Hacker News Reader

It's a rare circumstance where there's an allergy to national ID cards on both sides of the political aisle. On the Republican side they (supposedly) fear greater Federal Government power, tracking, etc. On the Democrat side, they're afraid of national ID cards being required at voting locations.

View on HN

Why would Democrats be afraid of IDs being required for voting if everyone got one? I thought the whole Republican opposition to voting rights stuff from the Democrats was because they know there's a bunch of poor would-be-Democrats who don't currently have the required IDs.

We’re not. The problem is with the “everyone got one” part. Every time I’ve discussed this issue personally with a republican they act indignant when I assert that the ids need to be free and trivially obtainable. Usually grousing about the cost and “laziness”.

I have personally spoken to a Democratic voter who told me about committing voter fraud. It does happen.

Of course, because there is no voter ID there is no accurate way to measure voter fraud. Because there is no way to measure it, it can be truthfully claimed that there is no evidence that it is significant. Because there is no evidence that voter fraud is significant, there is no need to introduce voter ID.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com