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'If I Need ID to Buy Cough Syrup, Why Shouldn't I Need ID to Vote?'

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Re: 'If I Need ID to Buy Cough Syrup, Why Shouldn't I Need ID to Vote?'

#61

Post by lnanek2 »

spindritf wrote: post #21

The outcry in the US over requiring someone to show an ID to vote is one of the most bizarre things to come out of that country. And, to make it even more unusual, it's coming from the left, the very people who used to love issuing IDs, numbers, and whose intellectual and ideological predecessors set up most of those schemes. Practically, as much as the anarchist in me doesn't like that, you cannot have a mass societ…

The outcry is from the left because these laws are always by the right in order to make it more difficult for demographics that vote left to vote. They come from a long line of laws in a similar vein, such as literacy tests full of trick questions, etc.. The general idea is just to make it tough enough to vote that poor people can't.

Re: 'If I Need ID to Buy Cough Syrup, Why Shouldn't I Need ID to Vote?'

#62

Post by clavalle »

zacharytelschow wrote: post #25
clavalle wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An electricity bill /and/ being registered in your district. It is not like you can take an electricity bill to any poll location and vote. 20 Euros might not seem like much but if you are making minimum wage it can be significant. And what if you lose your ID? Or you don't have access to the documentation to get an ID right away? Or you are a college student and your residence is with your parents? The fact is that…

"It is not like you can take an electricity bill to any poll location and vote." It's exactly like that in 8 states + DC ( Idaho, Iowa, Maine, Minnesota, Montana, New Hampshire, Wisconsin, Wyoming, and Washington DC.): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Election_Day_voter_registration

Well, just spot checking Wisconsin (because that is the first state to come up when I googled 'election day voter registration' requires a valid driver's license for same day registration.

So, no, not exactly like that.

Re: 'If I Need ID to Buy Cough Syrup, Why Shouldn't I Need ID to Vote?'

#63

Post by MichaelSalib »

smsm42 wrote: post #57
nknighthb wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The set of people who do not have and/or will have trouble getting IDs has little if any overlap with the set of people who travel by air, purchase real estate, or lawfully purchase firearms.

I wasn't asking about which sets of people overlap or not. I was asking what makes ID requirement be identical with suppression - is it ID requirement itself or something else? If it is something else - what exactly it is? Is it where set of people is relevant - it is OK to ask some people to show the papers but not the others? Which people should be exempt and which should not be?

We know that voter id requirements are based in voter suppression because those requirements are targeted to preventing an attack that is economically infeasible and they don't even effectively mitigate the attack.

Look at my other comments in this thread for the details, but in brief, the cost of using voter impersonation fraud is extremely high, the probability that authorities will detect it is also high, and the penalties for breaking the law in this way are very serious. What's more, bypassing the ID requirement is trivial for criminals, in the same way that bored teenagers can purchase alcohol whenever they want because forging ID cards is easy.

Note also that IDs are actually not required for flying in the US. Flying without an ID is annoying and time consuming, but definitely doable (I've done it).

Re: 'If I Need ID to Buy Cough Syrup, Why Shouldn't I Need ID to Vote?'

#64

Post by mortyseinfeld »

spindritf wrote: post #21

The outcry in the US over requiring someone to show an ID to vote is one of the most bizarre things to come out of that country. And, to make it even more unusual, it's coming from the left, the very people who used to love issuing IDs, numbers, and whose intellectual and ideological predecessors set up most of those schemes. Practically, as much as the anarchist in me doesn't like that, you cannot have a mass societ…

And, to make it even more unusual, it's coming from the left, the very people who used to love issuing IDs, numbers, and whose intellectual and ideological predecessors set up most of those schemes.

You're right. "Let me see your papers comrade".

Re: 'If I Need ID to Buy Cough Syrup, Why Shouldn't I Need ID to Vote?'

#65

Post by dragonwriter »

smsm42 wrote: post #47
djur wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The American left is opposed to voter ID because it's a vote suppression scheme -- not all eligible voters have IDs or have access to obtain them. The voter ID bills have gone hand-in-hand with restrictions on early voting and same-day voter registration, which makes the intention clear. On the other hand, I have yet to see one of these bills accompanied by legislation intended to help people without IDs get them.

Would it be fair to conclude that any setup that requires ID is a suppression scheme? I.e., if ID is required for travel - is it a travel rights suppression scheme? If the ID is required for real estate ownership - that is a real estate ownership suppression scheme? If the ID is required to own a firearm - is it a firearm ownership suppression scheme? Note I'm not asking if IDs were used in the past to suppress votes…

> Would it be fair to conclude that any setup that requires ID is a suppression scheme?

It would be fair to conclude that any proposal which increases the burden of doing a thing is intended to prevent and/or discourage some group of people from doing that thing.

If there is no strong evidence that there some significant problem with people who are wrongfully be doing that thing that the particular scheme is well-designed to solve, it is pretty fair to suspect that the intent is to prevent/discourage people who are rightfully doing it, and, whether or not this is the intent, and whether or not there is a real problem in evidence that it might solve, it is reasonable to question whether any effect, even incidental, of preventing/discouraging people who are not wrongfully engaging in the targetted act is a substantial enough negative side effect to reject the proposal.

> What you're claiming is that ID requirement and voter suppression is the same

I think there is more than sufficient evidence to conclude that the actual concrete voter ID proposals that are actually being made are either intended as or draw a significant portion of their support from people who view them as voter suppression schemes, and that, intent aside, their primary effect would be as mechanisms for voter suppression.

Re: 'If I Need ID to Buy Cough Syrup, Why Shouldn't I Need ID to Vote?'

#66

Post by Casseres »

MichaelSalib wrote: post #59
nknighthb wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I invite you to try and get one of those free IDs, which are often accompanied by a demand for documentation that, again, the underprivileged are likely to have trouble getting, if it even exists. This is assuming the DMV office doesn't play dumb and deny any knowledge of their obligations. There is a distinction between constitutional requirements and what happens in practice. I don't know where you're from, maybe t…

Indeed. My father in law was denied an ID when he moved to a different state. He is a US citizen of Pakistani origin, and the DMV staff refused to issue him a drivers' license because they were convinced that the was not a US citizen. He showed them his US passport. They claimed it was fake. He showed them his drivers license from his home state. They rejected it. He showed them his veterans card identifying him as a…

It sounds like the DMV staff you encountered were bigots. I would report them. Get the local media involved. Offer to wait while they call the police since having a fake passport is a crime.

Re: 'If I Need ID to Buy Cough Syrup, Why Shouldn't I Need ID to Vote?'

#67

Post by meddlepal »

spindritf wrote: post #21

The outcry in the US over requiring someone to show an ID to vote is one of the most bizarre things to come out of that country. And, to make it even more unusual, it's coming from the left, the very people who used to love issuing IDs, numbers, and whose intellectual and ideological predecessors set up most of those schemes. Practically, as much as the anarchist in me doesn't like that, you cannot have a mass societ…

Everyone should have a secure, single identity card in any modern developed nation that can be used for identity verification. One card. Federal and State governments can assign privileges to the card (driving, medicare etc.). Even expand it so the card can be used to verify credit and debit card authenticity etc. That's my dream, but right now we are stuck in firmly in 20th century-modes of thinking about ID.

I'm long past the point of caring about the Government having some database of where I go or who I transact with. They seem to have been able to already figure out how to do it without my permission so let's just make this whole tracking thing transparent now.

Practically speaking, getting an ID in the United States right now is not difficult. Why do we keep excusing people from having a basic mechanism to prove who they say they are? If you cannot handle getting and maintaining an ID maybe one ought not be able to vote because you're just not responsible enough to handle it.

Re: 'If I Need ID to Buy Cough Syrup, Why Shouldn't I Need ID to Vote?'

#68

Post by smsm42 »

djur wrote: post #56
smsm42 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would it be fair to conclude that any setup that requires ID is a suppression scheme? I.e., if ID is required for travel - is it a travel rights suppression scheme? If the ID is required for real estate ownership - that is a real estate ownership suppression scheme? If the ID is required to own a firearm - is it a firearm ownership suppression scheme? Note I'm not asking if IDs were used in the past to suppress votes…

What I am claiming is that the current batch of voter ID schemes are part of an organized vote suppression effort by the American right wing under the pretense of preventing fraud. I would be willing to believe that the programs were being adopted in good faith if there was any evidence of widespread voter fraud and if the programs included aggressive efforts to ensure that every eligible voter has access to a free I…

There's no evidence of widespread terror campaign in US airport and yet TSA grabs my balls each time I fly, and NSA collects my phone calls. There's no evidence of widespread harm from drugs like marijuana and yet thousands of people are jailed for mere possession of it. There's no evidence of gun bans be effective measure of crime control and yet cities like Chicago and Washington insist on it. There's no evidence RIAA and MPAA are seriously hurt by piracy and yet we have DMCA and almost had SOPA. There's no evidence copyright extensions are necessary and yet we have Mickey Mouse protection act[1]. There's no evidence of US being a criminal wasteland and yet you may very well commit three felonies every day[2].

If you really want to go into "show me the data before you make the law", you're waking up way too late. It's not a conspiracy, it's called "federal government".

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonny_Bono_Copyright_Term_Exte... [2] http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB1000142405274870447150...

Re: 'If I Need ID to Buy Cough Syrup, Why Shouldn't I Need ID to Vote?'

#69

Post by MichaelSalib »

Casseres wrote: post #66
MichaelSalib wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. My father in law was denied an ID when he moved to a different state. He is a US citizen of Pakistani origin, and the DMV staff refused to issue him a drivers' license because they were convinced that the was not a US citizen. He showed them his US passport. They claimed it was fake. He showed them his drivers license from his home state. They rejected it. He showed them his veterans card identifying him as a…

It sounds like the DMV staff you encountered were bigots. I would report them. Get the local media involved. Offer to wait while they call the police since having a fake passport is a crime.

It was my father in law, not me.

And of course they were bigots. That's the point: there are a lot of bigots in the US.

He thought it wasn't worth the effort to report them, and frankly, I kind of agree. Who wants to spend years fighting in court, maybe having to spend their own hard earned money, and maybe having to deal with the bigots' friends on the police force harassing them? Especially after they just started working a new job?

Re: 'If I Need ID to Buy Cough Syrup, Why Shouldn't I Need ID to Vote?'

#70

Post by jack-r-abbit »

naner wrote: post #54
lifeformed wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not too familiar on this issue, but how does requiring ID disenfranchise minorities and the poor? Don't they already have IDs?

Don't they already have IDs? No. For most people in the US if you don't have a car you don't have a govt ID. http://www.npr.org/2012/01/28/146006217/why-new-photo-id-law... those least likely to have a government-issued photo ID fall into one of four categories: the elderly, minorities, the poor and young adults aged 18 to 24. The Brennan Center estimates that 18 percent of all seniors and 25 percent of African-Ameri…

"Don't have one" and "can't get one" are two entirely different things. How many of them don't have one simply because they have not needed one before and will just go get one (like most people) now that they'll have a need for one? As a fairly poor college student without a car in a new state (Arizona), I managed to locate a bus schedule and a DMV and make my way to the DMV and get a state ID. And I did it without internet. I'm no genius. I have confidence that a lot of people can do it too.

Side Note: In California, ID cards are $27. Or $8 if you meet income requirements from a public assistance program. Or free if you are 62 or older.

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