Comment by Teever | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Teever | Hacker News Reader

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Rank the following aspects of the US voting system in descending order of importance w.r.t. election outcomes accurately reflecting electorate voting intention.

A. Convoluted ballots B. Electronic voting C. Voter ID D. Gerrymandering E. Super PACs F. Convicted Felon voting eligibility G. The Electoral College H. First past the post I. Two party system J. Mail in ballots

As a Canadian who has worked at several polling stations on election day for Elections Canada I'm appalled at the state of democracy in the United States and the continually flabbergasted by the obsession over voting ID by some Americans.

Canadians vote for representatives in non-gerrymandered districts in a process that involves simple paper ballots that are almost always counted with results finalized the night of the election. The process is simple, transparent and most curiously does not mandate ID.

To an outsider watching Americans complain about voter ID laws is like watching someone standing in a burning house complaining that the power just went out.

There are so many bigger issues with the American voting process and if those issues were resolved/mitigated you'd see that whatever issues arise from non-mandated voter ID are most often statistically negligible and easily identifiable.

> The process is simple, transparent and most curiously does not mandate ID

https://www.elections.ca/content.aspx?section=vot&dir=ids&do...

Pretty sure you need an ID to vote in Canada. You could argue that you don't need ID if you have an address and proof but neither do you for suggested voter ID laws in the US. If you don't have a state ID or driver's license you can use a utility bill. But currently you do need ID in Canada or a backup form of identification.

I really don't understand the argument against voter ID. Many have said that lower income can't afford it but do not want to talk about programs to subsidize state IDs or about talk about backup identification like utility bills. Also with the vaccine passport crap we seem to be fine segregating who can travel and eat.

I agree there are bigger issues with the voting system (that is state level, not federal mind you), but that doesn't mean verification should be thrown out the window.

Look at option 3 in your link.

> A person can vouch for only one person (except in long-term care institutions).

That seems like a limited substitution for edge cases, definitely doesn't equate to the statement "no voter ID is needed"

Perhaps, but when there are people calling for mandatory voter ID with counterfeiting/authentication measures similar to passports and drivers licenses the Canadian system is laughably weak in comparison and hardly being worth being called 'ID'.

One can easily edit a pdf of a bill and bank statement to have whatever name and address flash a copy of them on your phone and vote in Canada. It's basically an American Voter ID proponent's worst nightmare and yet it seems to work perfectly fine.

Thinking that implementing mandatory Voter ID by itself is going to improve American democracy in any substantial way without introducing a myriad of unintended negative consequences is myopic at best and malicious at worst.

From my perspective as a non-American the voter ID issue is a complete red herring promoted to distract from the real and glaring issues with the American voting process. What's really weird is that it seems to work.

Some states already have mandatory voter ID like Canada, all of them allow a utility bill as an alternative.

I don't see the harm in authenticating people.

> in a process that involves simple paper ballots that are almost always counted with results finalized the night of the election.

40 million people in Canada 400 million in USA

Is it the same?

How did they do it before technology?

Paper, stamps, and seals. Guess that's technology as well.

Before then we just bashed each other with rocks I guess.

Sorry, I should have qualified it:

How did they do it in one night before technology?

Distribution. Local counties handle tallying, they report to state representatives whether it's pony express, telegraph, trucks or otherwise.

States run their own elections and vote for candidates, electoral votes from states are tallied.

Makes Santa Claus look like a bitch right?

40 million != 400 million, this is true but vote counting is an embarrassingly parallel problem that is easily solved by hiring many nonskilled workers.

Vote counting is an activity that more or less requires basic literacy and numeracy and Western democracies that have switched over to service based economies have many surplus workers pre-trained for this sort of work.

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