florida.

Also disagree on the comments on the popular vote being a mess - why should the population of someone's state factor in to how much their vote matters? Disenfranchisement is someone who lives in California's vote mattering less than a voter in Wyoming. Especially problematic is the winner-take-all way of determining electoral votes. Having a state pledge all of its electors to one candidate when 49% of its citizens voted for the other is an absolute failure of representation.

I'd say that the 2000 election coming down to 540 votes in Florida is a much bigger mess than the idea of a popular vote.

Neither is a bad idea.

tl;dr mind your own business.

You'd really rather have your vote nullified behind your back rather than just be told you can't vote? That sounds like a recipe for a lot of abuse doesn't it?

You don’t want to verify eligibility before voting because it slows the process down. The longer it takes to vote, the fewer people vote. You just collect the voter’s information and then the responsibility for the rest of the verification is on the government. It occupies the government’s time to verify the vote and not the voter’s time.

How do we ensure non-citizens aren’t voting? We accept many visitors - refugees, H1B, tourists, F1/I-20, etc. None are granted voting rights.

"“She can own property; she can serve in the military; she can get a job; she can pay taxes. But she can’t vote, and she didn’t know that.”"

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/10/us/illegal-voting-gets-te...

It is a tragedy that this was not made abundantly clear to this woman, assuming she truly believed that she was permitted to vote.

Consider that there are towns in rural California with majority noncitizen residents. In cases upwards. of 90%.

See:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_of_foreigners_to_vote_in...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/noncitizens-are-gain...

You make it sound as if they just happened to wind up there at random, and have nothing else in common.

Geographic proximity is incidental to belonging to a group. The land they live on is merely one of their possessions. Allowing visitors does not mean they must share their sovereignty with them.

To answer your question, in democracies, each person can vote to influence their own nation - their demos, even while abroad. You think demos should be decided purely on current location, but most countries disagree - they use mostly jus sanguinis, with the exception of jus soli in the Americas.

Requiring ID has the obvious tradeoff that it prevents some people who should be allowed to vote from voting. Furthermore, it can potentially lead to a system where people's votes are unfairly discounted because of administrative "errors" (e.g. interstate cross-check). From the evidence I've seen those problems are more significant than double voters or non-citizen voting.

What’s wrong with just dipping someone’s finger in ink?

Oddly, I’m not aware of any state that requires you to prove citizenship to register to vote.

All rights exist independent on the government, because the government doea not grant rights.

The government infringes on rights for the purpose of governing, and the limits to what it is allowed are the US constitution.

None of that means that there isn't a legitimate interest, of the government and public at large, in ensuring that elections are conducted fairly.

ID's are common, the vast majority already have a passport or driver license. You need this much to even be employed so bringing it with you for an election is not an onerous requirement, it's actually completely reasonable.

EDIT: It seems HN has rate-limiting for comments now.

> " need to make sure people can easily get an id"

I agree. I don't think it's as simple or generic as a single political party preventing it though. Is there a clear example of what is stopping people from obtaining these IDs?

While the Republicans take heat for it on the national level, when you examine the issue at state and local levels there's plenty of it on both sides.

What disappoints me is that the Democrats rarely push back on these proposals, and when they do it's half-hearted.

Republicans used to be the party of freedom as in pioneer guy with a cabin and a mule. Democrats used to be the party of freedom as in ACLU. These days neither is willing to stick their necks out in any tangible way for freedom.

Having an ID doesn't show someone is part of a community. All it does is provide a way for systems to exclude people.

I'm sorry but how would I get into a self-driving car? I'd probably not own one. I'd ride in a Waymo, Uber, or some other provider's self-driving car which would mean they'd need to be authenticate who I am and check to see if I am authorized to get in the car...

I don't know what you mean. In the U.S. you don't need a drivers license to ride in a car. Uber does not currently require any state issued ID for riders and I'm not sure why they would in the future.

You might need the Uber app but that isn't tied to any government ID.

You need to have it for those things. You don't need to "carry" it for those things. Nobody does all of those things all the time every day. Going to buy some beer? Bring your ID. Going to walk the dog? Feck off, cop. I'm a citizen minding my own business.

And this is precisely the problem I have with people who jump up and down screaming that it’s “impossible” for non-citizens to vote because “they have to register.” Clearly there is potential to exploit the system — it’s just the plain old honor system, after all. Maybe it’s just the software developer in me, but I would never ship software that I knew had a critical vulnerability but then rationalize away that it’s so unlikely that anyone would ever exploit it.

And yeah, states could follow up on invalid voter registrations, but will they really? One state in particular prides itself on being a “sanctuary state”, yeah I’m sure they’re right on top of making sure illegal aliens aren’t slipping through the cracks and voting after the DMV automatically registered them to vote upon issuing them a license.

I also find it funny how the same people that rationalize things the US “should” do because “every other country does it” conveniently ignore that “everyone else” requires ID to vote, but for some reason we’re a special case that can’t possibly accomodate that.