That's the thing - almost all voting rules in the US are decided state by state. And states will purposefully make it harder to get an ID AND make ID required. This is not conjecture, its historical fact.
And that is the popular vote, which had a much larger margin than the vote that actually counted. The election was decided by a few hundred thousand votes in the right places, which makes it more like a 0.5% margin.
"And states will purposefully make it harder to get an ID"
You're in charge of your state; keep it in line, don't be a victim.
Mine has been forced to give out free state ID cards. Not nominal fee, but $0 cost. You don't need any money to get the required docs to get a non federal real ID card. Real ID compatible cards are also free if you have the docs, but if you don't have the docs you can't live in legal society anyway.
My MiL and UiL are both too old/frail to drive (I'm older than some HN posters) and they have free state ID cards, so I am very recently extremely familiar with this situation.
First, I completely agree that ID cards should be free and easy to get. But it's not quite true that the victims here are in charge of their states. Voting rights rules almost always target minority populations, which by definition are not in charge of the state. The USA should protect people not in the majority as well.
No, it's 2018. Nobody is making it difficult to get an ID. 99.99% of adults already have ID. You need ID to rent a hotel, drive a car, buy a beer, buy certain types of chemicals, get a job, fly on a plane, buy cigs, rent a pool table, all sorts of cases.
The numbers you posted are specific for Driver's Licenses and Passports. The link you posted notes that general photo ids are possessed by white: 95%, black: 87%, hispanic: 90%.
Another fun trick is to design the list of acceptable forms of ID such that the right people are more likely to have one that’s acceptable. For example, accepting a concealed carry permit but not a state-issued student ID.
At least in my state, getting a concealed carry permit requires:
* birth certificate, passport, or other paperwork confirming lawful presence in the US
* submitting a passport photo
* have your fingerprints
* notarized application
And after you submit all this, the powers that be have 8 weeks to process it and conduct a criminal and background check where they can reject you for any reason. I've never seen a state issued student id, but I'm fairly certain you don't have to go through all these steps. I would argue that a CC permit should be a valid form of ID.
The point is that people who already have a CC permit are more likely to vote a certain way, and the valid forms of ID are deliberately chosen with this in mind to get more of those people to vote.
One could make the case that the CC permit is more secure and this should be allowed, but that’s not how the decision is actually being made.
I totally get your point, and I wouldn't be surprised if you were correct. But at the same time, everyone who has a CC permit most likely also has a state issued ID, so it really is a moot point.
from above:
> The numbers you posted are specific for Driver's Licenses and Passports. The link you posted notes that general photo ids are possessed by white: 95%, black: 87%, hispanic: 90%.
I am more interested why there are so many people who don't have government issued id's. Why is there a disparity? Is it an active systematic voter suppression tactic or other race-driven conspiracy? Or just how the pieces fall in terms of economic class and where these people live?
I suspect it’s a mix. Historically, it’s probably been due to poverty and documentation, and that persists. Now that ID is being weaponized against certain voters, deliberate disenfranchisement comes in helping to keep it that way.
Which of those chosen were not done so on the basis of objective criteria regarding security? The CCW license and student id example is the most commonly trotted out one, and we've already gone over why one can be considered secure and the other can't.
Some schools allow undocumented immigrants to enroll, giving them a student ID in the process. I'm not sure what a "state-issued student ID" is, but if it refers to getting a student ID from a state land grant institution I wouldn't be surprised if there are some that allow undocumented immigrants to enroll.
I have nothing at all against allowing undocumented immigrants into our schools, but they probably shouldn't be voting.
Some places allow them to get driver’s licenses too, but they’re still valid ID.
Edit: it occurs to me that illegal immigration is just going to confuse this issue. Legal immigrants aren’t allowed to vote either, but they can get all sorts of state issued ID. The purpose of voter ID is (or should be) to verify identity, not citizenship. That should be done separately and doesn’t need to be done on Election Day.
Do you need an ID with your current address to buy cigarrettes? Because you need one with your address to vote in North Dakota.
It's not just about having ID. I have loads of cards with my face and name on it. It's about the ID requirements being tailored to disenfranchise certain voters. It's public record that this is the motivation for the people making these laws! There's no debate about the motive, because people are on the record as saying it's targeted disenfranchisement!
This right here. When you are allowed to use a gun registration but not a student ID, that tells you everything you need to know about what the intended purpose is.
No, it's not. It's to prevent people from voting for, say, people in nursing homes, dead people whose registrations haven't expired yet, non-citizens from registering, etc.
