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Yes

12 (20.3%)

Maybe/Depends

5 (8.5%)

No

42 (71.2%)

Total Members Voted: 59

[Montague]

I'm not sure why this issue is so controversial. Almost everybody is already carrying a driver's licence or ID card anyways. You need a gov't issued photo id to get behind the wheel of a car or buy a cigar or bottle of beer, why not require one to vote?

Also, I believe you need such an id to register to vote and get your card anyways. So I'd say yes, require an ID to vote.

However, I'd also waive the requirement to have an address to obtain such an ID. Seems like homeless people should be able to get an ID card and vote without the hassle of faking the funk with renting a mailbox for a fake address.

[Itnetlolor]

Bit of a bleeding heart comment here; but if others can't vote, I won't vote.

In short: I don't support this.

[mainiac]

Almost everybody is already carrying a driver's licence or ID card anyways.

Because "Almost everybody" isn't entitled to vote.  Everybody is entitled to vote.  If you think that everybody can easily get and ID then it's probably because you don't rub shoulders with the poor too much.  For you getting a drivers licence was something you'd already do.  For someone struggling to get by they couldn't pass the drivers test because they don't have a car and getting another form of ID is an expensive and time consuming process.  You are basically telling them that they can't vote unless they take a day off from work to get an expensive ID that they don't need before allowing them to vote, something that it's supposed to be illegal to prevent them from doing.

As many as 10% of eligible voters do not have, and will not get, the documents required by strict voter ID laws. Approximately ten percent of voting-age Americans today do not have driver’s licenses or state-issued non-driver’s photo ID. Based on Americans’ moving patterns, many more do not have photo ID showing their current address. And getting ID costs substantial time and money. A would-be voter must pay substantial fees both for ID cards and the backup documents needed to get them-up to $100 for a driver’s license, up to $45 for a birth certificate, $97 for a passport, and over $200 for naturalization papers. The voter may also have to take several hours off of work and travel significant distances to visit government offices open only during select daytime hours. Finally, many identifying documents cannot be issued immediately, so potential voters must allow for processing and shipping, which may take from several weeks to an entire year.

It's a deliberate effort to keep poor people from voting.

[Montague]

I think the idea that there are any significant amount of people who work, yet don't have an ID card is rather silly. I grew up poor and I don't recall anybody who walked to work. They might not have had insurance for their car, but they drove one around to get to where they needed to be. As for expensive and time consuming? It cost me 20$ and about 4 hours (mostly sitting in line) to get a driver's licence. An ID card cost maybe 15$. Maybe it's expensive and time consuming in Europe or something, I'm sure. I think they require 2 weeks driver's training and a 1500 Euro fee in Germany.

Of course anecdotal evidence is hardly compelling. My point is that I'm still not sure why this is controversial.

So there is some tiny minority of people (who are poor, apparently) who do not participate in society enough for them to have any use for an ID card, but they still want to vote and they've somehow obtained a voter's registration card without an ID card? I guess so. I'm pretty sure registering to vote requires at least proof of age.

Then again, I'm not quite sure how a photo id really thwarts election fraud either, unless there is some criminal syndicate of 16 year old kids are making and voting with fake voter registration cards.

[misko27]

I think the idea that there are any significant amount of people who work, yet don't have an ID card is rather silly. I grew up poor and I don't recall anybody who walked to work. They might not have had insurance for their car, but they drove one around to get to where they needed to be. As for expensive and time consuming? It cost me 20$ and about 4 hours (mostly sitting in line) to get a driver's licence. An ID card cost maybe 15$. Maybe it's expensive and time consuming in Europe or something, I'm sure. I think they require 2 weeks driver's training and a 1500 Euro fee in Germany.

Of course anecdotal evidence is hardly compelling. My point is that I'm still not sure why this is controversial.

So there is some tiny minority of people (who are poor, apparently) who do not participate in society enough for them to have any use for an ID card, but they still want to vote and they've somehow obtained a voter's registration card without an ID card? I guess so. I'm pretty sure registering to vote requires at least proof of age.

Then again, I'm not quite sure how a photo id really thwarts election fraud either, unless there is some criminal syndicate of 16 year old kids are making and voting with fake voter registration cards.

You clearly don't live in a major metropolis with public transport. In NYC EVERYONE uses the subway (except for parts of queens, and staten island, but no one counts staten island, so.)

Essentially, not many people enjoy waiting in lines for hours, especially the poor. If its for something important, like drivers license, they'll do it, but not for something with little percieved value, like losing a days salary to wait for hours to cast a vote that assuredly wont affect the outcome anyway. When you multiply that by how many don'f vote becausr of it, well, you see my point.

[mainiac]

My point is that I'm still not sure why this is controversial.

Because disenfranchising people who are overwhelmingly poor makes a lot of people angry.  Doubly so when it's allegedly to solve a problem that does not exist.  Have you not read anything that people have posted in this thread?

[Montague]

NYC is probably the only place in the USA where you can survive without a car or somebody bankrolling your entire life, which is a depressing fact by it's self.

That said, you still need a gov't photo ID to register to vote, to verify your age at the minimum. So there is some pennyless minority out there that goes to vote but I guess all collectively forget to bring that ID that got them their voter's cards? So some dude living in a cardboard box in Brooklyn is like "Aww fuck it, I'm not walking back home to get my ID and walking back here just to vote"? Or maybe they lost their ID they used to register and don't care enough about it to spend 15$ and an hour to replace it? I suppose so.

I think both sides of the argument are pretty weak. A lot of folks on the left believe there should be a national ID card and it should be mandatory to carry, but the right wingers think it's a violation of privacy. Yet the right wingers think you need an ID card to vote and the left wingers say it's irrelevant or oppressive to ask a voter to prove their identity. Funny.

So maybe showing a photo ID card at the polling place, could be a sort of privacy issue. You show your full name and address and CDL endorsements and everything to a total stranger. Who you vote for is still secret though, or is it? If this was Afghanistan, this would be a major problem.

In the USA, I'm still leaning on the idea that you should prove you are the person mentioned on the voter's registration card, more then any privacy or "I'm too poor to have an ID card" arguments. But I also don't really care either way, in real life.

[Montague]

My point is that I'm still not sure why this is controversial.

Because disenfranchising people who are overwhelmingly poor makes a lot of people angry.  Doubly so when it's allegedly to solve a problem that does not exist.  Have you not read anything that people have posted in this thread?

Who is too poor to have an ID card? Maybe this is an argument that ID card processing fees and such things should be free, but how does it apply to voting?

Only kind of person I can think of that will not have some form of photo ID are the 'sovereign citizen' movement folks who refuse to have anything to do with the gov't, including ID cards and sneer at the idea that the gov't can say if they can grow pot on their land or drive a car or own a sawed off shotgun or not. I dunno how these people feel about voting, certainly by law, as an of-age US citizen (if they like it or not) have the right to vote, however.

Being too poor to have a 15$ ID card seems awfully sketchy to me. I don't know of, nor have I ever heard of, anybody that fits that demographic.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

By even being on the internet you are automatically above the socioeconomic category that would find 15$ to be a serious investment.

[Montague]

By even being on the internet you are automatically above the socioeconomic category that would find 15$ to be a serious investment.

Look, I've been broke and basically homeless before. 15$ is food and gas money and cigarettes and whatever, don't think I don't understand how significant 15$ can be when you've got nothing.

That said, Internet is free at the public library, BTW.

Perhaps if ID cards were issued at no expense, then why not require them for the polling place? If 15$ is too much.

[mainiac]

15$ plus bus fair on top of the much more important taking a day off of work to hop through a bureaucratic hoop that some asshole decided to inflict on you knowing that rich people already have photo IDs because they all have cars.

If they passed a law saying that everyone with income over $120k was required to spend a day sitting on a bus then waiting at the DMV before being allowed to vote it would get thrown out as blatantly unconstitutional.  But that's what this law is essentially doing to a large chunk of low income individuals.

The more important point you seem to be missing though is that these laws solve a problem that does not exist.  Voter fraud does not happen in this country on any appreciable scale.  So you are rigging the system to keep a million people from voting (if this was applied nationwide) to prevent 4 or 5 cases of fraud.  This is simply an attempt to suppress the vote like poll taxes or poll tests.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Hence why the courts keep throwing them out.

[Montague]

The more important point you seem to be missing though is that these laws solve a problem that does not exist.  Voter fraud does not happen in this country on any appreciable scale.  So you are rigging the system to keep a million people from voting (if this was applied nationwide) to prevent 4 or 5 cases of fraud.  This is simply an attempt to suppress the vote like poll taxes or poll tests.

I agree with you, that US elections are basically free of corruption, at least on the scale that an ID card requirement would prevent anyways. A new law requiring photo ID would not really do much either way.

That said, it seems rather silly to me, to think that there are actually 1 million people out there, with so little connection to society that they have no need for a gov't photo ID, yet have somehow registered to vote and are also determined to vote. All I can think of are 'sovereign citizens' out in the forest intentionally refusing to get an ID card.

Also, my main point. You need a gov't issued photo ID card, to register to vote and obtain a voter's card. So the requirement is already there anyways. A law requiring you to get an ID card and show it in order to vote is already there.

The only thing a 'show id at polling place' would do is prevent people who never renewed their ID card or who left it at home. So, if they have a current voter's registration card, but forgot their ID, they shouldn't vote? Nah. I see that point.

[mainiac]

You do not need a photo id to register to vote.  I don't know about everywhere but the places I've been a registration volunteer all allowed registration by mail.

It's really not hard to imagine voter id laws keeping .5% of people from voting.  These are people for whom getting an ID is an all day endeavor and they don't need an ID for any other purpose.  It's not a minor inconvenience, it's a BFD.

[Montague]

You do not need a photo id to register to vote.  I don't know about everywhere but the places I've been a registration volunteer all allowed registration by mail.

It's really not hard to imagine voter id laws keeping .5% of people from voting.  These are people for whom getting an ID is an all day endeavor and they don't need an ID for any other purpose.  It's not a minor inconvenience, it's a BFD.

You need proof of age to register to vote. Not just anybody can vote, convicted felons also cannot vote, citizens under 18 years of age cannot vote. So a birth certificate might do in place of an ID card, I suppose, but there must be a vetting process for every voter. An ID card requirement is an easy enough vetting requirement.