Progressives are against requiring voter ID because IDs are not ubiquitous and freely available. There would be no argument against voter ID laws if every American was guaranteed a free and easily acquired ID which would be more practical with this type of national database. It is usually conservatives that are against that policy of free and easy to acquire ID.

I would love to test this theory.

Imagine a state completely waives their fees for a State ID (usually only $10-20 anyway) in exchange for Voter ID laws. Do you think progressives could support it then? Would you?

The real question is why voter license proponents are against the idea of giving a free voter ID to every eligible voter on their 18th birthday.

Whenever voter license legislation is proposed, there are no efforts to make sure every eligible voter is able to exercise their right to vote.

I think you responded to the wrong person. I didn't take any position related to or even reference anything you describe here. Good luck finding your right thread though.

Cute, but my response was received by its intended recipient. You can choose to respond to it, or continue dismissing it.

At first glance, I'm fine with that. I hope whoever took the opposing position responds to you though.

I'm unsure why you think I'm addressing someone with the opposing position when I merely stated a rhetorical question:

> The real question is why voter license proponents are against the idea of giving a free voter ID to every eligible voter on their 18th birthday

Why is it that voter license proponents are against the idea of giving a free voter ID to every eligible voter on their 18th birthday?

It's frequently brought up in response to voter license legislation, but it is never incorporated into their proposed legislation. Why is that?

First, no one is for voter licensing, a person is 'licensed' by being a citizen. The two (honest) sides of the argument are: ID is required to keep elections honest and requiring ID's keeps people from voting by being too onerous to acquire. The ugly truth is democrats know that sloppy voting tends to fall their way and republicans know that voter id laws tend to fall their way.

A good compromise would be free ID's for everyone, but neither side wants this and would rather keep fighting the id battle, because like most battles, its only purpose is to keep the people divided and easy to manipulate.

> First, no one is for voter licensing, a person is 'licensed' by being a citizen

With voting license legislation enacted, in order for a citizen to vote, they must have a government-issued license. It can't be just any government-issued license, either, it needs to be one of the specially designated licenses that you need to jump through hoops to get beyond being just a citizen.

For many people, obtaining such a license is both a monetary and time expense that is only necessary to participate in elections. A citizen living in a city might have little reason to have a driver's license, but they'll need one if they want to vote, and they'll need to renew it every few years at their own expense.

A solution to this problem is making sure every citizen receives a voting ID on their 18th birthday. For whatever reason, voting license proponents never seem to want to implement such a program.

> The ugly truth is democrats know that sloppy voting tends to fall their way and republicans know that voter id laws tend to fall their way.

And yet voting fraud is nearly non-existent, and there are numerous examples of courts finding that voting license legislation disenfranchises voters.

You can't know if voting fraud is nearly non-existent because we have very little in the way of enforcement and auditing systems to even know if there was fraud. And yet people are still arrested all the time for voter fraud.

Please stop portraying your political opinions as fact. Independent and government research has been done[1][2][3], and courts[1] have found that voting fraud is nearly non-existent in the US.

If you want to take issue with the methodologies used to determine that, you're free too, but right now what your post amounts to is denial of scientific evidence.

[1] Here are dozens of independent and government studies, and court rulings on voter fraud: https://www.brennancenter.org/sites/default/files/analysis/B...

[2] https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2020/06/02/low-rates-o...

[3] https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/minuscule-number-of-...

First it is ridiculous to point at studies that say we don't have fraud when we can't know if we have fraud because most votes have no way to audit them.

And none of those speak to my point, and the point of many others who study this in detail, is there were over a thousand recorded criminals cases of voter fraud over in recent elections. When you couple that with many elections having no way to audit a vote, then we have a huge problem, because without auditing tools, only the most stupid and egregious incidents of fraud will be caught.

If you agree that a fraudulent election would be catastrophic for our democracy, and that we currently have no tools to audit the integrity of our votes (which we can't without voter ID), then voter ID, free or whatever, is an obvious solution.

I'm betting Belarus wishes they had a way to audit their elections about now.

> First it is ridiculous to point at studies that say we don't have fraud when we can't know if we have fraud because most votes have no way to audit them.

Again, you insist that the methodology to audit isn't there, yet there are dozens of studies, audits and case law examples that disagree with your opinion.

Again, if you want to disagree with the methodology, you are free to, but please be specific about what you disagree with.

Question: Why does Texas allow a Texas Handgun License as an acceptable form of photo ID but not a University of Texas Student ID? It seems if we are so concerned about voting being easy with those IDs, we should let all the students with state issued photo IDs use them.

As for your question, supporting or not supporting voter ID is less about how difficult the IDs are to get, but rather that it is creating a requirement that makes both the act of voting and the preparation for voting much more time intensive. And this is all to solve a problem, voter fraud, that nobody has any evidence occurs at any appreciable volume.

But I'll just say, if a system existed where I could get a photo ID with no fees and no wait times, and I could do it on election day, then I'd be much more willing to support voter ID laws.

> Why does Texas allow a Texas Handgun License as an acceptable form of photo ID but not a University of Texas Student ID?

My guess would be because an LTC (like a driver license) clearly indicates if you are a state resident whereas a UT student ID does not?

The student IDs can certainly be modified to contain that info, but until they do it makes sense that they aren't a strong enough ID for voting.

A state should not let somebody register to vote unless the state confirms they are a resident of the state and otherwise eligible. As I understand the point of voter ID, it is to prove that the person casting the vote is who they say they are. If they are on the voting rolls, they are eligible to vote, that check has already been done. If the photo ID matches up with the person, they are who they say they are. All that matters should be the trustworthiness of the ID, and I see no reason why the state of Texas shouldn't trust the UT system.

I wasn't a UT student so real, honest question: Is a UT ID an acceptable form of ID to buy alcohol?

Buying alcohol requires an ID with age information, as that is an age check. Voting does not require age information, as you cannot register to vote unless you are the proper age. Just a reputable ID that can match a photograph to a person, for which the UT student IDs are deemed good enough for the security and safety within the UT system.

And of course, it's a state run university. If the state really cared about making voting accessible to people with valid IDs, they would update the UT IDs to meet whatever requirements they deemed necessary. They've had 6 years. Why haven't they done it? Students actively want the change.

It is not. In Texas, you cannot purchase alcohol with a school ID.

Not to mention I would be completely unsurprised to find that there were various forms of non-citizen immigrants attending the University of Texas and thus possessing such an ID.

On the other hand, I'm pretty sure that a Texas Handgun License requires citizenship.

Out of sheer curiosity, I've did a quick Google search and it seems that it does not.

https://www.dps.texas.gov/rsd/ltc/faqs/index.htm

> 12. Can non-US citizens obtain a License to Carry a Handgun? > Yes. Subject to the requirements of federal firearms law, and if not otherwise ineligible, resident aliens and certain nonimmigrant aliens who are lawfully present in the United States may obtain the license.

I have to say I am rather surprised!

> if a system existed where I could get a photo ID with no fees and no wait times, and I could do it on election day

Amusing how quickly the requirements grew.

This is literally just equalizing the hassle to states without voter ID laws. You are the one adding requirements for a citizen to exercise their right to vote.

Most states (29 of 50) don't have same day voter registration but of the 21 who do, they require Voter ID and proof of residency. Is your assertion that they're also suppressing the vote?

Ref: https://www.ncsl.org/research/elections-and-campaigns/same-d...

Merely that they establish that they are a particular citizen. It isn't that hard to do. You need ID to go to most doctors, buy tobacco and alcohol, yada yada yada.

Probably because one goes through rigorous validation and one is just printed by a private organization?

The University of Texas is part of the state government. 25 of the 34 states with voter ID requirements even accept private student IDs.[1]

[1] https://www.campusvoteproject.org/student-id-as-voter-id

I don’t see that in your link. Maybe I’m overlooking it?

I see that 10 states will accept student ID, but there are restrictions on which IDs. For example, it has to have your signature on the card, etc.

The legend says green and yellow states accept student IDs. Stripes mean they only accept public student IDs. 27 states are green or yellow and only 2 have stripes.

Sure, just don’t make the waiver some joke that requires as many hoops to jump through as possible to discourage voters. Voter fraud isn’t as significant an issue as electioneering but if an ID makes one side of the fence happy I’ll support it so long as it remains free and universally available.

Waiving the fees isn't sufficient to make the ID ubiquitous immediately, so it won't remove that argument, at least not right away.

It would be a step in the right direction, but the concept of a universal ID requires everyone (well, except outlaws in hiding) to have it - if it's mandatory, then it becomes legally reasonable to require it for receiving all kinds of services as you can answer "How do I do X if I don't have a valid ID?" with "Step 1: Get the ID renewed/replaced/made" and "How do I do X without ever getting an ID" with "Sorry, that won't be possible, not ever getting an ID is not a valid option", like it is currently the case in many other countries.

In essence, if instead of "just" making it easy to have ID even for poor and disenfranchised people you go out of your way to ensure that it's weird for them to not have ID, then ID requirements won't suppress voters.

> Waiving the fees is sufficient to make the ID ubiquitous immediately,

No, it's not. Many people have difficulty finding the documents that will get them an ID. There are plenty of people working illegal jobs who are trying to figure out how to get a birth certificate, social security card or prove residence. This was even more common when more people were born at home.

I had a hard time getting ID when I was a teenager, and I needed it for migrant agricultural labor (to work on a legal crew doing corn detasseling.) Luckily, I got arrested a week before we were scheduled to leave, and I was able to con the DMV into issuing an ID based on my jail papers (although the clerk at the jail wrote down whatever I told them.)

The reason requiring ID is a problem is because there's no widespread voter fraud, and declaring that you're someone else is very difficult without that person agreeing not to go vote. It's a requirement whose administration cost dwarfs by orders of magnitude any benefit. The intention is to exclude people who have ID problems, not the people who don't believe it's possible that anyone could possibly have ID problems.

Also, just let felons vote. Put voting booths in prisons. If your population is so prisoner-heavy that they make a significant difference in the outcome, your society is broken.

Ouch, sorry, of course I meant that waiving the fees isn't sufficient to make it ubiquitous immediately, I fixed the typo.

Even aside from the fee, there's the time involved, which is an indirect burden on many people.

For whatever historical reason, we've entrusted the DMV with validating everyone's identity. The one which is open 9-4 M-F in the best conditions, and has been basically shuttered since Coronavirus.

In some states, you can go to 'third-party offices' which are privately run and offer longer hours, but it's still a several hour endeavour (and then you're paying $30 extra for their services).

I would completely support voter ID laws if everyone could walk into any post office and easily get a passport for free.

Ok I sort of am lying since vote by mail is pretty much the only system I support and voter ID laws make no sense for that.

I said free and easy to acquire. It wouldn't be enough for states to waive the fees if there are still hoops to jump through to acquire it. Getting an ID in many states requires spending hours at a DMV office that is probably only open during business hours and might be in the next county over from you. Voting should be an easy and seamless process. It shouldn't require hours of administrative prep work beforehand.

Getting a driver license the first time requires hours of sitting at the DMV. When I first moved to Texas, I had to do it twice in fact.

It sounds like your criticism is of government (or at least DMV) complexity/ineffectiveness in general, not the ID laws specifically.

Voting is one of the few government services that is guaranteed to us by the Constitution. I can stomach complexities and ineffectiveness when it comes to something like acquiring a drivers license. I can't stomach anything that puts unnecessary obstacles between a US citizen and the ability to quickly and easily vote. If you want to require voter ID to vote, that is fine by me as long as you also take on the responsibility of ensuring every citizen has an ID.

I suspect you should check your sources.

This was my first result searching for "us constitution voting" https://www.votefortheconstitution.com/voting---what-does-th...

I'm not sure your point here. The Amendments are generally included when someone refers to the Constitution. Several of the Amendments are directly related to protecting the right to vote.

I like that logic. It works great for the 2nd amendment. You'll agree that an ID requirement for firearms is unacceptable, yes?

Constitutional protections for voting are far more limited.

This thread is already on the verge of being too political for HN. I'm not going to take the bait and get into a debate about something that is not even tangentially related to the topic of the link.

> Voting is one of the few government services that is guaranteed to us by the Constitution.

Voting is not defined as a "government service" and voting itself is barely defined at all in the Constitution or any Amendment. The Amendments assert a right to vote but the means, methods, and even timing are left heavily up to the discretion of the Legislative branches (Congress or State).

Therefore, the vast majority of existing election law can be changed as easily as legislators pass any other law versus the complexity+effort+time of a Constitutional Amendment.

I used the term "service" there to distinguish it from the more passive rights that we have. For example, freedom of speech is something that restricts government power while voting is something that the government organizes and must allow us to participate in. The former puts a passive restriction on the government. The latter requires action by the government.

Beyond that, I'm still not sure your point. We aren't debating the means, methods, or timing of voting. We are debating who has the right to vote. As far as the Constitution is concerned, that seems to be everyone but felons.

> We aren't debating the means, methods, or timing of voting. We are debating who has the right to vote.

Providing ID or not is quite literally the means and methods aka the process to vote. I haven't referenced "who" in any way, shape, or form.

> As far as the Constitution is concerned, that seems to be everyone but felons.

Again, check your sources. That's not in the US Constitution and is left up to the States. Here's the full text so you can check yourself: https://constitutioncenter.org/interactive-constitution/full...

>Providing ID or not is quite literally the means and methods aka the process to vote. I haven't referenced "who" in any way, shape, or form.

No, when you require ID anyone without ID is prevented from voting and therefore you are dictating who can vote and not the means or method of voting. This is no different than a poll tax which is also unconstitutional.

>Again, check your sources. That's not in the US Constitution and is left up to the State

My source is the 14th Amendment, Section 2. It specifically calls out a lack of voter protections for people who had any "participation in rebellion, or other crime". A lack of protections does not mean felons don't have the right to vote. It simply means it isn't federally guaranteed.

The IDs that are required to vote in Republican states are either free of charge, or they allow alternative ID documents.

Texas being a fine example: https://www.votetexas.gov/mobile/id-faqs.htm

There are free options that are easy to aquire. Not sure why there are so many myths about this.

Which of those IDs is available for free? I just checked the state website and they charge for drivers licenses and state IDs and all the federal IDs require money.

They at least offer the alternate forms of ID, but those still eliminate people. A homeless person is probably not going to have any of those documents on hand, but they have every right to vote. There is also the inherent problem of singling out people without ID for further scrutiny. This added "security" has notoriously been used as a method to suppress the vote over the course of US history. The simple act of requiring someone to state on a government form they can't "reasonably" obtain an ID is going to scare some people off from voting. What is "reasonable"? Am I going to be charged with voter fraud if I simply didn't want to spend the money on an ID? Will I end up in jail for voting? There is a chilling effect here.

>Which of those IDs is available for free? I just checked the state website and they charge for drivers licenses and state IDs

The Texas Election Identification Certificate ID is free.

>and all the federal IDs require money.

Wrong. Military and veteran IDs are federal IDs that are free of charge.

>They at least offer the alternate forms of ID, but those still eliminate people. A homeless person is probably not going to have any of those documents on hand, but they have every right to vote.

They wouldn't have been allowed to vote under the previous system either. This is a red herring.

> There is also the inherent problem of singling out people without ID for further scrutiny. This added "security" has notoriously been used as a method to suppress the vote over the course of US history.

There is no "further scrutiny". You either have the documentation that proves your eligibility to vote in your locality, or you don't. Studies showed that Voter ID laws have little to no effect on turn out.

> The simple act of requiring someone to state on a government form they can't "reasonably" obtain an ID is going to scare some people off from voting.

No doubt, but in Texas and in many other states, they are reasonably attainable, and have no fees. Somewhat of a straw man here. Again, studies showed that Voter ID laws have little to no effect on turn out.

> What is "reasonable"? Am I going to be charged with voter fraud if I simply didn't want to spend the money on an ID?

No, you just won't be allowed to vote. You won't be charged with any crime. Also, you don't spend money on fees, the above ID mentioned is free.

> Will I end up in jail for voting? There is a chilling effect here.

This is all conjecture. There is no chilling effect on requiring a free voter ID according to the studies.

>The Texas Election Identification Certificate ID is free.

Which itself requires ID to acquire defeating its purpose as an alternative ID for people without ID.

>Wrong. Military and veteran IDs are federal IDs that are free of charge.

I was referring to the IDs available to the general public. A military ID being free is irrelevant to a huge majority of the US.

>They wouldn't have been allowed to vote under the previous system either. This is a red herring.

How is that a red herring? A flaw existing in both the old and new system doesn't mean it isn't a flaw. Do you think disenfranchising homeless people is acceptable?

>There is no "further scrutiny". You either have the documentation that proves your eligibility to vote in your locality, or you don't. Studies showed that Voter ID laws have little to no effect on turn out.

It takes added time and requires further documentation. The time it takes to vote has been shown to have an impact on voter turnout. Also I don't know what studies you are talking about. Here is one from a nonpartisan Government Accountability Office that says the exact opposite[1].

Your other points all rely on something refuted in the above points.

[1]- https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2014/10/09/ga...

>Which itself requires ID to acquire defeating its purpose as an alternative ID for people without ID.

You need documentation to prove you're eligible to vote in your locality in order to be able to vote in your locality. The is the same logic behind any type of identification/registration, Voter ID or not.

>I was referring to the IDs available to the general public. A military ID being free is irrelevant to a huge majority of the US.

You specifically stated "all the federal IDs require money", which is patently false, QED.

>How is that a red herring? A flaw existing in both the old and new system doesn't mean it isn't a flaw. Do you think disenfranchising homeless people is acceptable?

It is by definition a red herring because being a flaw or not is immaterial to the discussion at hand since it is not specific to Voter ID laws. You asking the question is a textbook logical fallacy.

>It takes added time and requires further documentation. The time it takes to vote has been shown to have an impact on voter turnout.

Sometimes it takes time to leverage your rights. Gun background checks is an example of that, as are voter ID laws. There is no conclusive study that has shown voter ID laws impact turnout.

> Also I don't know what studies you are talking about. Here is one from a nonpartisan Government Accountability Office that says the exact opposite

You linked a piece from a laughably biased news source. It even states opposite of your claim: "That change wasn't entirely due to voter ID, of course, but the GAO report suggests it played a part."

"In a 2014 review by the Government Accountability Office of the academic literature, five studies out of ten found that voter ID laws had no significant effect on overall turnout, four studies found that voter ID laws decreased overall turnout, and one study found that the laws increased overall turnout."

"Studies of the effects of voter ID laws on turnout in the United States have generally found that such laws have little, if any, effect on turnout."

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_ID_laws_in_the_United_...

The Election Identification Certificate is free.

I'm far from an expert in Texas election law, but here is what I found in a quick Google search[1]. In order to get an Election Identification Certificate you need to go to a DMV office during business hours with a proof of citizenship and a proof of identity. It sounds like the existence of this ID is redundant if you need ID to acquire it. It almost seems designed solely to counter people when they complain voter ID laws are the equivalent of a poll tax.

[1] - https://www.dps.texas.gov/driverlicense/electionid.htm

Yes. In order to avail onesself of the benefits of citizenship one must establish that they are in fact a citizen.

Why do you need to validate citizenship when issuing a voter ID if citizenship was already validated when registering to vote? That seems like a completely redundant requirement that is only put in place to make it slightly more difficult to acquire said ID.

I don't think citizenship is actually validated when you register to vote. I live in California and all I had to do was go on their website and check a couple boxes and fill out a form.

In several areas it is permissible for residents to be registered to vote in municipal elections etc. In some places, the local government has made efforts to get those who are neither legal residents not citizens registered for local elections. In those locations, enforcing a requirement to validate citizenship when availing onesself of the privileges thereof (e.g. voting in federal elections) makes sense.

How can you live in this society without some proof of identity?

It is very easy in the US, especially in either very urban or very rural communities. If you don't drive on public roads and are already established in life with a job or bank account, you probably don't actually need an ID for much in your day to day life. Even activities that we normally think of as requiring an ID like traveling on a plane are possible without an ID if you are willing to jump through some hoops.

Then it's even better than in Europe, you usually pay a small tax to get documents. Then what is this fuzz about having a proper documents to vote about? Republicans being suspicious about the fraud has merit.

Requiring any tax in order to allow someone to vote is expressly illegal in the US as it used to be abused as a form of voter suppression.

From our Constitution (24th Amendment, Section 1)[1]:

>The right of citizens of the United States to vote in any primary or other election for President or Vice President for electors for President or Vice President, or for Senator or Representative in Congress, shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State by reason of failure to pay any poll tax or other tax.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twenty-fourth_Amendment_to_the...

Well you need a home too to vote? Or how do they send you the envelope otherwise? Isn't that a tax as well. I could count tons on items, where's the line? Transport to polling station? Clothes to show up?

You do not need a home or address to vote. You can setup your mail to be sent to a shelter, a social worker, or any number of other options. The US Postal Service has also been known to deliver to places that don't have official addresses so you might even be able to get something delivered to the "red tent behind the Walmart". You can also generally pick up whatever you need from the local elections office.

Numerous services exist to provide free rides to polling places including some publicly owned transportation options.

The right to vote does not excuse you committing crimes in order to vote and being naked is generally illegal is most of the US which would probably be what prevents you from voting without clothes.

No one thinks that. The fundamental problem is the recognition that the lack of a central database has led to citizens who have the right to vote being denied that right. Voting is a right, voting is a right, voting is a right. If the US government is going to deny a person that right, the burden of proof is in them.

> a significant numbers of Americans think requiring proof of who you are is voter suppression.

> No one thinks that.

> "Voter ID requirements limit the number of people who are able to cast a ballot."

Ref: https://www.aclu.org/facts-about-voter-suppression

The first page of results for "id laws voter suppression" turned up similar statements from the WaPo, Atlantic, Wired, Vox, and quotes numerous politicians. Your "no one thinks that" is not in line with reality.

Literally requiring some form of identification is not crazy.

That said, the Republican path of establishing voter ID laws is often part of a pattern of "let's make it hard for the poor and working class to get proper ID, and to vote".

Reducing early voting, not making ID cards free, etc. Voting should be a universal right in this country. The government should be putting in maximum effort to assist everyone who wants to vote, to be ready when the time comes, and enable early voting as much as possible.

I'm pretty sure some of the "ohmygod you're suppressing voters!" articles are about states with free IDs. (Or extremely cheap - for instance in Michigan an ID is $10)

ID cards are not free in Europe either and no you can't make them in each village. Every time this topic comes up here someone posts a vox article writing that you someone had to go to a bigger city to get documents because where he lives was 3000 strong population. Heck, there are places where you HAVE to vote by the law and yes it does take a small effort to get documents and keep them updated every 6-8 yrs.

> No one thinks that.

Just about everyone I know who leans even slightly left here in the US believes that requiring ID to vote is defacto voter suppression.

Because in many cases the states make it difficult to obtain a valid ID to vote. For example, shutting down DMVs or limiting their hours. I'm against voter ID laws until IDs are easily accessible to every voter.

If we're talking about the presidential election, you have four whole years to get an ID.

Also it seems like states are making it easier to get an ID [0]

[0] https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/12/12/16767426/...

Well it is, but only archaic voting systems would require it and this becomes a nonissue if states shift to modern system like those used in Oregon, Washington, Colorado, and Utah.

ID requirements are a form of voter suppression in places (like USA now) where the IDs aren't universal. If it's ensured that everyone does have the ID (like many other countries), then verifying that ID instead of the current voter registries does not suppress the votes of any group.