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Comment by sugarpimpdorsey | Hacker News Reader

> its believed that more democratic voters are less likely to have an id

This notion that Democrats keep pushing - that a sizable portion of their voting base is too dumb to get an ID - when massive developing countries like India that are still struggling with basic things like sanitation have long ago solved this problem - is nothing short of embarrassing.

There are people in rural India that live in straw huts that have EPIC cards.

The solution, if this problem exists as they say, is to get everyone proper ID. Not "let's have just anyone vote and we'll trust their word". Universal PKI-backed national ID would be a program everyone should be behind but it would never see the light of day in the US, because maintaining a "disenfranchised" voting bloc is more valuable as a bargaining chip than the positive social contributions of such a program.

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Getting an ID is not as simple as you make it out to be.

For many people, getting an ID requires taking a day off work, which for many can mean their family is going to miss one or more meals, or even worse, that they miss a car or rent payment.

Consequently, this is also a strong reason why Republicans have repeatedly blocked attempts to make voting day a national holiday, while at the same time strategically closing down polling locations -- so working poor (predominantly registered Democrats) have a harder time voting.

But it gets even worse than that. During segregation era, it wasn't uncommon for black women to be turned away from hospitals and be forced to give birth via midwives, then be unable to obtain birth certificates for their children. Because they have no official birth certificates, states deny them IDs.

Example: https://atlantablackstar.com/2025/05/07/florida-woman-real-i...

Voter ID laws are explicitly designed to disenfranchise these people, because they're virtually always proposed by individuals representing the very states that denied black people birth certificates, and in many cases, those same individuals proposing the laws lived through the very era when those birth certificates were still actively being denied.

That said: I'm mostly in agreement - the solution is to get these people proper IDs (and by extension, birth certificates). However, I think you'll find the very people proposing these ID laws are going to be the same ones stonewalling any attempts to address the problems I laid out.

To support the idea of unexpected difficulties in getting ID, I suggest reading about the North Carolina DMV. More direct evidence: try to schedule an appointment with the NC DMV via their online appointment system from any metropolitan area of the state and probably most others. Most people would not expect this to be a problem since the state requires online booking to do all kinds of identification related services.

The actual argument by anyone who cares about voting rights concerns structural barriers to obtaining ID (hint: doesn't include stupidity). India's Aadhaar ID system, which still struggles with duplicate and missing voter records, doesn't magically solve any of the problems you mention.

> Not "let's have just anyone vote and we'll trust their word".

That's not how it works here. Voter registration requires proof of eligibility, poll books, signatures, and address checks are used for verification. Thanks in part to multiple levels of safeguards, impersonation fraud has been effectively non-existent. Of course, Rockland County and similar cases may prove the existence of other attacks on our democracy that don't depend on impersonation fraud.

> Voter registration requires proof of eligibility, poll books, signatures, and address checks are used for verification.

And how is that less of a barrier than requiring an ID? Just fix so that it is easy to get an ID like most other countries have.

You are welcomed to fix this. There is not a single Democrat anywhere in America who will be mad if you fix this. Everyone will congratulate you. The problem is that Republican-controlled states have arranged to systematically make it harder for urban people to get ID cards, and have systematically structured the system such that even born citizens cannot get one due to having never had a birth certificate (because they were born in Jim Crow jurisdictions that refused to record the births of Black people).

> The problem is that Republican-controlled states have arranged to systematically make it harder for urban people to get ID cards

Source?

The fact is you need ID for SNAP and Medicaid benefits.

So who are all these people with no ID, no money, no food, no identity, no anything but somehow all eligible voters?

Why do you assume the people targeted must have no money, or use SNAP or Medicaid?

I believe we refer to that as “telling on yourself”.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_suppression_in_the_Uni...

There are dozens of examples of Republican states attempting to disenfranchise minority voters.

Not sure why you’re bringing up money, food, or identity here. But as a simple example: picture an average middle class New Yorker. They do not drive. They don’t travel internationally. Why would they need to go get an ID? (I lived in NY for about 11 years, and went a long chunk of that without bothering to get an ID. Only did eventually so that I could rent a car)

I wish you’d recognize that the “problem” you’re suggesting needs solving was invented by political actors with the sole intent of increasing their odds of winning elections. There’s no other real problem they’re trying to solve.

It's less of a barrier because there are many good options already. The specifics vary by state, but in addition to many kinds of government IDs (drivers licenses, military IDs, recognized tribe IDs, birth certificates in some states, etc.), it can include things like utilities bills, bank statements, paychecks, etc.

> And how is that less of a barrier than requiring an ID? Just fix so that it is easy to get an ID like most other countries have.

Great, do that, first, and once that is in place in a manner that is secure for the future, we can talk about whether it makes sense to condition the franchise on it.

Of course, the people that are most for Voter ID are also opposed to that (in fact, in some cases, they have simultaneously adopted voter ID rules and made it harder to get IDs, specifically targeting minor areas for the latter effect.)

> Thanks in part to multiple levels of safeguards, impersonation fraud has been effectively non-existent.

Unsuccessful fraud is effectively non-existent.

There is no public data about successful fraud.

So why not make the system bulletproof?

Why do we constantly improve encryption algorithms? Why do modern web browsers not work with cipher suites on 5 year old hardware making them effectively useless e-waste? According to information security folks I can't even be trusted with the hardware in my own house. But we trust that all the mail in ballots were filled out only once by the person whose name is on the ballot. Okay.

> There is no public data about successful fraud.

The notoriously liberal (/s) Heritage Foundation maintains a public database of all known election fraud cases in the U.S., finding less than two-dozen cases since 1979. Many independent studies come to the same conclusion. Physical voting fraud is statistically negligible, if not perfectly non-existent.

I'm not saying that we shouldn't be cautious about fraud, but impersonation fraud will not be how it happens unless we centralize and digitize voting. With that will come the inevitable centralization and digitization of new systemic risks at scale.

India's voter ID cards are federal IDs issued by the Election Commission of India. There is no such widespread federal ID in the United States and likely no feasible candidates for quickly ramping up ID card issuance to all U.S. voters. And my guess is that most political support for voter ID laws is paired with explicit opposition to any competently-run federal ID program.

The red states consistently make it harder for Democratic leaning populations to get ID. Everything from closing places where ID is available to places like Texas make gun permits a legal form of ID and not student IDs.

In some places native Americans can’t get IDs because of their address.

https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/how-...

https://journals.law.harvard.edu/crcl/voter-discrimination-t...

In Florida, voters passed a law that made it easier for people released from prison to vote. It was still blocked by the legislation.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jul/28/ron-desantis...

> to places like Texas make gun permits a legal form of ID and not student IDs.

A student ID does not require the holder to get both a state and FBI background check. Besides the background checks, obtaining a license to carry (Texas gun permit) also requires an ID that could be used for voting itself. Student IDs, not so much. Also, I think people really underestimate the number of Democrat leaning gun owners in Texas.

There are far more relevant examples to use, including cost and difficultly navigating bureaucracy for obtaining documents. Throwing that Texas example in there weakens the argument and I really wish people would stop so the real arguments can be taken seriously.

To get a student ID, you have to have a government ID from your home state or a passport. You don’t think schools just take your word for it as they allow you to use their services that cost tens of thousands a year?

Community colleges also issue student IDs

Forgery is far more simple for those than a LTC

Absolutely no one is forging an ID to vote.

This is the percentage of voter fraud found in the US by the conservative Heritsge foundation.

https://www.brookings.edu/articles/how-widespread-is-electio...

The largest voter fraud ever attempted in the US was actually 2020 with the Republican fake electors.

I meant forgery to obtain a student id vs a LTC.

I think you are misunderstanding my intent here.

The student ID thing is a weak argument. If they need a government issue ID/passport to get a student ID -- then so what if a student ID is not allowed? They already have a valid ID to vote with.

It's a distraction. Texas has been doing trumpism since before trump was a thing. Allowing LTC but not student ID does 2 things only and neither has to do with voting; it pisses off people not in their camp and being a valid Texas state ID keeps in line with using a valid Texas ID in places where that is used (not only voting).

A student ID is not a valid Texas state ID (voting or otherwise). Stating that LTC is okay and not a student ID specifically for voting is them trolling and you are falling right into it. It's getting people caught up on something that seems like it's done to disadvantage one side, but really a student ID is simply not a valid Texas ID, nor is it good for anything other than as a supporting identity document to go along with primary or secondary ID documents in obtaining a valid Texas ID. Note: you can't get a LTC without a valid ID.

My vote for largest voter fraud was 2000, of course no one would call it that.

No, a student ID requires a valid identification which can be from their home state.

But a student is allowed to vote in the state where they are attending college or their home state. But not both.

Of course Texas did everything possible to make it harder for college students to vote

https://www.texastribune.org/2022/10/28/texas-young-voter-tu...

It doesn't matter if a student ID required a DNA test. It is simply not a valid ID as accepted by the state of Texas.

States have a constitution right to establish its voting rules. If students want to vote in Texas and Texas requires a valid Texas ID then the student needs a Texas approved valid ID to vote. There is a list of IDs the state of Texas considers valid, including a passport, however a student ID is not a valid ID as recognized by Texas for any state business.

If that is simply beyond your being able to look at without grasping for straws and moving the goal post [we are talking about LTC vs student ID specifically, if you wanted to talk about voting locations then you should of went with that and left the ID thing out of it, which was exactly my point in the first post]. Anyway the only valid conclusion I can come away with from this discussion is that you only want to indulge in faux outrage and win kudos or something.(unfortunate but what a weird way to waste time) You have fun with that and I hope you get bunches of kudos, take care.

And allowing student IDs for voting isn’t some crazy liberal idea. Plenty of conservative states allow it.

https://campusvoteproject.org/student-id-as-voter-id/

You really think it’s an apolitical policy in Texas?

And states don’t have a carte blanche ability to have whatever laws they want to about voting, there were a bunch of lawsuits and laws passed in the sixties about that….

> The solution, if this problem exists as they say, is to get everyone proper ID.

That's not the solution because lack of ID isn't really the problem.

These problem is that the Republican party's goal is to disenfranchise people who demographically tend to vote Democratic. The difficulty in getting an ID is not an accidental feature of the system — it is an intentional policy choice made to prevent people from exercising their right to vote.

Until this root problem is fixed, any bureaucratic solutions are simply a game of whack-a-mole. If you make IDs easy to obtain, legislatures will enact rules preventing people from using them [1]. If you amend the state constitution to enfranchise felons, legislatures will invent procedural reasons to re-disenfranchise them [2].

[1] https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/stat...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felony_disenfranchisement_in_F...

> state constitution to enfranchise felons, legislatures will invent procedural reasons to re-disenfranchise them

"Funnily", Donald Trump, a convicted felon, was allowed to vote in Florida, who typically bars convicted felons from voting, because "he had not yet been sentenced, therefore the conviction was not yet complete".

I guarantee any other Floridian in the same position will be laughed at if they try to vote using this (non) precedent.

> that a sizable portion of their voting base is too dumb to get an ID

Literally not a single soul on Earth has ever said this.

Rather, what they're saying, which is an indisputable fact is:

- getting an ID requires money and access to a DMV

- DMVs are segregated by race because of prior factors like districting and redlining.

- Black Americans are more likely to vote Democrat.

- Black Americans are more likely to be poor and therefore are less likely to have an ID.

- therefore, Democrats on average have less ID.

Again, this isn't an opinion, it's just factual based off of very simple logic and statistics.

You can literally go look up, right now, what percentage of Black Americans have ID versus white Americans.

Its not a talking point, it's just real. The US is complex and has hundreds of years of extreme racism under it's belt.

Newsflash - that means not everything is perfectly split by race or equality accessible.

> The solution, if this problem exists as they say, is to get everyone proper ID

Wow, you make it sounds so easy.

Why then is it that, despite decades peddling voted ID laws, the GOP absolutely refuses to even humor the idea of making ID more accessible?

Could it be that their intentions arent as pure as yours?

> This notion that Democrats keep pushing - that a sizable portion of their voting base is too dumb to get an ID

Citation needed

This goes to show neither party is interested in a working society. I find republicans a lot worse but as you say of the democrats actually cared they would have done like most of the rest of the world and made sure IDs are easy to get.

How exactly are the Democrats supposed to do that? Somehow require everyone to get a passport card? Introduce some new kind of federal identification card? That would go over great.

It's impossible enough to get things done these days, why should they waste political capital solving a problem that doesn't exist?

> Universal PKI-backed national ID would be a program everyone should be behind

I for one am not behind this until we have actual privacy laws with teeth, and those laws have put a stop to the ongoing widespread abuses of the identification system we already have. As it stands, people's nebulous fear of handing out their DL/SSN numbers is the main thing holding back a deluge of every other business (including websites) demanding your ID for one purported reason or another, but really to augment their surveillance databases.

We've been trusting our voters' word for centuries and it hasn't been a problem yet. Why all the distrust all of a sudden? What changed?

It has been a problem! Even paper ballots have been a problem!

Jimmy Carter has documented his own first hand account with it.

> We asked John Pope, a friend of ours, to go to the courthouse to represent me. When he arrived he was dismayed to see the local political boss, Joe Hurst, ostentatiously helping my opponent. He was requiring all voters to mark their ballots on a table in front of him and telling them to vote for Homer Moore. The ballots were then dropped through a large hole in a pasteboard box, and John watched Hurst reach into the box several times, remove some ballots, and discard them.

https://www.atlantamagazine.com/news-culture-articles/the-fi...

Let me rephrase: it hasn't been a problem of such magnitude or importance that has motivated the populace clamoring for changing it (compare with, say, the temperance movement). Also, the plural of anecdote is not data.

You are confusing election fraud with voter fraud. Voter fraud is a non-issue, but election fraud is something that absolutely needs to be worried about.

One thing I have asked a handful of R friends and family is this: after 2016 Trump claimed 3M+ illegal votes were cast. Not only did he have a personal interest in rooting out such illegal voting, but he was duty-bound to do something about it. He formed a committee, headed by Kris Kobach (which is its own significant story) to investigate ... and nothing came of it. So, which is it: was Trump negligent in not stopping this massive amount of illegal voting, were they incompetent in that they didn't find any, or were they just lying?

Another recurring news item every two years is about how some eagle-eyed county registrar has found hundreds of dead people enrolled to vote. Huzzah, voter fraud proved once again! The fact is that people die all the time (and move away) and one of the routine duties of the registrar is to use official records to scrub the voter rolls. When my folks died I didn't go to the registrar and ask them to remove their names. In the half a dozen times I've moved I've never notified the registrar that I've moved. Such reports are a non-story. The next time someone brings it up I'd love to ask: hey, what is the breakdown on that list? How many of them are not citizens? How many are affiliated with each party. I'm sure it would show that there is no conspiracy going on, just people moving and dying.

You can't enter Costco anymore without scanning your ID card and them checking your face because people were cheating. I asked one of the cashiers when they first rolled out more stringent ID checks and she said they were catching 5-10 people a day where the photo didn't match.

Likewise you can't enter a bar, buy booze or cigarettes, rent a car or hotel room without ID because no one can be trusted.

> it hasn't been a problem yet

This is a bit naive. The hackers of yore (think RMS) would refuse to set passwords on their accounts. Those days are over. Would you be open to having a blank password on your HN account? If not, why? It hasn't been a problem yet.

First, your response doesn't answer the question I asked.

Second, these two things are not the same. People routinely try to defraud businesses because they get tangible value out of it. They don't routinely try to defraud elections: Not only is the punishment more severe for the latter; the would-be fraudster gets practically nothing of value for his efforts.

And to say it's not a problem is not naive. Investigations are routinely carried out in response to allegations of voter fraud, and practically none result in any serious accusations let alone convictions, and certainly none at the scale that could affect an elections outcome.

One of the most prolific liars in history didn't have an election go his way. That's what changed.

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