Stories like this probably scare some people off from electronic voting but I don't think this is that big of a deal. When we finish voting operations in my area we load the ballots up on someone's personal vehicle and they take them down, securely, to where they need to go. That vehicle could get blown up and those ballots could be gone, though I think we could still get a record of the results.<p>That being said for the United States, I am in favor of in-person voting requiring proof of citizenship, and making "voting day" a paid national holiday. Not so much for technical or efficiency reasons but for social reasons. I'd argue it should be mandatory but I don't think we should force people to do anything we don't have to force them to do, and I'm not sure we want disinterested people voting anyway.<p>Exercising democracy, requiring people to put in a minimal amount of thought and effort goes a long way. It should be a celebratory day with cookies and apple pie and free beer for all. Not some cold, AI-riddled, stay in your house and never meet your neighbors, clicking a few buttons to accept the Terms of Democracy process.<p>I know there's a lot of discussion points around "efficiency" or "cost" or "accessibility" or how difficult it supposedly is to have an ID (which is weird when you look at how other countries run elections) and there are certainly things to discuss there, but by and large I think the continued digitalization and alienation of Americans is a much worse problem that can be addressed with more in-person activities and participation in society. We're losing too many touchpoints with reality.
> That being said, I am in favor of in-person voting requiring proof of citizenship<p>I think this is fine if it also then means that obtaining a qualifying ID is treated as a no-cost and highly-accessible right for all citizens.<p>This is where such arguments tend to get stuck in the US. If you require proof of citizenship, but also have places where getting to a government office to get such an ID is difficult or expensive, then you are effectively restricting voting access for citizens. A measure to place stricter qualifications on voting access needs to also carefully consider and account for providing access to all citizens.<p>The US is a geographically very large place with worse public transportation options compared to many other countries, and with that comes differences in economic and accessibility considerations for things like "Just go to your county's office and get a qualifying ID."
> <i>I think this is fine if it also then means that obtaining a qualifying ID is treated as a no-cost and highly-accessible right for all citizens.</i><p>This is essentially what the Supreme Court said when they upheld Indiana's Voter ID law in 2008 [1]:<p>> <i>The burdens that are relevant to the issue before us are those imposed on persons who are eligible to vote but do not possess a current photo identification that complies with the requirements of SEA 483. The fact that most voters already possess a valid driver’s license, or some other form of acceptable identification, would not save the statute under our reasoning in Harper, if the State required voters to pay a tax or a fee to obtain a new photo identification. But just as other States provide free voter registration cards, the photo identification cards issued by Indiana’s BMV are also free. For most voters who need them, the inconvenience of making a trip to the BMV, gathering the required documents, and posing for a photograph surely does not qualify as a substantial burden on the right to vote, or even represent a significant increase over the usual burdens of voting.</i><p>It's the reason why all states with voter ID laws have the option to obtain a no-cost photo ID at the DMV or equivalent.<p>[1] <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/553/181/" rel="nofollow">https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/553/181/</a>
Yes, but I don't think most of those IDs qualify as "proof of citizenship."<p>Even a RealID compliant ID is not direct proof of citizenship.<p>Others in the comment chain have talked about localities with very few DMV officers per capita in some districts and appointment wait times of over a month. If we are going to require such a step to be eligible to vote, we need to hold states and municipalities to a high standard of providing an adequate level of service for all citizens.
Pretty much every bill that has ever been put forward for needing an ID to vote has had a provision for free IDs. That’s not where things get caught up.<p>Also, it’s a pretty silly thing anyways. I don’t even drink and I still need my driver’s license quite a few times every year.
While Wisconsin was debating this, they also closed a bunch of DMVs and limited hours for other ones.<p>The WI constitution enshrines the ability to vote. So you may think it's silly and for 99% of people it may be silly, but if anyone is prevented from voting because there's not a reasonable way for them to get a license, their rights are being infringed.
Even if the ID is nominally free, if I have to take a day off and pay for bus/train tickets to wait in line at some office, it’s not really free.
Some districts have limited DMV hours in advance of voting days.<p>Coincidental how these might be Democratic leaning areas in Republican states.
I don't even know why this is downvoted. Standard technique in Texas. Harris County does not have 40 DPS offices for its 5 million people. The current backlog to get a DPS drivers license appointment in Harris County is 45 days. The next available appointment in Kerrville is tomorrow. That is inequitable.<p>But anyway, none of that is the real core issue with the idea of voter ID. The real issue is that there are many living Americans who were born in jurisdictions that steadfastly refused to issue birth certificates to Black people.
Neither is voting free, what's the argument here?
In Washington voting is free. My ballot comes in the mail, I fill it out, I drop it in the outgoing mail. It's pre-stamped. I don't mind full citizenship verification at the time of registration, as that can be done months before it's actually time to vote.
> Neither is voting free<p>It's pretty free. You sit down at your table, fill out your ballot, and drop it in the mailbox. You don't even need a stamp. (In some jurisdictions.)
This like saying that because ISPs charge for access, HN could have a subscription fee. The argument is that quantity matters.
That's life. Figure it out. It's really an insult to a group of people to imply that they aren't capable of being a functioning adult in society.
"Voting is only from 9-4" and you have a real job. Let's not pretend this wouldn't immediately be taken advantage of in certain places where disenfranchisement is real.
Funny, because I have the exact same thing to say to the legislators. Oh, it's too hard to get everyone voter ID? Too expensive? That's life; figure it out <i>before</i> passing your pointless security theater law[1]. Otherwise, we will do everything in our power to stop it.<p>[1] (Though mass disenfranchisement is almost certainly the actual purpose of the law, not security.)
Making things more difficult means fewer people will do it. It's foolish to insist that it's all or nothing. It's not about being capable, it's about marginal effects in large groups of people.
That's not the same as "disenfranchised" or "taking voters off the rolls," as it gets talked about (see both of the sibling comments to yours).<p>If they can't put up some minimal effort, what was their vote worth? I don't think the laziest folks probably vote in good policy.
Crazy people with extreme views vote in every single election. Sensible moderates with actual lives may decide that it's not worth the effort.<p>I'm not worried about lazy people voting. I'm worried about crazy people voting, and not having enough votes from sensible people to drown them out.
> Pretty much every bill that has ever been put forward for needing an ID to vote has had a provision for free IDs.<p>Do you have a source for this because I have seen very few laws like this and runs counter to the overt intention of these laws
Look up the 25 states that already have voter ID laws, and corresponding free-id programs to avoid being considered a poll tax.
You can make it free but still require a person to travel to the county seat or some other distant location to get the ID. That requirement disproportionately hinders minority and poor voters. It’s also easy to “forget” their registrations.
Free and accessible are not the same thing. And a driver's license is not necessarily proof of citizenship.
The current bill Trump is pushing for requires "documentary proof of citizenship ", this can actually be very hard. It means an original/certified birth certificate, as well as any subsequent name changes (mostly married women).<p>This is completely unnecessary.<p>We establish citizenship, very reliably, at time of registration. This is on of the main jobs of the registrar of voters. They have plenty of time to look up the details of the person and establish citizenship (and intentionally lying in this process is a serious crime).<p>We then establish identity at the time of voting, again, very reliably.<p>Intentional voter impersonation or voting when not eligible is vanishingly rare in the US.
Some states only require a piece of mail and checking a box saying you are legally allowed to vote to register. Then when you checkin to vote the workers are not permitted to ask for ID to prove you are the person you claim to be.<p>At no point during that process is there presentation of proof of citizenship.
Any ballots that are cast under same-day registration are cast as provisional and will go through the full verification process if the election is close enough where those ballots are necessary.<p>Source: actually ran a fucking election precinct. Non-citizens aren’t casting ballots illegally.
I'm not talking about same day registration. If you are on the rolls and proof of citizenship is not required to register, then how do you as a poll worker know the person on the rolls is a citizen?
You don't, but also you don't have to. Voter rolls are cross referenced with other sources of data to verify citizenship. ID is required to submit a non-provisional ballot even during early voting if you're not in your designated precinct.<p>Also just generally it's a severe federal crime to vote illegally, so people who are here illegally aren't out en masse publicly tying their identity to federal felonies.
They literally just charged someone in Philadelphia for illegally voting in every federal election since 2008. Non-citizen, ordered deported back in 2000 but still in the country.<p>There's not been a reliable audit to show the extent to which this happens (probably not enough to affect even local elections), but to say that it isn't happening is just a lie.
Ok? And yet, they were caught. Dude's a shithead, swung zero elections, and got caught. They catch people all the time voting illegally. I would make a strong guess that they counted zero of his ballots as they were all provisional.<p>He should go to jail and yet his existence is not proof that there are hoards of African deportees voting in state and federal elections.
One of voter ID's biggest advocates, the Heritage Foundation, could only find 68 cases of non-citizens voting since 1980. Even if all of them are repeat offenders, that's a few hundred bad ballots out of billions cast. As you said, it is also possible to catch these people. Our election integrity is not threatened by non-citizen voters. It just doesn't happen on the scale that Republicans insist it must be happening, and the fact that they keep repeating it doesn't make it true, it means that they have an agenda that benefits from making you think it's true.
That is the documentation they ask for in the application. It's enough for them to understand who you claim to be. They then consult their own records to establish if that identity is eligible to vote. Then finally, on Election Day, you show you are that person.<p>At that last part, Election Day identification, is not even that important, since the same person can't vote twice. So if you impersonate another person that will be quickly detected. It's not a useful strategy to alter the outcome of an election.
In <i>that</i> process there's no proof, but every state manages voter roles which your provisional information will then go through a <i>further</i> process.
I have cousins from Cuba and Venezuela, hearing this sort of information is rather alarming to them to say the least.
Trump expects half of the US to get a passport in the next 6 months.<p>These kind of fundamental changes require years of preparation. Either Trump is an incompetent moron or he has ulterior motives.
He's trying to prevent poor people from voting.<p>Requiring poor people to pay a hefty fee, which they probably don't have, to get a passport seems a fairly competent way to go about making sure poor people don't vote to me.<p>If I don't want poor people voting, then attaching a fee to voting doesn't mean I'm incompetent. It means I'm smart enough to know poor people don't have money.<p>By the way, I think all of this is horrible. Everyone should be equal before the law and should have their vote count without having to pay for that right. I'm just pointing out that this is a really good way to eliminate the vote of the poor.
I hate that we get so caught up on applying labels to the disenfranchisement, rather than completely and forcefully rejecting any attempts to disenfranchise any voter.<p>In a functioning democracy, voting is sacred. It must be treated as THEE core, fundamental right of every person under its care.<p>To violate this sacred tenet should be immediate grounds for exile. If you can't respect the ONE CORE tenet, or are incapable of, then there is not space for you in this society.
> I think this is fine if it also then means that obtaining a qualifying ID is treated as a no-cost and highly-accessible right for all citizens.<p>I completely agree and I don't think there is a fair argument to suggest otherwise.
Right, so proposals that do not adequately address this point are not fair, and this is why the issue is so contentious in the US.<p>I absolutely support ID to vote provided that everyone who is eligible and wants to vote can get such an ID and vote without hassle.<p>I don't support most attempts to pass Voter ID laws because I am wary that they would not actually result in that outcome.
Great but history is proof that it won’t be equally accessible to everyone. There’s no evidence these laws are necessary. This juice just ain’t worth the squeeze.
> but also have places where getting to a government office to get such an ID is difficult or expensive<p>Where in the US do you find it's difficult for people to get an ID? Where is it not? What percentage of the population has an ID in a place where it's difficult to get one vs somewhere it is easier?<p>What constitutes an ID being expensive?<p>Nearly every country in the world requires proof of citizenship to vote. How is the rest of the world dealing with this problem? Do you think that their democratic processes might be compromised because of it?
Until 1986[1] most Americans didn't get a Social Security Number until their first job.<p>In The Matrix (1999) there's a scene where Agent Smith explicitly remarks that Neo has an SSN as proof he's a law-abiding citizen in a white-collar job.<p>[1] when it was made a requirement to claim tax deductions for dependent children. Even today, if you don't want the tax break, you can opt out at the cost of ruining your child's life!
> Nearly every country in the world requires proof of citizenship to vote. How is the rest of the world dealing with this problem?<p>Most of those nations have a mandatory national ID, so everyone already has proof of citizenship. The US and UK are very much outliers in having vocal and successful resistance to the implementation of a national ID card.
>Most of those nations have a mandatory national ID<p>And what are the fees for these IDs, something you conveniently are leaving out (hint: mostly not free)?
It's still bizarre though how this plays out in reality.<p>In some places like Illinois, an ID is required to exercise the rights of people but not the rights of citizens (FOID required to bear guns, but ID not required for vote).<p>In places like Arizona, it's the exact opposite. You can bear or conceal guns without an ID but you need an ID to vote.<p>Vermont is the <i>only</i> state I know of with any consistency on lack of ID requirements that convey non-ID citizens to also have the right of people. You can conceal guns <i>and</i> vote without ID.
> What constitutes an ID being expensive?<p>If you're talking about this as a requirement for voting, then anything greater than $0 is too expensive since it smells like a poll tax.
> What percentage of the population has an ID in a place where it's difficult to get one vs somewhere it is easier?<p>Not the OP, but except for passports (and passport cards)... there isn't really any federal-level ID in the US (and passport booklets/cards are <i>expensive</i>, just a bit over $100 IIRC).<p>The nearest equivalent in the state level are driver's licenses, which are also on the expensive side considering the ancillary costs (because it's a <i>driver's license</i>, not just an identification card). This is also the reason why US-centric companies like PayPal, for this exact reason, accepts a driver's license as proof of identification (obviously where not otherwise prohibited by local laws).<p>Some (New York for example) do have an ID (called a non-DL ID, that's how embedded driver's license is in the US), but most states do not have a <i>per se</i> ID.<p>> What constitutes an ID being expensive?<p>Developing countries, rather ironically, issue their IDs for free? Okay, indirectly paid by taxes, but there's no upfront cost. The above-mentioned identity documents have a clear cost attached to them.<p>> How is the rest of the world dealing with this problem? Do you think that their democratic processes might be compromised because of it?<p>Cannot talk about other countries (because there <i>is</i> an ID system and it's not a controversial affair to them), but instead I'll answer with a reflection of the US system.<p>Unfortunately, American ID politics are <i>hard</i>, mainly due to concerns of surveillance, but I think (only my opinion) because some of them <i>want</i> those historically disenfranchised (even if a fully native-born US citizen) <i>de facto</i> disenfranchised. This means that there is no uniform and freely-issued identification system in the US (or even a requirement to do that at the state level). Unfortunately, this... is a tough nut to crack, politically-speaking.
> most states do not have a per se ID<p>I haven't researched this thoroughly, but what state will not issue an ID that is equivalent in every way to a driver's license except that it <i>isn't</i> a license to drive? I just checked Mississippi, Wyoming, South Dakota, and West Virginia, all of which do, so clearly being rural, poor, or both isn't enough to stop states from doing it. (The detailed politics are, as you say, a mess.)
>but most states do not have a per se ID<p>Out of curiosity, do you have a source or list for this? My own home state and those around me that I've spot checked all have a state ID available as an alternative to a driver's license. My understanding was that this is the case for most states.<p>Unless I've misunderstood you and you meant a state ID that is completely separate from a driver's license to the point that people with a DL would have one?
Note that drivers licenses wouldn't count as proof of citizenship under the SAVE act.
Proof of citizenship is not the same as the driver's licenses people are issued by their state.<p>Not everyone has ready access to proof of citizenship in order to register to vote. It gets even more difficult if your current legal name doesn't match your birth name, e.g. if you took your husband's name.<p>Not every eligible voter has or needs a government issued ID. For example, retired people who don't drive. For them to get to the DMV to get an ID just to vote would be a challenge.<p>The US has large rural areas where government offices are hours away.<p>All of this adds up to significant barriers to eligible voters. There's a reason even the GOP isn't bending over backward to pass the SAVE Act.
The person I used to stay with when I used to visit WV don't have a proof of citizenship. He doesn't know where his birth certificate is (probably with the US army if they kept track of their nurses giving birth on ex-allied territory during a war), and get by with is SSN and driver license.<p>How it works in my country : my electoral card is freely sent to my address when I register to my voting office. I can vote with it, or with an official ID, as long as I'm in the correct place. The only moment I need my ID is to cast a vote on behalf of someone who identified me as a 'surrogate'.
There are rural places in the US where it is an hour + drive to whatever the equivalent of the DMV office is, with no public transit. You can find similar places in cities where people may not have a car at all, with a long walk to find such an office that is only open during narrow hours.<p>People in or near poverty are going to be disproportionately affected by those conditions.<p>And just getting to the DMV does not necessarily mean you can get an ID that counts as proof of citizenship. There is no standard federal citizen ID in the US. A basic state ID or driver's license is not proof of citizenship. Even a RealID compliant ID is not a direct proof of citizenship, so depending on how strict the voting requirements are it may not be adequate.
[delayed]
Even the poorest people have a state ID or drivers license. You cannot get most jobs without some legal ID.
Nearly 21 million voting-age U.S. citizens do not have a current (non-expired) driver’s license. Just under 9%, or 20.76 million people, who are U.S. citizens aged 18 or older do not have a non-expired driver’s license. Another 12% (28.6 million) have a non-expired license, but it does not have both their current address and current name.<p>Additionally, just over 1% of adult U.S. citizens do not have any form of government-issued photo identification, which amounts to nearly 2.6 million people.[1]<p>[1] <a href="https://cdce.umd.edu/sites/cdce.umd.edu/files/pubs/Voter%20ID%202023%20survey%20Key%20Results%20Jan%202024%20%281%29.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://cdce.umd.edu/sites/cdce.umd.edu/files/pubs/Voter%20I...</a>
In many states these are available without proof of citizenship. When people say proof of citizenship they usually mean a passport or REALID.
In the US, a driver license isn't a proof of citizenship. Also, state IDs are not accepted by federal agencies, so it probably wouldn't work as proof of citizenship on federal elections.
There really are not federal elections. We call them that, but they are state elections for federal office.
Federal elections are all run by the individual states, so a state ID would be all you need.
I would guess most people don't have a proof of citizenship handy. This would get even worse if the effort to get rid of birthright citizenship succeeds, how would you even prove you are a citizen?<p>This would be less of a problem if the US had some sort of national ID issued by right, but we don't, and the same people pushing for requiring ID for voting would be against creating one. They <i>hate</i> the idea of a national ID.<p>My state does all elections by mail now. How would this even work?<p>All this is on top of the fact that elections are run by the states, not the national government. Would such a law even be constitutional?
> My state does all elections by mail now. How would this even work?<p>Trump told Congress to ban most mail ballots.<p>> All this is on top of the fact that elections are run by the states, not the national government. Would such a law even be constitutional?<p>Experts said no. But this Supreme Court surprised experts before. And the constitution said Congress could decide elections of Congress. They have the power. They need an explanation enough people would accept.
Yeah, I think most people who want proof of citizenship are forgetting that your driver's license (even your REAL ID) isn't a proof of citizenship. It's passport, certificate of naturalization, or birth certificate.<p>Restricting voting to people with passports and who happen to have a birth certificate handy is going to make the first election with the requirement weird as hell and probably backfire on Republicans if their goal is winning at any cost.<p>Requiring some form of ID that your state is willing to accept as good enough is a very different beast than proof of citizenship.
I think a lot of what you argue might make sense for American elections where you're voting for an absolutely ridiculous number of things.<p>I'm not sure how it is in Switzerland, but in Canada I will vote for maybe three candidates in five years. And I don't mean three visits to the polls (though it's usually that), I mean three actual checkbox ticks for people to count. They're paper ballots and the counting is done that night. I think if we were stuck voting for like forty different races every two years it would be a very different story and a lot of what you say would resonate with me more. Except the voter registration stuff.<p>We're pretty flexible about registration up here and it works. My wife one year showed up with some mail that had her name/address, and me vouching for her. Though I think a lot of the luxuries of democracy are most easily enjoyed with a trusting, cooperative culture that isn't constantly wound up about being cheated by <i>the others</i>.
Please realize that Switzerland holds many votes per year. There is no big voting day where I have to go somewhere. I could go cast my ballot in person, but I can also fill out and send in my ballot in advance. That is entirely routine and part of my day like other paperwork.<p>The problem with e-voting is that it is much harder to validate. My paper ballot rests at a community building where it will be counted on the day of the vote. I can understand the process from start to finish in physical terms. Throw in a USB stick and anything could happen. It is possible we will never know what went wrong here.
i don’t think that requiring in-person “ID”-proofed voting and removing mail-in ballots (which is the best part of voting in CA) does anything to bring people back to reality…<p>Even if it were a holiday, people may not be able to travel or take time off from obligations. There’s no obligation to drive 2 hours to vote, to fly back if you work in another country, or to go get a new birth certificate because Real ID doesn’t prove citizenship even though you provide citizenship documents to it when you get one…<p>I’ve heard of a lot of takes here about what we should do for voting to make it “more secure” but all of this is actually a solution for a problem we just don’t have.
> That being said, I am in favor of in-person voting requiring proof of citizenship<p>The appropriate time to verify citizenship is the one that already happens: during registration. Poll workers only need to verify who you are and that you're registered.
We should at least start with electronic voting to <i>compare</i> it against real voting. I know there have been more smaller local tests, but they are not comparable.
> voting requiring proof of citizenship<p>Isn't this just a solution in search of a problem though? Multiple investigations have discovered absolutely minuscule amount of non-citizen voting in US elections. It's something that seems reasonable on its face but lacks any purpose and comes with an ulterior motive that it is part of the made up GOP talking points of a "stolen election" and "illegals voting".
Instead of full e-voting I would love to see an additional scheme to a traditional paper ballot that allows for verification. Something like STAR-Vote or Scantegrity. Even if it’s flawed, it would be nice to run specifically because it doesn’t affect the elections but could produce useful insights. If it fails - nothing particularly bad happens, if it works - cool, we get extra assurances or maybe spot some fraud that we weren’t aware about.<p>But there seems to be either no political will, or some issues with the practical implementations. There were some municipal experiments here and there, and then just… crickets. Anyone knows what happened to those efforts?
What would constitute a "proof of citizenship"? Would a passport be enough, for example?
I'd agree in principle with your idea about proof of citizenship, but unfortunately the reality I experienced is I had a valid California driver's license with a Texas address because I had been in the military and California allowed that, but Texas changed their laws to require a Texas ID to vote, and subsequently they also closed 90% of the offices you have to go to to get an ID. Luckily, I knew about this way in advance, but it took 9 months to get an appointment, and when I got there, it required something like four different forms of proof. There were people in there who still lived with their parents who didn't have their own names on any bills bringing their parents in with them to vouch that they actually lived there, getting turned away and told to go fuck themselves. It was extremely transparent and obvious what the state was trying to do, not wanting young people and recent transplants to vote.
Voter registration already requires proof of citizenship. What is the point of requiring that high bar of proof on the day of voting as well?
In my state it doesn’t require that. You just need someone else that’s registered the vouch for you. A registered person can vouch for up to 8 people:<p><a href="https://www.sos.mn.gov/elections-voting/register-to-vote/register-on-election-day/" rel="nofollow">https://www.sos.mn.gov/elections-voting/register-to-vote/reg...</a>
I've lived in 3 states and none of them have required proof of citizenship to register to vote. You basically check a box that acknowledges that you are a US Citizen with the right to vote and that illegal registration carries penalties.
How is it a high bar of proof if it is already required? Edit: and already met
Why have voter registration?
One of the issues is that the US, unlike most of Europe, for example, doesn't require registering your address with your locality or police when you move.
In the United States at least, voter registration will include your place of residence which will place you in a specific precinct. In other words: "I am so and so, and I live here. Votes that affect this area include me, and I get a say."<p>When voters are voting for things, for example a tax levy to fund a new school, or for who will be their state or federal congressional representatives, it's important that the voters in that school district or in that congressional district are the ones voting for their representatives or for the bills or initiatives that affect them. This isn't quite as important for national elections, gubernatorial races, or for the senate at the federal level, but it's obviously incredibly important the more local you get.<p>Without voter registration, that model breaks down. Even mundane things like how much staff and equipment should be at a polling location is not easy to figure out when you don't know how many voters you'll have. If you haven't worked as a poll worker it's really enlightening to learn about how the process works and a great way to meet your neighbors.
>> requiring proof of citizenship<p>Go and try to figure out how to do this from scratch. Imagine your house burned down and you need to start with "nothing".<p>If your parents are still alive you can use them to bootstrap the process of getting those vital documents (or if you're married that can be another semi viable path).<p>Pitty if you don't have those resources. Furthermore it might get complicated for any partner who adopts their other partners last name (were talking about getting the documents, before you can get some sort of verified ID).<p>The reality is we don't have a lot of instances of "voter fraud" committed by people who aren't citizens (see: <a href="https://www.facebook.com/Louisianasos/posts/secretary-of-state-nancy-landry-announced-the-preliminary-results-of-an-ongoing-/1271219118366334/" rel="nofollow">https://www.facebook.com/Louisianasos/posts/secretary-of-sta...</a> as an example) . And the amount of voter fraud we do have is very small (and ironically committed by citizens see <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/articles/how-widespread-is-election-fraud-in-the-united-states-not-very/" rel="nofollow">https://www.brookings.edu/articles/how-widespread-is-electio...</a> for some examples).<p>> I am in favor of in-person voting<p>Again, the size and dispersion of the American population makes this odious. Dense urban areas will face lines (they already do) and many of them (Chicago) have moved to early voting because spreading things out over many days is just more effective. Meanwhile places like Montana (where population density is in people per square mile) make travel to a location burdensome.<p>I get why you feel the way you do, but the data, the reality of America, makes what you desire unnecessary and impractical. Feelings are a terrible reason to erect this barrier when it makes little sense to do so.
I used to be really angry that we still vote with paper and red pencil. The Netherlands is ultra digital after all!<p>But then they showed how easy it is to hack and we live in a world with evil countries like the US, China and Russia who want to destroy our way of life.
Voter ID is often touted as an important part of election security, but when you look at the threat model of elections it just doesn't do much. Think about how you would try to cheat at an election. The common methods are things like ballot stuffing, throwing out votes, discouraging people from voting, etc. Examples include spreading disinformation about what day voting is happening, seizing ballot boxes and replacing them with forged ballots that favor your candidate, or calling in bomb threats to polling places. These are not prevented by voter ID requirements.<p>The only thing voter ID prevents is voter impersonation. It prevents you from finding someone else's name and polling place, going there, pretending to be that person, and submitting a vote on their behalf. But that threat doesn't really scale. Even if you assume no one at the polling places notice you coming to vote over and over under different names, a single person could probably only do this a few dozen times on election day. To scale that you would need more people; and every person you add to the scheme increases the odds of someone slipping up or getting caught. But the real issue is if any of the people you are impersonating try to vote! While election officials don't record what people voted for, they do record who voted, and the ballot counting process will automatically note that people voted multiple times. So you would have to figure out some way to gather a database of a large number of people you know aren't going to vote, and get a bunch of people to turn up at a bunch of polling places under those names. It's just not practical to do, when elections are decided by thousands or tens of thousands of votes.<p>> how difficult it supposedly is to have an ID (which is weird when you look at how other countries run elections)<p>The devil is in the details. I don't trust that the groups drafting Voter ID legislation are doing so in good faith. For example, North Dakota passed a voter ID law years ago. It stated that you needed a valid state-issued ID that included a street address. Sounds fine, right? The problem is that most homes on Native American reservations don't actually have street addresses. Tribal members use P.O. boxes for mail, and that P.O. box is on their driver's licenses. This was brought up when the law was proposed, but it passed anyway. The Spirit Lake Nation and the Standing Rock Sioux tribes had to sue in federal court. They were eventually successful, but it took years, and in the meantime the 2018 midterms were held with many Native Americans literally unable to vote.<p>See <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/02/14/806083852/north-dakota-and-native-american-tribes-settle-voter-id-lawsuits" rel="nofollow">https://www.npr.org/2020/02/14/806083852/north-dakota-and-na...</a>
> That being said for the United States, I am in favor of in-person voting requiring proof of citizenship<p>Why?<p>> I know there's a lot of discussion points around "efficiency" or "cost" or "accessibility" or how difficult it supposedly is to have an ID (which is weird when you look at how other countries run elections)<p>How do other countries run elections to overcome their racially motivated systemic voter suppression?<p>> and there are certainly things to discuss there<p>This is a laughable understatement.<p>> but by and large I think the continued digitalization and alienation of Americans is a much worse problem that can be addressed with more in-person activities and participation in society.<p>I think this is naive. You are attempting to force an outcome without understanding the cause. Systemic racially motivated voter suppression is an undeniable reality in American politics. Voter ID is a clear example of exactly that. It is used to disenfranchise minority voters. This is clear established fact.<p>There is zero evidence of any voter fraud happening that would be eliminated by additional voter ID.<p>This is a serious topic that requires you educate yourself on reality. I suggest you take your advice above and touch reality, you are overly digitalized if you think voter ID has any merit at all.