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Comment by pdonis | Hacker News Reader

> it would require a huge project to ensure every legal voter had some form of ID

Without an ID, how do people at polling places know they're a legal voter?

Using the honor system made sense a century or two ago when most people lived all their lives in the same place where they grew up and everyone at the polling place knew everybody. But that's not the case now and hasn't been for a long time. With all the talk about securing our election process against tampering (which I'm all in favor of), if it doesn't include voter ID, it's not secure.

> the number of voter fraud incidents is vanishingly small

The number of known voter fraud incidents is very small. But if ID isn't required to vote and we just accept people's word when they say they're eligible to vote, how could you ever prove voter fraud?

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You don't just show up and vote pretty much anywhere any more and when you're put on the list of registered voters the information is freely out there to be challenged and validated against many other sources. People do this a lot and yet most of the errors found are things like misspellings, old registrations without any votes since the new registration was made (ie someone moved and they were still on the roles at their old location) and similar small largely inconsequential errors.

> The number of known voter fraud incidents is very small.

Don't forget there was a whole presidential commission set up after 2016 to hunt for any signs of voter fraud and they found, as far as I recall, nothing.

Again I'm not against ID in spirit but the implementation never attempts to make sure that every voter has an ID. Fundamentally that's the issue to me with voter ID laws; in the absence of any evidence of consequential voter fraud it's just another tactic to limit the ability to vote for political gain.

> the implementation never attempts to make sure that every voter has an ID

I would be fine with requiring voting jurisdictions to make reasonable efforts to do this if ID will be required to vote. I would also be fine with providing federal funds to allow, for example, increased resources at DMVs or other ID issuing facilities to support this.

> how could you ever prove voter fraud?

There have been expansive studies on the subject, all of which have found incredibly low rates of actual voter fraud (as distinct from clerical errors or mistakenly voting at the wrong precinct): https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/debu...

Far left organization, seems like a fair and unbiased source of information

What does that matter? It's a page of links to peer-reviewed studies, legal opinions, and article from major journalism outlets, not an opinion piece.

Yes, I'm sure it diligently looked at reviews that were opposite or critical of those studies and decided it would further their cause to list them. Where is the list that refutes this data? Here's a hint, a little searching on Google will show you that there are opposing organizations who, conveniently, leave out this far left website's "legitimate reviews" in favor of ones that follow THEIR side.

The angst against "voter ID" as a form of voter disenfranchisement makes no sense to me, as an immigrant the first thing I did when I got to the U.S. is secure a form of government issued ID - stateID or drivers license, because I understood that having an ID enabled me to do something as simple as getting a library card so that I could borrow books for my family and I https://web.ocpl.org/n/LibraryCardApplication/#/ In fact the DMV is packed with immigrants trying to get stateID because they recognize the benefits accrued from having one. The process is simple and straightforward and in my view would silence the whole "non-citizens and illegal immigrants are allowed to vote".

You can prove fraud if you show up to a polling place and the poll worker says they already have a record of you voting.

It’s not actually the honor system either they ask for your address.

> It’s not actually the honor system either they ask for your address.

I wasn't talking about eligibility based on address (though of course that should be checked too), but based on citizenship.

The only way to prove citizenship on the spot would be with a passport. The government knows your citizenship status when you register to vote.

Honestly I wouldn’t mind if the only requirement to vote was a passport to prove citizenship. It would probably disenfranchise lots of folks though, given only a fraction of the country has one.

> The government knows your citizenship status when you register to vote.

Yes, but if you register at a time other than the time you vote, how do you prove at the time you vote that you're the same person who registered and had all that information checked when they registered?

That's what the ID is for. A passport would also work, but I don't think that should be the only possible way to do it. Now that most states are supporting RealID, your state will most likely be able to issue you an ID that you have to prove citizenship to get.

You’re aware non citizens can get RealID drivers licenses too right? The only way you can prove citizenship is with a passport. Of course if you were going to the effort of attempting to impersonate someone you’d probably forge documents too which aren’t deeply checked in my experience of living in a state that had an ID requirement designed to disenfranchise black voters [0].

Ultimately it’s not a problem worth the energy of being solved.

[0] https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/north-carolina-voter-id/

As it is now, you don't need to forge anything. All you need to register for vote in California is to fill and mail a form. You can put last 4 digits of your SSN if you don't provide your state ID#. You don't need to have an address, you can just draw a map where you live. Supposedly, if you register like that (by mail) you have to show a photo ID first time you vote, however, in practice, nobody wanted to see my photo ID despite my attempts to show it.

What stops someone from filing a bunch of those with random names and random 4 digit SSNs with maps to the Skid Row or SOMA or any homeless encampment? You think they might be checking name match with the SSN? Could be, but then you can also apply for ITIN with the same random names and see if they can distinguish one from another.

If ID were to be required then you'd have to make multiple fake ids - inherently more complex and dangerous task than filling out a bunch of voter registration forms. And it could be very dangerous to show with these fake IDs at the polls where they could have government-issue scanners checking them out.

  Supposedly, if you register like that (by mail) you have to show a photo ID first time you vote

In fact, it's illegal for a poll worker to demand photo ID in CA.

If you have any proof that someone would go to that massive effort of harvesting homeless people’s votes then I’m sure people would love to hear about it.

Given the fact that CA is also moving heavily towards vote by mail the ID issue is again entirely superfluous.

Reminds me of when my senator forgot his ID when he went to vote - so he submitted an absentee ballot the same day. Without an ID. Hysterical.

Not that I've ever mentioned that there is a homeless vote harvesting going on but since you asked: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=homeless+voter+fraud&ia=web .

ID, obviously, won't prevent vote by mail fraud but that one is harder to do since it requires a valid mailing address to receive a ballot, supposedly.

But without requiring an ID, how do they validate the name? How do they validate the address? How do they stop someone from giving a completely made up name and a somewhat plausible sounding address?

Serious questions, because I'm in a vote-by-mail state, so I don't actually have to go anywhere to vote. I don't know how that all works. I had assumed they required ID and checked it, but now I'm realizing I've given too much credit to the voting system.

They have voter registration information for everyone registered in the precinct.

But how do they know the person showing up to vote is the person they have registration information for?

Because you’d have to have the right name and address while also knowing the person you’ve impersonated hasn’t voted yet.

Then you’d have to wonder why you’re going to the effort for one extra vote because this is a made up problem.

They only ask the name. The prospective voter can read the address from the log before ever being asked it as long as they can read it upside down. Even reciting "your own" address incorrectly isn't cause to deny you a ballot.

> With all the talk about securing our election process against tampering (which I'm all in favor of), if it doesn't include voter ID, it's not secure.

If it does include ID it isn't secure. So you've made voting harder but not really made it any harder for bad actors to defraud (because high quality fake State IDs can be ordered, right now, straight for abroad).

Plus statistically voter fraud isn't a real problem, it is well within the margin of error and there's no indication that it has increased. Election fraud seems far more problematic (because it requires fewer bad actors), and that may require more paper ballots and oversight (e.g. stream the vote count online).

There's no "margin of error" in an election. They're counting an exact number of votes. Are the 537 votes in Florida that tipped the 2000 election "within the margin of error"?

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