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Comment by CharlesW | Hacker News Reader

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.

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> 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.

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