It would be sensible to have a national ID in the US and to use it in voting, but in practice, the voter ID issue is simply used by the Republican Party as another tactic to restrict voting. They know that Democratic voters are less likely to have ID, they intentionally include/exclude various forms of ID based on the voter demographics, and they are generally against measures that would ensure that every valid voter obtain ID.
So yes, in a vacuum, voter ID sounds obvious. However, when you see how the issue is actually used in American politics, it's actually pretty sinister.
From where I sit it's a win. Administrative work will be easier, all cases of fraud will be harder, and arguments of nutjobs weakened. Not to mention the fact that people would trust the election process more, with all the added benefits.
Really, voter IDs seem like a stupid hill to die on. Especially if you are already dealing with low trust in political system and cultural divides.
The debate over voter ID isn't a rational debate about how to make elections more secure. It's just another battleground in which the Republican Party sees an opportunity to shift election outcomes slightly in their own favor. They're not interested in a rational, balanced solution like you're proposing, because it might end up shifting election outcomes in the "wrong" direction.
When you look at the list of election measures the Republican Party supports/opposes, it becomes quite clear what their goal is. They're against early voting, automatic voter registration, absentee voting (except for the military) and making election day a holiday, but they're in favor of voter ID and they engage in very heavy gerrymandering (leading to a divergence between national vote shares and numbers of seats won).
I'm surprised why voter ID has become such a partisan issue, specifically how intense the Democratic opposition to it has been. It's a sensible policy and it seems the concerns about "[X] not having ID" should be addressed by solving the problems preventing [X] from getting an ID. I mean it shouldn't be too hard: setup some government agency to help people with the bureaucratic labor around confirming identity and send people akin to census takers around to onboard people into the ID-getting process.
This cannot be a case of Require IDs first, deal with the repercussions later. These steps MUST be taken together or not at all.
It also becomes partisan when you look at the IDs that are considered acceptable in some places.
- Hunting license: Allowed - College Student ID: Not Allowed
Hmm, I wonder if the demographics of those populations might have affected that decision somehow...
And that would make sense. However the impression I get is that Democrats aren't doing that, instead they just oppose voter ID tooth and nail. It would make way more sense for them to support voter ID with the condition that the ID-access issue must be solved. That would even have political benefits for them because it would make it a lot harder for the Republicans to capitalize on the issue.
Given that any kind of ID requirement is likely to reduce the number of votes (some proportion will lose or forget their ID even if you literally issue IDs to every single eligible person) the ultimate question is this: how many valid votes are you prepared to lose in order to prevent each invalid one?
Voter ID, yeah; but lack of ID, no. My understanding is not having photo ID causes people way more problems than just difficulty voting. If you can solve a real issue through a non-issue, why not?
> Even in places like the UK (which have ID-free voting) personation is essentially a non-problem. Literally a handful of votes a year
That's not the whole problem, though. The other issue is perceptions. If people are no longer trusting and they perceive impersonation as an issue, all the assertions that impersonation isn't a problem aren't going to do any good to rebuild trust.
Now, there was a big drive to set up a compulsory photo ID here under the Blair government. The purpose was really to generate a single central government identity database rather than to help those without ID to lead easier lives, though. It sank years of political debate and a stack of money and was eventually cancelled after public protest. I don't think anyone's going to try again.
I do understand the importance of perception. But when the reality is that personation is essentially a non-problem and one political party is pushing a narrative that it is in order to change the rules to their electoral advantage, I'm not convinced that the best democratic solution is to let them do it. It's interesting that over here there has never been widespread public (as opposed to confected elite) concern about personation, but we did have some public discomfort (with somewhat more foundation) about extensions to postal voting in the 00s. That wasn't really treated as a partisan issue and some of the potential issues were dealt with with follow-up legislation.
That's true in the US too. You don't need it so much day to day, but it's required for many important processes [1] so it's a big handicap to not have one.
[1] e.g. opening a bank account (https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/banking/how-to-open-a-ban...), traveling on an airplane, and I think you also need one to get a job on the up-and-up (because of required work authorization checks).
One of the reasons the "Getting a photo ID is too hard" argument falls a bit flat in the US is that, at least for anyone participating normally in society, doing a lot of fairly routine things without a government-issued ID gets intensely inconvenient in a big hurry--even if you don't drive.
Most forms of travel including hotels though that may vary by locale. Picking up an order at a store or similar circumstances when a business wants to verify your identity. Opening a banking account. Certainly many of them are things that you can avoid and they're probably less of an issue if you're in a demographic that is less likely to have an ID. But, yes, in the US lots of people have to show ID on a fairly regular basis.
You have to decide how much you care about some people who have the right to vote not getting to vote, vs some people managing to vote illegitimately. Which side you come down on will probably depend a lot on how many people you think will be in each group.
The Conservative government is proposing to bring in voter ID in the UK [1]. But there's no evidence at all that voter fraud is a problem here. So this policy effectively disenfranchises millions of people for zero benefit.
But, of course, more Conservative voters have the required forms of ID (passport, driving licence). It will therefore help swing elections the government's way. It is absolutely corrupt.
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/jul/04/millions-in...
The goal isn't election integrity, but rather to shift the outcome marginally in one direction, based on the demographics of who does and does not have ID.
It's a partisan issue for three reasons.
1. The party that is enacting these voter ID laws in almost all cases is at the same time enacting changes to make it harder for those who do not already have a suitable ID to get one. If these laws also did as you suggest and addressed the problem of getting ID there would be much less objection.
Typical methods include reducing the number of places you can go to get IDs (with most of the reductions coming in areas that typically vote for the other party), reducing the number of days and the number of hours on those days that those places issue IDs so that to get an ID you have to come in on a work day during work hours, accepting many forms of ID carefully that happens to include things people who vote for them are more likely to have (i.e., state issued hunting licenses) and excluding ID that people who vote for the other party are more likely to have (i.e., state issue college ID).
I forgot which state it was, but in one if you took the list something like a dozen acceptable IDs and sorted it descending by the probability that a black person in that state already had that ID, all the acceptable ones were in the top of the list. The legislative committee that made the acceptable ID was known to have had that data when they made that list, which makes it rather hard to believe that it was not a coincidence that the ones black people were more likely to have did not make the cut.
2. These are almost always accompanied by non-ID voting changes that also make it harder to vote even if you have the correct ID, and these changes almost always massively disproportionately affect people who tend to vote for the other party.
E.g., restricting voting hours, in particular getting rid of early voting on the weekend before election day. Decreasing the number of places to vote or the number of places you can drop off ballots.
3. This is not addressing an actual problem. Every attempt to show that there is any non-trivial amount of incorrect voting has failed to find any.
#3 in itself is not bad. Just because it is not a problem now doesn't mean it can't become a problem in the future so getting ahead and getting it in place now could be sensible, but when combined with #1 and #2 it is clear that ID is being enacted not to increase election security but as a form of voter suppression.
To get a learner's permit, driver’s license, or Mass ID in Massachusetts, you’ll need to provide proof of citizenship or lawful presence, a Social Security number, and Massachusetts residency. Learn what documents you can use below.
https://www.mass.gov/guides/massachusetts-identification-id-...
No reasonable scheme is going to involve just going online, filling in an unverified name, uploading a picture, and getting a card in the mail a week later for free. (Or going into an office.)
Yeah, that's not a reasonable process. The one I envisioned was to have an agency 1) proactively make contact (perhaps like the census), 2) do the legwork of verifying identity (e.g. request birth certificates, checking against other official records), and 3) pay for the ID and any fees along the way.
That's why I was saying like the census. The idea is cover all individuals by canvassing all the places they could reasonably be living. All the collective levels of government certainly have near-complete records of that.
The primary issue is that the photo IDs are not easily accessible(time and money) in US. So Voter ID laws, without provisions to make them more accessible, are suppressive towards people who don't have resources to spare on the IDs.
Isn't that pretty much a myth? The vast majority of people have a photo ID and many states which require one also give one for free. The only onerous impediment is that you have to go get one.
If you don't trust elected officials a priori, you have no place in a voting booth.
You're not supposed to trust officials. That's why there are cameras and observers. Of course, mail voting implies a lot more trust, which is why some don't want it.
Which I tried to directly address in my comment (at least the busy part, and the too poor part can easily be addressed by having the agency I proposed pay the fees for the ID). It's a solvable problem, and solving it seems like it would be clearly in the public interest (for way more reasons than just voting).
I was imagining having an agency with people like a census-takers who would come to your home and handle whatever in-person stuff was necessary, which would make DMV locations a non-issue.
UK doesn't require photo ID to vote as well. No mail-in voting has provisions for photo ID, as well.
https://www.elections.ca/content.aspx?section=vot&dir=ids&do...
You can also register on election night. I did this a couple years ago when there was a provincial election shortly after we moved.
And yet we don't have widespread electoral fraud.
Btw. there is really no registration in Czechia/Slovakia, you will get voting tickets automatically to your permanent residence address without any additional registration, registration is necessary only if you want vote via mail or you want voting pass to vote outside your permanent residence.
Are you sure about this? I remember from past if election commission member knew you they could identify you even without any ID card or even if 2 other people could identify you it was sufficient to confirm your identity without any ID card. Was this option cancelled?
I know in presidential election it wasn't, and neither the last time during the parliamentary, presidential election or local referendum. I was commissioner for a couple of years so I should know.
If you don't believe me you can look up the election law Zákon č. 247/1995 Sb. and go for paragraph 18, or 19. I'm not completely sure which one it is.
Honestly, when I first heard how US handles voting I couldn't believe how open to abuse it is. In a way, I'm surprised that election integrity hasn't been questioned sooner.
Edit: To clarify, I don't believe the 2020 elections were affected by fraud, in fact they were proven not to be. Just that the process doesn't seem very trustworthy to me in general.