I.D. to vote

[Bright Star]

Too many people are bitching about the fact that in some states like Pennsylvania that you have to show ID in order to vote. They say it places an unfair burden on the poor & minorities. For the life of me, I can't figure out why they would think that.
Nowadays when you go to the store & write out a check for groceries or whatever you have to show ID. When you fly on a plane, you have to show ID not only when you purchase your ticket but also before boarding. When someone gets pulled over by the cops, what's the first thing they ask you for? License & registration!! In other words, ID!!
The question that people should be asking is that if someone doesn't have ID, then why not?? What's so difficult about getting some kind of ID? & I don't get the argument that it costs too much for those who are poor, those who are minorities & those that are at an advanced age.
& what's the big deal about showing your ID in order to vote? Just takes a few seconds. & IF you don't have ID, then they give you a provisional ballot that you can use to vote with. So someone who doesn't have ID, can still vote.
NOT to have some kind of ID in this day & age, raises all kinds of suspicioins.
So am I missing something? Cause I just don't see what all the big fuss is about.

[Greenday]

You seem to be comparing the right to vote to a lot of privileges.

Voting is a right.
Driving is a privilege.
Flying on a private company's airplane is a privilege.
Writing a check...I'm 24 and I've written four checks my entire life (Once for the down payment on my car, once for college, once for paying my accountant, and once when I owed someone money).

Getting a photo ID costs money. That's why it's illegal to force someone to have ID to vote. You cannot make it cost money to vote. Also, some people just don't have time in their busy schedule to go to the DMV to get a license, especially since the DMV's hours suck.

[Bright Star]

You seem to be comparing the right to vote to a lot of privileges.

Voting is a right.
Driving is a privilege.
Flying on a private company's airplane is a privilege.
Writing a check...I'm 24 and I've written four checks my entire life (Once for the down payment on my car, once for college, once for paying my accountant, and once when I owed someone money).

Getting a photo ID costs money. That's why it's illegal to force someone to have ID to vote. You cannot make it cost money to vote. Also, some people just don't have time in their busy schedule to go to the DMV to get a license, especially since the DMV's hours suck.

Here in Pennsylvania, you can get a "Voter Only ID" for FREE. Costing a lot of money? Not here.
So if someone doesn't have time in their "busy" schedule to go to the DMV to get an ID then they need to make the time. Those are petty arguments that doesn't fly.
I agree that YES, voting is a right. But what's wrong with showing ID to vote? NOBODY has said that if you don't have ID that you can't vote. You just vote in a different way-a provisional ballot. The provisional ballot, once your ID is confirmed, is then added to the regular votes.
You have to accept that in this Post 9/11/01 world.

[insertNameHere]

ID for Ohio can be as vague as registering to vote and having a electric or cable bill with your name and address on it. Although, looking it up it costs $8.50 for a state ID.... which I believe is valid for 4 years like a drivings license. Considering all that requires photo ID these days, I'm almost scared to let someone who can't afford any form of an ID use their voting rights. Hell in most cases you can't apply for a job without a valid state ID.

[BlaqueKatt]

What's so difficult about getting some kind of ID? & I don't get the argument that it costs too much for those who are poor, those who are minorities & those that are at an advanced age.
& what's the big deal about showing your ID in order to vote? Just takes a few seconds. Cause I just don't see what all the big fuss is about.

simple the "voter fraud" they're trying to prevent just doesn't happen, as in at all, so it's unnecessary.

and likely never being in a position where the $50-$60 to get an ID* is a problem(you think a homless person, or someone in a nursing home has that kind of money?), plus getting to the DMV.....we went over this in depth in another thread(this thread starts on page three, with the same arguments you made)

some quotes from articles linked in that thread:

A recent analysis by the PA AFL-CIO found that a quarter of all PA voters who have voted in every Presidential election during the last 50 years lack the ID needed to vote this November.”

The claimed intent of these laws is to prevent fraud, but in fact there are almost no cases of voter impersonation. A person is more likely to be struck by lightning than he or she is to vote by pretending to be someone else.

Think Getting “Free” ID Is Easy? Think Again!
in the above link you will find the stories collected from a diverse group of hardworking Americans.

these are real stories from real people denied the right to vote because of voter ID laws, and none of them are "because they were too lazy to get an ID",(most are the elderly, or homebirths, which are becoming more common, and birth certificates aren't magically issued for every child born, one is a veteran, and his VA card "wasn't acceptable", and one story is from a group of 12 NUNS) plus exactly what address is a homeless person supposed to use on an ID? Or does being homeless preclude one from voting because they may be "undesirable"?

Heck

The issue is what is needed to get the ID. Here in Nevada, I need a copy of my birth certificate and my social security card to get a state ID. Let's assume worst case scenario. Let's assume my housed burned down and I lost all of the documents, including my ID, or I was never given them by my parents. Whatever.

I need to contact the state of California and get a reprint of my Birth Certificate. It costs $18. I have to have the request form notarized. Ahh shit... I don't have ID, so it's going to be a struggle to get that notorized. Let's say I get it notorized, pay the money, and send off the forms. I can start requesting my Social Security Card now, right? Nope. They require a copy of my Birth Certificate. Gotta wait.

So I wait the 4-6 weeks to get my BC, fill out the forms for the Social Security Card only to find out I need to send a copy of my ID with the BC. Shit... I'm doing all of this trying to get my ID. Oh, they'll accept student ID? I'm 37. I don't have mine anymore. Military ID? They wouldn't take me. Fuck... Health Insurance Card? This one I do have, but not many people in this situation would.

So I fill out the form and send it with the copy of the BC, a copy of the insurance card, and whatever the fee is (I can't find one but I'm sure they charge you for it). I wait another 4-6 weeks before I get it.

Now I've got my Birth Certificate and my Social Security Card. I can now go down to the DMV, fill out the form, pay the $18 dollars, get my picture taken, and wait another 3-4 weeks to receive it in the mail.

At this point, I've had to wait 3-4 months to get my ID. If they decide to pass that law tomorrow, i wouldn't have enough time to get what I need to vote in this year's elections.

and "provisional ballots"

Unfortunately, those provisional ballots were never counted, because the Weidenbeners were never informed that they had to follow up with the county election board to submit identification after they voted.

*In my state a certified copy of your birth certificate is $30, the ID is another $27=$57 to get an ID.

[telecom_goddess]

In my state we have vote by mail. Super convenient. And ID's are gettin' expensive I just renewed mine for the next 8 years last December and it was like 40 bucks I think.

[Andara Bledin]

Here in Pennsylvania, you can get a "Voter Only ID" for FREE. Costing a lot of money? Not here.

Do some research. Or go check the other thread that goes over this to exhaustion.

Getting ID is only free if you already have ID or have all the paperwork necessary to get ID on hand, which most of the people who don't have ID don't have or they'd have already gotten ID.

It's estimated that up to 45% of Philadelphia voters don't have the ID they need to vote, and this late in the game, most of them won't be able to get it because of he hoops one has to go through. Nearly 20% of those aren't even in the PennDoT database, which is the agency that provides the IDs.

If I lost my ID today, and had to prove who I was before the election, I'd be screwed. I don't have a birth certificate (never have), and I don't know where my affidavit of birth is since I moved (long story for another time). And if I did have a birth certificate that was where I could get to it at a moment's notice, it would cost me about $60 (notably not free) and time taken to collect the forms, fill them out, get them notarized, send off for the birth certificate, and then once it showed up, I could go get my "free" ID. By the time that process is complete, the election will be over.

Requiring ID or putting up any other form of roadblock in the way of voting is an affront to freedom and everything America is supposed to stand for.

simple the "voter fraud" they're trying to prevent just doesn't happen, as in at all, so it's unnecessary.

And this.

An informal study that has taken every single case of voter fraud (which is fraud committed by voters) over the course of 10 years and 3 Presidential elections found a whopping six reports of voter impersonation. And all of those reports of "dead people voting" are a case of the people dying after having voted - in a couple of cases, as close to two months later as you can get without entering the next year.

If you want to clean up fraud in the election system, then go after the real fraud, and clean up the operations on the other end that cause things like moving polling places without notice, sending out notifications to have people go to the wrong polling place, scheduling "unscheduled" road work to make it difficult to reach the polling places, reducing the number of available machines in the other party's districts so that voters will have to wait upwards of eight hours just to cast their vote while the "right people" have so many machines that there is always one open the moment anyone walks through the door.

^-.-^

[ngc_7331]

While this wouldn't apply to me, because I have already had my driver's license for well over a decade, let's see what my situation would be if I didn't have it.

I moved and no longer live in the state I was born in, nor do I live close to it. So I have to do this either online or through snail mail. If I do it online, I have to pay 34.25 for doing it online. If I do it through the mail, I only have to pay 24.00.

Now lets move on to what I need for ID. I don't own a car, so I don't have car registration. I live with family so no rental agreement and none of the utilities are in my name, not even my cell phone since I'm on a shared plan with my stepdad who I do not have the same last name as. I can use a bank statement, but since I have paperless I'll have to go to my bank to get one. Problem is, there is -no- public transportation in my part of town and since mom and stepdad are long haul truck drivers, they are almost never home. So it's either a cab or the goodness of a friend that will get me to the bank. So I get all my info together and send it off, along with my payment of choice and I wait 4-6 weeks.

Now I don't have a copy of my SS card since it got lost in my original move to Florida. So now I have to get one of those. The SS office is about 30 minutes from my house so either another cab or that goodness I was talking about. They don't take birth certificates as ID, but I'm a college student so I can get a copy of my transcripts. I attend school 100% online so I don't have a photo school ID. I wait my 2 weeks and get my card.

Now to get my ID card. I have the birth certificate and SS card, but I need 2 forms of proof of address. I have the bank statement but nothing else. No bills, no rental agreement and since I just moved 2 months ago, my W-2s show my old address. No job, so no paystubs. But I can use my parents bills so long as I have a form filled out by them saying I live with them. But they're truck drivers so I have to wait up to 2 months for them to get through the state to fill it out. So I get that finally, go up to get my ID, pay my 25.00 for it and finally, after a few months I get my shiny ID. Total cost to me? At least 49.00, not including whatever costs I would incur in cab fees or giving gas money to friends. So, yeah, not really so simple is it?

[Anthony K. S.]

ID for Ohio can be as vague as registering to vote and having a electric or cable bill with your name and address on it

That might be difficult for a homeless person to have, don't you think?

[bara]

The most likely reason for the ID law is simple, to keep certain demographics from voting. If you look at the rarity of voter fraud then there is no reason to have such a law in place.

The only cases of fraudulent voting that have I have heard reported are the ones that occur behind the scenes when the ballots are tampered with in some fashion.

[Kelmon]

Not being from the US, i find it very odd that you *don't* need to show any ID to vote as of now. Having to prove who you are before you do something as important as voting just seems like a very sensible thing to me. Regardless of the problems that may arise from needing to have the ID in the first place.


As for the problem of not being able to afford ID: This is easy to solve. If you can legislate the need to have ID for certain things, you can also legislate to waive any fees for getting ID if you cannot afford it. (below a certain threshold of income, for example).


As an aside: In my home country, Having ID is mandatory, it costs roughly 40$ for everyone, and strangely i don't see anyone starving because of this.

[Greenday]

That might be difficult for a homeless person to have, don't you think?

Or someone who lives in a house and doesn't pay the house bills.

[lordlundar]

As for the problem of not being able to afford ID: This is easy to solve. If you can legislate the need to have ID for certain things, you can also legislate to waive any fees for getting ID if you cannot afford it. (below a certain threshold of income, for example).

Well you are correct on that, the states putting through the Voter ID laws tend to be republican controlled states who are either using the laws to prevent people from voting (track records indicate that those who can't afford the required ID tend to vote democrat) and/or see it as an easy way to make extra money without raising taxes. In either case, they have no intention of making it free for anyone and using end runs to avoid doing so, despite federal laws requiring it.

[Andara Bledin]

As for the problem of not being able to afford ID: This is easy to solve. If you can legislate the need to have ID for certain things, you can also legislate to waive any fees for getting ID if you cannot afford it. (below a certain threshold of income, for example).

The problem is that, as a country, the US is huge, and different states have different rules about ID.

There are people out there who have been voting for nearly a century who can't get a birth certificate to get the ID necessary to vote because there are no records of their birth. There are others who have birth certificates, but can't get the relevant parties to recognize them as the people mentioned due to issues like misspelled names or places, or transposed numbers on dates.

Since it's a Constitutionally protected right to vote in the US, anybody who puts up roadblocks for any citizen (with some very specific exceptions) is being unconstitutional.

^-.-^

[BlaqueKatt]

If you want to clean up fraud in the election system, then go after the real fraud, and clean up the operations on the other end

and things like this:
Republican Staffers Charged With 36 Counts of Election Fraud

and then there's this:

32 Million Women Are At Risk For Voter Disenfranchisement

The Brennan Center for Justice estimates that up to 34% of voting-age women with proof of citizenship may not have documents with their current legal name, due to a change in their marital status.

I don't, and I've been married for 6 years. I have to get my marriage license from Nevada.....

According to the state’s controversial voter identification law, women who have changed their last name must present two forms of identification — the state voter ID issued by the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDOT) and a separate government-issued ID or driver’s license. By comparison, male voters only need the former