Photo ID for voting

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Hype
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Re: Photo ID for voting

#26 Post by Hype » Wed Nov 05, 2014 9:31 am

farrellgirl99 wrote:With only 40% of the eligible population even bothering to vote for midterm elections, I don't think voter fraud is a real problem anyway. People don't take voting seriously. Hyping up the need to protect the "democratic process" from fraud is just a bunch of bologna to disenfranchise people.

Unrelated, and I don't want to open up a can of worms here, but it's like when people freak out about people gaming the welfare system when fraud isn't that big a problem (estimated 2% fraud including petty fraud).
The psychology of it seems to be: x costs money and I pay taxes (and don't myself need x right now), so if there's any corruption in x involving tax money, we should either remove x entirely or introduce complications that make it harder for people who don't live like I live, more or less, to make use of (and therefore corrupt) that thing.

But this is crazy. It wouldn't follow, for example, from say, fraud in the use of emergency shelters for the homeless (e.g., their being used by a small percentage of people who aren't technically homeless) that either the system should be scrapped or some sort of stringent controls be introduced. Especially if the kind of controls proposed are known to make things more difficult or even impossible for people to use the service.

What's so offensive in this case is that voting isn't a social welfare policy or some optional entitlement. It's the fucking foundation of democracy, and it's obvious why these voter ID bills were written. There is no purpose for them except to cut off many people from voting.

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Essence_Smith
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Re: Photo ID for voting

#27 Post by Essence_Smith » Wed Nov 05, 2014 10:27 am

All I know for sure is, if you're a negro you BETTER always walk around with some sort of State ID...especially here in NY, because I have several times been told by police that I "fit the description" and that if I couldn't produce ID I would be taken into custody. One time I asked for a picture of the guy they were looking for...he actually DID look like me and was wanted for murder... :scared:

I think everyone should be walking around with ID, though I don't think if you're going to vote it should be necessary at all times...

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Hype
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Re: Photo ID for voting

#28 Post by Hype » Wed Nov 05, 2014 10:35 am

Essence_Smith wrote:All I know for sure is, if you're a negro you BETTER always walk around with some sort of State ID...especially here in NY, because I have several times been told by police that I "fit the description" and that if I couldn't produce ID I would be taken into custody. One time I asked for a picture of the guy they were looking for...he actually DID look like me and was wanted for murder... :scared:

I think everyone should be walking around with ID, though I don't think if you're going to vote it should be necessary at all times...
That first thing sounds very, very illegal. But it's sorta like "If you want to be able to prove who you are, you should carry ID." But that's not really connected to whether there should be stringent non-free arbitrary rules about identification for the basic right to vote.

Hell, the university library here wouldn't let me get a temporary pass without ID *and* a letter from the dept. saying they'd pay any fines I don't pay. It was easier to just not bother using the library. <-- see how that disenfranchisement thing works?

tvrec
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Re: Photo ID for voting

#29 Post by tvrec » Thu Nov 06, 2014 5:00 pm

I have worked at polling stations in California off and on for over ten years, and the initial scenario misses a lot of the checks and balances in play to ensure voters can cast their ballot without burden and that they are legitimately eligible to vote.

It starts with Registration, when your eligibility to vote is verified weeks before any election by your county registrars office; you cannot register and then immediately vote. You're vetted first. This requires that you submit information meant to prove your identity and eligibility (like a social security number and driver's license number, though there are other things that can be used at this stage).

After you are registered, you receive election materials at your residence, which will tell you precisely where you have to vote. These polling stations generally cover extremely small areas, and are not necessarily obvious. At least 40% of the people coming into the station I work at think they are arriving at their polling station because they live "like right over there," but they didn't read their materials and we have to look up on a map to re-direct them to their actual polling location. They are on the voting roster ONLY at the place to which they have been assigned. If they do want to vote at a different location, they can, but they must do so provisionally, meaning their vote is set aside until the registrar can verify the eligibility of the voter. This issue is particularly sensitive for localized politics, because polling stations only have access to the ballots for their precinct--local propositions, offices, even statewide assembly elections may be different a mile away and provisional voters won't be able to vote in the ones tied to their residence (in the cases that they are different) and even if they vote provisionally in the alternative location, their votes for those localized things will not be counted if their residence is not within the same precinct. Case in point, some guy told me he drove down to South Orange County (San Onofre) so that he could vote provisionally and cast a vote against Darrel Issa; I had to tell him that it was all in vein because his provisional vote would be cast out because he was not a resident of Issa's district. Only the larger state propositions and offices would count on his provisional ballot.

When you participate in your first election, you must provide proof of residence, which could be a driver's license, but also other official things, like a rental agreement or utility bill--something to verify your name a residence. As others have pointed out here, it's a very questionable proposition to require an ID that costs money (or to assume everyone has a driver's license or access to state IDs).

You sign and write your address in a voting log and your address is cross checked. That voting log contains a scannable barcode beside each signature. The registrar uses this signature and bar code combination to verify that the signature in the voter log is the same as the one on the registration. Granted, this comes after a vote is cast, but it does provide a cross check. Like banks cross checking signatures on checks, it could be be gamed by someone who has all your information, sure, but the likelihood is minimal and once that info is in the book, that "eligible" voter cannot vote again, so any scam here is limited to one vote-- statistically nothing.

Anytime I hear someone saying that we need to require voter IDs, I get worked up because it is a complete non-issue as it relates to the legitimacy of elections. There is absolutely no evidence that in-person voter fraud has any kind of statistical prevalence or relevance to the outcome of elections. It is merely a political argument, most often used to fomenting distrust of Others.

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kv
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Re: Photo ID for voting

#30 Post by kv » Thu Nov 06, 2014 5:15 pm

/endthread

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