First things first, I don’t doubt it is a bad thing, considering who supports it and who doesn’t.
But my question is what exactly is the issue and what is the current and proposed voting process when it comes to IDs?
Here in my EU country, you have to show some version of a government ID, be it an ID card, drivers license or passport. And we don’t have to pre-register to vote.
I can tell you the issue, but it won’t be what everyone else is telling you the issue is.
The real issue is that there are votes at all. You cannot be born into a system of consent, so you cannot be born into a system where by default, some huge organization can steal your income and use it to produce things you never asked for, probably mostly don’t use, and even blatantly don’t want.
You shouldn’t need an ID to do anything that isn’t something you’ve not already consented to, and the only people you would ever need to consent to would be those who own property you wish to utilize.
There’s a reason why nobody else is saying that.
Before you can vote, you have to “register” to vote. When you do this, you need to prove you’re a U.S. citizen. Usually providing a birth certificate, or passport, military id, idk everything.
My understanding was that the name you were registering to vote with had to match the document you were using. But if you got married then often times the women would have a different last name and now it doesn’t match your birth certificate. Normally you’d just have to prove you got married too but this new law would say no, you have to have the exact name or you can’t vote.
Since women typically take the man’s last name, it would effectively mean any married women registering to vote would not be allowed. And since the bill is worded confusingly on purpose, many women would not even realize this until they went to register to vote, and told they couldn’t because of their new last name.
It’s not effectively any woman, it’s a women who is using their birth certificate for ID. Which is effectively 1/3 of the options so it’s significant but not “effectively mean any married woman can’t vote.”
They can use a passport, state issued ID such as Drivers license or ID card or a birth certificate. The new drivers licenses and IDs that are “real IDs” which is required now are also proof of citizenship.
That’s fair, I should’ve been more exact with my words. If someone is poor and living in a large metro area they might not even have a drivers license so birth certificate would be their best option. And large metro areas typically swing democrat so it would disproportionately hurts dems more than cons.
Not an llm but wanted to acknowledge good criticism.
Additionally, minorities and underprivileged folks don’t often have the means to get drivers licenses. How do you take the exam if you don’t have a car to practice? Or can’t get the time off work to go to the DMV for a government ID? It might not be the stated intent of the law, but the few places it’s been implemented have seen drastic reductions in the incident rate of black and Latino voters.
Here’s my perspective from other countries (I’ve lived and voted in two). The America right will go absolutely apeshit if you criticize them from the point of view of a other country by saying “you have voter ID laws, you just want the USA to fail by allowing illegals to vote”
The thing is, for example Canada or the UK (both where I never once needed to show ID to vote) have voter ID laws in case you need to produce ID, but you probably don’t. Because for most people you are registered to vote, you pay taxes, the government knows where you live and who lives there.
I turn up at a polling place with my name and address and they hand me my ballot. If another me showed up earlier, or later it’d be immediately apparent there was a problem when I tried to vote again.
If you aren’t in this position, that’s where vote ID comes in. What the right wingers in America never say is that almost any kind of ID at all that has your name on it is acceptable. There are hundreds of acceptable forms of ID and it’s as broad as possible.
Also if all that fails and you literally have nothing to show for it, you can literally ask someone who is registered to just vouch for you. Yep, that’s bill, he’s a citizen as far as I know. Now bill gets a ballot.
We’re allowed to have voter ID laws because we’re using them to make sure absolutely everyone is able to vote while still ensuring secure elections. We’re not using them to purge voter rolls and make sure you need an obscure specific government ID card in order to have the “privilege” (you see cause it’s not a privilege, it’s a right)
one thing you forgot to mention is that the american right wants these new voter IDs to implement a poll tax. they pretend like they aren’t pushing that when someone explains to them why voter IDs are racist and classist, but the entire point is to disenfranchise non-white and poor voters with a poll tax. it fits right in line with red areas removing polling places from e.g. majority black neighborhoods.
There’s no issue, we just like to argue over stupidity.
Of course you should have to use ID, like everywhere else on Earth. But we don’t, because really it doesn’t matter. It’s not as if the elected candidates are all that different in USA. It’s not like you can vote pro-labor or anything.
Amazon gets what it wants and the election is to decide… will the candidate pretend to care but not care, or not care enough to even pretend?
I’ve never needed ID to vote in my life and it’s not normal.
Okay, thanks but I never said or implied that it was “normal”.
But it should be! EU knows what’s up, good on them
You LITERALLY cannot register to vote without already being a fucking citizen.
The ID thing is a complete non issue bullshit smoke screen to disenfranchise voters.
Not yelling at you at all, but this issue makes my blood boil.
It’s not in a vacuumm, but when you look at the material conditions in the US, the way it is argued to happen is really for one reason only: voter suppression. I always said if anyone was arguing for it in good faith, they would set in motion a multiple-year program with a dedicated agency that’s sole goal is to make sure every eligible voter has an ID first, and then make it a requirement. The way things are, many eligible voter have been kept from aquiring IDs via various historical and beuracratic systems.
You LITERALLY cannot register to vote without already being a fucking citizen.
True, but without taking IDs at polling places, I can go claim to be my non-voting friend without even needing a disguise.
Not that I’m saying it’s common (nor could any of us possibly know if it was), but it is possible.
I’ve never once had to prove I am whoever I say I am at the little table they set up, “if I wasn’t, then why would I say I am” always works.
Is it common? How would we know? By investigating.
Come on, quit thinking abstractly and use reality as a test. Trump has been looking for those fake voters for a decade. A decade! He didn’t find any… Why is that? Not because of your master plan, my friend. But because voter fraud is just not happening on a measurable scale… Or, to put it differently, are you smarter than state election officials and the DoJ? And even if one of you is, scale that up. How many people are as magical as you?
We have the data on how often this happens, spoiler, it doesn’t, who does it, almost exclusively republicans, and how it happens generally, which is dead relatives.
The call is coming from inside the home!
- Your first claim is not supported by “data”.
- Your second claim is not supported by anything…ever, and refutes your first claim.
- Your third claim refutes your first and second claim.
good job
Don’t be ignorant on purpose, there is no reason for a voter ID law.
Here you want the sources you lazy ass?
How widespread is election fraud in the United States? Not very | Brookings https://share.google/hSb96tqZELBjj4AS6
The Effect of Voter and Election Fraud Misperceptions on U.S. Election Legitimacy | MIT Election Lab https://share.google/MuOIar2tC7CznE5zU
it doesn’t
who does it, almost exclusively republicans, and how it happens generally, which is dead relatives
Pick one lol.
But how do you know I don’t go vote in place of my friend every time and write in Bruce Campbell because I think it’s funny, and I just don’t get caught? There’s literally no way to know, he’d have to vote for once to catch me.
It’s like my mom said when I was a kid “you get caught EVERY TIME you do bad stuff…” yes mom, every time. Pay no attention to the 500 nights you didn’t catch me sneaking out, must not have snuck out yup that’s it, nothing to see here…
Well it’s far simpler than you think. If your friend votes, then two votes bynhim show up. Easy detect. If you friend doesn’t, they also probably didn’t bother to register. So trying to vote as them won’t work, and will get you identified. You need someone you know registered and you know isn’t going to vote. It’s not super common to have that kind of situation and truely know they won’t vote. Thus they mentioned the dead relative situation. But that is detectable on audit.
If your friend votes
Covered that already:
he’d have to vote for once to catch me.
There’s a reason I’m referring to my non-voting friend as non-voting, it’s to imply that he doesn’t vote, so that kinda sorta precludes the whole “he votes” thing anyway because the premise is that he does not, in fact, vote.
they also probably didn’t bother to register.
He was born with a penis, he’s registered for the draft since 18 and therefore to vote since 18 as well, because those are coupled for people born with a penis. Unless he changes his name (unlikely) or political affiliation (for what, to vote in primaries? He doesn’t vote.) Technically he should re-register because he changed his address, but again why would he if he doesn’t vote? Literally no consequences could befall him, there’s no incentive for him to do it. Bro I’m still registered at my mom’s despite having bought a house (which the government knows about because it’s public info), because it’s easier to just drive 15min to my old polling place every few years than to go fill out a form, been doing it for years, and I vote! There’s no way in hell he’s ever going to change that address from his parents’ just to continue not voting.
You need someone you know registered
Literally all 18+ AMABs in the US
and you know isn’t going to vote.
Know any AMABs that don’t vote? There’s one right there. Not as uncommon as you might think.
Interesting. So while signing up for the selective service that I assume you are referring to, does not have anything to do with registering to vote. Some states do automatically register you when you get your drivers license. My state did not, so I didn’t know some did. That said, when you register or even automatically get registered by the dmv. They attach your signature to the registration. And in states that don’t require id, they require you to sign the poll book. And they compare that to the registration.
So if you live in an auto registration state, you still can’t vote for your friend unless you can also forge thier signature.Huh, I done googled it, and it appears we were lied to, but my high school told us all that was the case. I guess I just forgot that I must have separately registered to vote? Or maybe I live in one of those states, idk, it was decades ago to be fair, but we were for sure told that in order to vote we had to register for the draft. Glad to learn it isn’t true, thanks!
I guess you’re right then, he had to have registered at some point (or we live in one of the auto states). Also probably why you shouldn’t make your signature some squiggles though…
And odd that they haven’t called me on the fact that my actual signature has changed since then, since I worked on it at one point out of boredom.
Except that the US and multiple organizations have conducted research on voter fraud and guess what it’s .003% of voting AND it’s nearly always the people clamoring for the ID.
Don’t believe the bullshit.
But how exactly? Only the ones who got caught? Self reporting?
How? How do you specifically know I specifically don’t write in Bruce Campbell for my friend every presidential election because I think it’s fucking hilarious? I’ve never been caught, for all they know he really thinks the president should have a Boomstick to save us from Deadites.
What do you think they review security cam footage? Think the nameless volunteer who has never met me nor my friend is going to notice that I’m not really Steve I’m actually three kids in a trenchcoat?
You have to understand the roots of the voting registration rules here to understand it better. The whole point of them was to keep black men and all women from having a vote.
That’s it - that is what they were for. So every permutation since is built on that framework, it’s always "the wrong people might vote’ instead of “we want to make sure everyone votes”.
So voter ID is not a bad idea on its face, you go in to vote the poll workers need to know who you are, right? The lady who sits across from me at work is old, she went to renew her driver’s license in February this year and they said no, your current license (that they issued) is not enough, there are new requirements - we need your birth certificate, your first marriage license, your divorce paperwork, your second marriage license, your divorce decree from that marriage, then we can renew your license.
She just managed to get all this by mid-October, so she did get through in time to vote but what the fuck? She had to reach out to 3 states and getting a birth certificate from like the 1950s is not easy. Why is it not easy to renew? Because the laws were written to prevent voting not to enable it.
mmmm…not exactly.
JFK and his father used the Mob to generate thousands of votes to get him elected in 1960. There was serious fuckery in that election.
Not an american, but I’ve seen this asked before and from what I remember a lot of it was about what counts as valid ID (as the US doesn’t have national ID cards like we do in EU countries), and the potential that the ID required would purposely be something hard to get to various communities that are discriminated against, in an attempt to “rig the vote” as it were
Someone from the US probably has a better phrased explanation tho
its a barrier to targeting POCs and impoverished communities, aka mostly black areas. also you have to take off time to get the id card from dmv, or another agency. plus conservatives areas use all sorts of other voter suppression tricks, to invalidate the id anyways.
It would only let people with their names matching their birth certificates vote, disenfranchising trans people and married women that have taken their spouse’s name.
And the dozen of us men who took our wife’s name
Oh yes, sorry, you’re right.
Also immigrants whose US name doesn’t match their original birth cert exactly. For example, in my birth country we have two last names but I dropped one in the US.
Here’s a perspective. Some years ago a nonprofit (aclu maybe?) offered a large sum of money for an example of voter fraud that would have been prevented by an ID, they never had to pay out, iirc. If IDs don’t prevent voter fraud, why require the extra burden?
We don’t have a free national ID, even state IDs cost money. There should be no money involved in the right to vote.
Canada. No free national ID card. About $15 a year, renewed every 5 years. Your health ID and driver ID can be separate or same-card, and can be used to fulfill “government-issued picture ID” required to vote; otherwise it’s a passport, probably, which is a little more.
Who are the US modeling themselves after when they demand a free ID card before it is required to verify identity for voting?
Having government ID of any kind (in fact, any documentation of any kind) isn’t strictly required to vote in Canada.
Free id and voting are technically distinct concerns.
We aren’t Canada. Voting is a right and it shouldn’t be tied to any fee.
It’s not a model, it’s a guaranteed constitutional right that has been upheld a LOT of times in the supreme court over the last two centuries. You cannot have a poll tax, period. In any possible way, shape or form. It cannot cost a single cent to vote. Ever. Under any possible circumstances, without a significant constitutional amendment. It cannot be changed via law, and any laws passed that do require ID but do not make IDs free are undeniably unconstitutional based on 200 years of precedent.
So we find ourselves trapped in a loop, because voting is an enshrined right.
It’s also… just not needed. The only way you can register to vote is by proving your identity and citizenship. Using the free process that exists in every state and most US territories (not for federal elections in the territories unless they overlap with a state).
We get it Canada sucks you don’t got to convince us. Lick that boot and pay that poll tax son.
Same thing in EU. At least over here in Finland. But, the passport is paid for by the social service if you are on their money.
I’m pretty sure ours doesn’t work like that. But also, a passport isn’t as common to have here.
Yeah, but here nothing works without having an ID or a passport, so everyone must have access to it.
That’s how the US works as well, you need ID for everything, it’s just lies and propaganda that claims undocumented people are using any services, the reality is literally the opposite.
Every single state with voter id requirements either gives free voter id cards or waives fees on existing id forms if u state if for the purposes of voting.
Interestingly I come from a nation where voting is not a right but a duty. Yes in Australia you get fined if you don’t vote. U can purposely spoil ur ballot that’s fine and that goes in the statistics but u still need to show up and purposely do that.
First thing is that it is up to states to administer elections and make their own rules and laws. Given the record of the current president, many people and states are not very interested in giving up power over that to the federal government, who keeps trying to claim and take control of state-run elections anyway.
In the US, people are not automatically given IDs or driver licenses. They require a fair amount of time, other paperwork, and fees to procure. Therefore having one is automatically more likely for people with more time (retired, better job, etc), money, organized lives and physical ability since you must show up in person.
By organized lives, I mean people of higher economic status are more likely to live in stable situations where they have social security cards, passports and birth certificates easily accessible. If you don’t have those documents - perhaps they were lost in a move, never given by parents, never applied for - it costs a fair bit to get them. A replacement SS card is free. A duplicate birth certificate can be $20-30. The average charge for an ID/DL is about $40. A copy of a marriage or divorce certificate is typically $10-40. A replacing naturalization certificate is almost $1,400.
Getting these documents could take weeks and an amount of money that’s trivial to higher income people and significant to lower income people. Like voting, if you have a white collar job, it’s fairly easy to take time out to do it. If you have an hourly job with little flexibility and/or lack a vehicle, it’s much more difficult to go to government offices to obtain this paperwork. Some might ask, why would someone not have at least a driver’s license or ID? Perhaps it expired, was lost, they moved and never got the paperwork, or couldn’t afford the fees and time. Younger people and non-white people are known to be less likely to have the documents that would be required. It also creates barriers for armed service members.
Another aspect is the bill says women must prove their citizenship with documents that match their original, non-married name. So if you have a birth certificate that says Jane Doe but all your other documents say Jane Smith, since it was changed after marriage, that won’t work. The requirements would also make it harder for trans people to register.
Next, there’s the changes to registration process. Currently 42 states allow you to register online or by mail. That would be nixed. Voters would have to show up at an office in person to register. Currently signing under penalty of perjury that you are a U.S. citizen is considered adequate, along with proof of residency and documents like an ID (which required the aforementioned birth certificate etc to get in the first place). Under the proposed law, a drivers license would not be adequate in 90% of states. In some areas, voters must travel over 200 miles to get to an election office in person.
Another question is why this would be necessary. While Republicans have been claiming that non-citizens voting in federal elections is a major problem, there is no actual evidence of that. In fact, data from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services says 0.04% of voters might be ineligible, and that’s considered likely an overcount. When states have tried similar laws in the past, it ended up disenfranchising far, far more legitimate voters than the number of illegitimate voters thwarted.
So what’s the actual effect of this? Mainly, to make it harder for poor people and women to vote, two groups who are more likely to vote for Democrats.
Thank you for the very trhourough explanation. That’s all fucking distopian.
I can imagine the issue with lack of easy access to government IDs also has other consequences for lower income people.
It makes the homelessness trap nearly impossible to escape without outside help.
Yeah, when I was homeless after high school and couch surfing, I needed to get a friend to notarize a statement that I was living with him to get my ID so I could get a job. I got lucky, I don’t know how I would have done it if I was sleeping rough.
How difficult/expensive/time-consuming is it to get a government ID in Europe? Is it something that’s sent to you with basically no action or money on your part?
That depends completely on the country. There can be very big differences!
In Finland it works so that you go to some company that will take a photo of you and uploads it to the police’s database. Then you go to the web site of the police, log in using your online banking passwords and apply for the new ID card or passport. The site might say “visiting the police station required”, in which case you must go physically to a police station to show your face. That was necessary for example when I was getting the first passports for my children. Or if you have no previous ID.
The new ID card or passport is delivered to the nearest R-Kioski (think Seven-Eleven) and you get it from there by showing your previous ID. If it’s your first ID, you probably need to get it in person at the police station when it’s ready.
USA has a rule that people can visit it visa-free only if they are from a country where passports and ID cards are renewed every 5 years or more often. Therefore, in EU the passports must be renewed every 5 years instead of every 10 years like it is in USA, where US laws regarding this do not apply.
Taking the photo typically costs about 25 €, the actual document is something like 50 or 60 €. So, altogether about 75 € or so.
And the official instructions for how to apply for an ID card are here: https://poliisi.fi/en/how-to-apply-for-an-identity-card
Unfortunately its neither free nor automatic, though it should be.
It’s about €75 in my country, and you need to go in person. But in general, at least our labor laws are much better so its easier to take PTO for these things,and public transport is good to get there. Most people get them at 14 years old, when it becomes mandatory to have one.
Another question is why this would be necessary. While Republicans have been claiming that non-citizens voting in federal elections is a major problem, there is no actual evidence of that.
https://www.dhs.gov/news/2026/10/28/dozens-illegal-aliens-arrested-nationwide-voter-fraud-crackdown
https://bipartisanpolicy.org/article/four-things-to-know-about-noncitizen-voting/
Number of voter fraud cases: 513 cases since 2016.
Number of eligible voters who would be disenfranchised by voter ID: 21 million people.
Yeah, let’s stop 21 million people from voting because a few hundred fraudulent votes is far more likely to flip an election than a few million.
I said there’s no evidence it’s a major issue. The numbers mentioned there are extremely small compared to tens of millions of votes. One person? Wow. 16 people? Im sure it was worth their time and taxpayer money. The stat I cited said .04%. Others say less. No elections are won or lost by .04%.
The Heritage Foundation looked into this and found a total of 100 cases since 1982.
https://electionfraud.heritage.org/search (Choose “alien” in the bottom menu).
The idea that non-citizens would take the time and risk to vote illegally sounds pretty stupid to me, and it seems they agree.
I wonder which side the folks committing fraud admired
Not sure if that matters for like 5 people. Anyway, looking at the Heritage Foundation data, many of the illicit voters were Hispanic, a group that went for Trump in 2024 and are seen as a major bloc that got him elected. Most people from Central America are Catholic, and tend to be socially conservative. This group is supporting Trump less these days, but this goes back to 1982, as noted. What was your guess?
Ah yes, a handful of cases over multiple elections. On a population of 340+ million people. You just prived the GPs point.
Oh look, someone who doesn’t understand basic statistics.
I think a lot of it comes down to classism. While it’s probably unimaginable in a developed nation, it’s entirely possible for underprivileged citizens in the United States not to have a government issued ID. The hurdles to get one are also disproportionately greater for those individuals.
It is largely seen as a form of voter suppression. And considering our history of weaponized poll and literacy testing, that’s understandable.
Aren’t you required to have a government ID?
Here (.nl) you need an ID to access so many services that it’s basically impossible to function without one.
Want to rent or buy/sell a house -> ID
Want to go do a doctor -> ID
Mobile phone contract -> ID
Open a bank account -> ID
Get a loan -> ID
Take a driving exam -> ID
Collect a package from a parcel point -> ID
Buy alcohol, tobacco or weed -> ID
Hell, I had to show ID when getting food delivery because apparently there was a tiny amount of alcohol in the desert.
How does US society even function when people don’t have a government ID?
Besides what other people have said, voting is a right. Everything you listed is not.
Ideally, yes, this is how it should work. But some of our citizens do not have access to nearly all of these social resources.
Even homeless people are required to have ID here.
Yes. Very nice.
Are they provided for free?
We have to pay for ID in the US, and there is often a requirement for an address on paperwork so combined that makes it very difficult for the homeless to acquire an ID. For example, my state mails IDs which I’m pretty sure it intended to make it difficult for homeless people to get one.
Are they provided for free?
No.
We have to pay for ID in the US
Same here. An ID card is €80 and a passport is €88. Both are valid for 10 years.
and there is often a requirement for an address on paperwork
Here you simply go to the municipality where you are a registered resident and request it there. They already have your address on file since you are required to register your place of residence.
that makes it very difficult for the homeless to acquire an ID.
I just looked it up how this works here. If you aren’t a registered resident of any municipality there’s a couple of them that handle ID applications for people without residence. You have to prove your nationality but that can be as simple as showing a bank statement proving that you receive dutch social security (homeless people receive monthly social security payments)
my state mails IDs which I’m pretty sure it intended to make it difficult for homeless people to get one.
Then how do they make sure it ends up with the person who requested it? Here you have to pick them up in person specifically so they can make sure that the person on the ID is the same person who is receiving it.
That’s super expensive. Last time I got an ID (for my kids) it was something like 6 eur.
This is for 18+. For people under 18 it’s about half that IIRC.
Thats the Netherlands for you. Neoliberal policies for at least a decade does that. And now we have a crack resurgence and teflon man promoted to head of nato.
You are thinking logically and not ‘how do we punish homeless people and minorities for existing’. The US system doesn’t make logical sense for a functional society that doesn’t intentionally disenfranchise a large portion of the population
Aren’t you required to have a government ID?
You are not required to possess one, no. Someone can exist in the US as a dependent and never need to purchase anything ever because someone else in the household takes care of the finances.
No health insurance, never need to go to a doctor or hospital?
What if you’re ever asked for ID by the police?
Over here, technically you aren’t required to have or carry ID. You just have to be able to show ID when asked by law enforcement. Meaning they can’t simply stop people and ask for ID and fine you when you can’t show one, so not carrying an ID in itself isn’t an offense. It’s just that when they have a valid reason to ask for you ID and you can’t show one, you get a fine for not being able to show ID.
If you have to show ID to law enforcement or be fined then you are required to carry ID. Here you have to identify yourself, but you are not obligated to carry ID on you at all times. So if someone walks to a store and pays cash they don’t need to have an ID and cannot be fined or punished for not having one.
It is required for something like driving as it involves a license and carrying it with you when driving is a requirement.
As far as voting goes, in rural areas, especially where everyone knows each other, nobody needs ID because everyone knows Billy was born in the local hospital and lives with his uncle and he was added to the voter role decades ago so when he goes to vote he signed his checken scratch signature and Glenda gave him his ballot to vote. Prior to ID requirements you just verbally said who you were and signed so you couldn’t vote twice and this wasn’t an issue ever.
The whole registration thing is so they knew who is voting where to give them the right ballot for local officials and to keep someone from voting twice and study after study showed it was not a significant problem. Requiring ID to vote only has downsides and is intended to be voter suppression in the US through cost an other obstacles.
It’s state dependent about requirement to identify yourself go police, but i dont believe its required in any state to carry an ID on one’s person.
Bro really bit condescending insinuating that “certain” groups are too dumb to get an id. Ffs u need an id to get a job and pay taces, buy alcohol, buy cigarettes, shovel snow in NY.
I think you misunderstood. I didn’t say anyone was too dumb. It’s a question of accessibility, time, and resources. Also, what do you mean by “certain” groups?
US is a shithole country with no national ID system. People can’t easily identify themselves so what is extremely easy in European countries is very complicated in US.
There’s no national ID system in the UK and there shouldn’t be and people would riot if there were and we don’t need ID to vote. Almost everything you just said was factually incorrect. Please stop spreading ignorant misinformation.
So in your mind, the fact that UK doesn’t have national ID somehow makes my claim that US doesn’t have national ID factually incorrect. Curious. I think you don’t know the meaning of most of the words you used.
Short answer: The USA has no national ID.
Long answer: instead we have a patchwork of more than 50 different regional IDs (between states, territories, etc.), alongside a half-dozen ill-suited federal IDs, and numerous public and private institutional IDs (like university IDs or Costco cards).
For the most part, all of these cost money. Due to inconsistent systems and sometimes unclear requirements, the people who are most likely to be disenfranchised are also the most vulnerable. Most state IDs require proof of residence like a utility bill, which can be impossible if you are homeless or off-grid. If you are disabled, you may not qualify for a driver’s license (the most common state ID). If you are trans (or a married woman), you may have paperwork with conflicting legal names.
If you are reasonably well-off, on the other hand, you can afford to pay a private company to facilitate your passport application. The US passport is basically the gold standard of national ID, but fewer than half of Americans have one. It requires a certain amount of wealth to even need one, and the expense (money, time, etc) is not trivial.
Australia has no national id (except maybe passport but US has that as well). To register to vote you need to provide id. U dont show I’d at the polling booth but u sure as shit need to get ur name ticked off the big book of names for registered voters.
All forms of id in Australia cost money (except ur original birth certificate). If ur name has changed for any reason u need to go get a new id pay money for that pay for the name change update existing records with the proof of name change etc etc etc. I don’t sew how the US is any different?
Also in in Australian if u don’t vote they fine you. If you don’t register to vote and provide id in doing this u need id at the polling booth to register to vote and thus vote otherwise they fine you.
Australia has solved the problem by simply making voting a duty instead of a right. If u can’t get an id in Australia (can’t afford it or provide paperwork etc etc) you cannot fulfill ur legal duty to vote and get fined. Instead of lower the cost to get id and vote in the US (every single state with voter id laws already issues free voter id or waives fees on existing id if for purposes of voting) why not just raise the floor for not doing it and punish anyone who doesn’t do it.
To be fair, some US states do handle this better than others. Australia is about the population of California. So now just figure out how to coordinate that system with about 50 other Australias of various sizes and political leanings and you’ve got something.
CTRL+C and then CTRL+V.
Do that 50 times and ur all set. We have multiple different state and territory id’s. I’m sure that the fed has a digital system where u out in id and out pops a passport. I can assure you that the id checking for that system is automated and works for id from all states. It cant be that hard to copy paste that system for a voter registry.
Can you explain how it works in the EU?
Does the EU specify the rules for how voting works in EU countries?
No, each EU country has its own electoral system. The EU is currently a federation of mostly independent countries. Most or all of these countries have voter ID laws. This is usually not a problem since everyone can be reasonably assumed to have a government-issued ID document.
To give an example, in Germany your birth is always documented. As a citizen you always receive an ID card when you turn 16; in fact, you are legally required to have a valid one that includes current information. For example, if you move you have to make an appointment with the citizens’ center in your new municipality to change your registration and they’ll put a correction sticker with your new address on the ID card. If you change your name you have to get a new one, which costs about 50 bucks; same if you lose yours or if it expires. People under 24 and poor people get rebates, in the latter case of up to 100%.
We don’t have a voter roll per se; all citizens receive voting invitations by mail several weeks in advance of an election. These are used in conjunction with your ID card to get access to your assigned polling place. The law mandates a certain density of polling places so nobody has to travel too far or wait for too long. The invitation also includes everything needed to register for mail voting including a postage-paid return envelope so poverty isn’t a factor in whether you can vote by mail.
So a lot of the criticism about voter ID laws you hear in the United States doesn’t apply here because ID cards are ubiquitous (and have been for a long time) and we go out of our way to make sure poor people aren’t disadvantaged.
In Finland there is no requirement to have an ID card. And within the Nordic countries (Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Iceland), citizens of Nordic countries are allowed to roam without any ID whatsoever. There is a requirement that I must be able to prove my identity, however, and that can mean some hassle with having to visit a police station for many hours in that country, so it’s advisable to just have at least some form of ID card on you. Also, Finland is basically an island and the ship companies to Sweden require you to prove your identity with a government-issued ID card or passport.
And then there’s Denmark, which often requires you to have a passport in order to cross the country’s border. But I am allowed to exist in Denmark as a Finnish person without any form of passport or ID. Just not cross the border :D
In Finland you can also vote without an ID if you are able to prove your identity in some other manner. For example, if you’ve got someone with you that can vouch for you being you and has some way to prove their identity.
In contrast, most states issue the main identification credential through the Department of Motor Vehicles and will only have offices open in areas to meet demand for automotive registration purposes. So, a lot of inner city areas don’t have many offices to get ID cards and they usually are only open during working hours.
low income people, especially AA historically votes democrat, thats why Republicans do not want a national ID for voting. and no other dem candidate also dont push it either.
When you are born or move, you have to register at the municipality. Then when it comes time for the elections, you get a voting pass in the mail a couple weeks before. On the day of the election, you just take your pass and any form of government ID (either current, or expired no more than 5 years ago) to a polling station in you municipality and vote.
If you cannot go yourself, you can send another person with your voting pass and a copy of your ID. But usually, the polling places are very close to where you live and easily accessible by walking, biking or public transport.
If you live abroad, you just get a mail in ballot that you send back by mail.
This is in my country of course. Others are probably slightly different.
Ok, that’s kind of what I expected.
So, one way to look at the US system is that the US as a whole corresponds in a way to the EU. Individual states in the US would correspond to EU countries.
Of course, there are certainly differences. But in some ways individual US states are treated as separate, sovereign entities. The US Constitution leaves all management of elections up to the individual states. There aren’t really federal elections (well, apart from the electoral college, but let’s not get into that). There are state elections to fill federal offices. It is seen by most as inappropriate for the federal government to get involved in US elections.
When you ask why the US doesn’t have a national ID, it’s like asking why citizens of EU countries aren’t required to have an EU ID. It’s more appropriate to ask why individual states don’t have state IDs.
As you can imagine, there are 50 different variations on what the rules for such an ID would be.
However, the biggest issue with having any kind of required, state-issued ID is resistance to giving the government more ability to track us. This despite the most virulently anti-surveillance people regularly updating their most intimate details in Facebook and Instagram.
EU does mandate how the national ID cards must look and what data must be written on them. It does not mandate that they have to exist, though. But in practice they do exist everywhere, and they look just the same anywhere in EU.
In UK they either don’t have a national ID at all, or almost nobody has it. But it’s not relevant here because it’s not an EU country.
That’s interesting. Though one thing I will add is that IDs from any EU country is accepted by all other EU countries. I actually don’t live in the EU country I am from, and before voting with my drivers license on local elections, I voted with my passport from my own country. Ah and another thing is that you can only vote for the local elections if you are not a citizen, even if you are from another EU country.
So in many ways, I think there is more interoperability between EU countries than between US states. Even with drivers licenses is very flexible. Where I am, you have to exchange it for a local drivers license within 15 years of moving (though you have 4 month to resgiter a car with plates from another country). In some cases even things like unemployment and disability pension continues being paid if you move countries.
As for the tracking, I agree with you for the latter part. People don’t realize how much they are being tracked and exploited by mega corps. Anyway, even without a state or federal ID there, you still have to pay taxes and whatnot, so its not like the government has any less info about you. It just becomes an additional way to male life harder for low income people, because it raises the barrier of entry for support from the government.
States have some reciprocity, the recognizing of another state’s license as it’s own, but if isn’t always universal. For instance, the USA is going through a two decade plus upgrade to driver’s licenses and non-license ID’s to include proof of citizenship because a lot of states dragged their feet in implementing the additional filing systems required. Even then, states are still allowed to issue non-compliant ID’s and people will get them because they don’t want to spend the extra time to get them.
