<p>I’m glad she did so well into her nineties. But in many states, the assisted living facility’s ID would allow her to get into the assisted living facility. It wouldn’t allow her to vote. In Indiana, for instance, only a current driver’s license or a driver’s license that expired after 2010 would constitute valid ID.</p>
<p>In my state, I can’t get a driver’s license with only a US passport, much less some assisted living ID.</p>
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<p>Maybe on some things. We have 5 bank accounts at 2 banks, plus various other financial instruments. Not one of them requires as much ID as the voter ID laws do. (And none of them requires finger prints.)</p>
<p>“I’m sorry sir. The law requires a recent photo ID.”</p>
<p>I’m sensing a business opportunity here! Something analogous to Free Credit Report dot com … making sure your all your photo IDs are still working.</p>
<p>That has some appeal. If we screened our borders better then this could be a perk to draw quality immigrants/temporary workers. “Come legal, get to vote.” And, it could be a tourist draw.</p>
<p>The US turnout state and national is already so low that an election result is usually not an endorsement by the people who live here (legally or illegally). And, it surely would do away with any incentive to steal someone’s identity to vote in their name.</p>
<p>Sigh. OK, let’s do it by the numbers.<br>
(1) Your claim “Non citizens are voting, canceling out the votes of citizens.”
(2) So where is the evidence non-citizens are canceling out the votes of citizens?</p>
<p>All I’m saying is that a more developed post might have kept you from being trapped in this particular box canyon.</p>
<p>“What matters is that the people whose lives are affected by government policies and action have a say in who’s making decisions.”</p>
<p>Don’t agree? Perhaps the contrary would be better? “What matters most is that the people whose lives are affected by government policies and action DON’T have a say in who’s making the decisions.”</p>
<p>I’m just trying to frame the argument from a different perspective. “I have a photo ID so I don’t know why everyone shouldn’t have one” just doesn’t do it for me.</p>
<p>Well, as one of the earlier poster said there are different issues. One is making sure everyone who registers to vote is in fact a citizen and a resident of the state where they are registering. Second is making sure that citizens are not registered in more than one state. </p>
<p>The other issue is showing a photo ID to prove you are who you say you are when you, as a validly registered voter, show up to vote.</p>
THis is fairly common between NY and Florida. I don’t think it’s sinister, just people who live in each place part of the year believe that they are entitled to vote in both places.</p>
<p>Not sinister… just stupid. Really, what are they thinking if they get an absentee ballot from one state and then go to the polls in the state where they are on election day?</p>
<p>I think an important distinction needs to be drawn between requiring ANY photo ID and a state-issued ID with a permanent address. If it were acceptable to use a school, nursing home, college, work, or whatever other form of ID to vote then I have much less of an issue with this idea. However, some of these laws are not talking about any photo ID with one’s name on it being acceptable. </p>
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<p>I don’t really understand what the issue is here. Could you clarify? I definitely think it’s a good idea to have a state-licensed ID if possible but I disagree that it should be required of voting. People without IDs aren’t necessarily excluded from modern society. My 20 year-old brother has no legal ID as of yet, though that’s more of an issue of him not following through with getting one. I don’t think that means he shouldn’t be able to vote in the November election (which he won’t be excluded from because our state only requires a signature). </p>
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<p>The important word you use here is average. What about homeless people? Can you get an ID issued when you have no permanent address? Plus there are poor people who do not get benefits that require a state ID and may not have one, especially since, as I’ve already shown, in many states getting a legal form of identification can require a significant amount of money. Well, significant at least to someone who doesn’t have much, if any, disposable income and/or a reliable means of transportation. I think that the situation where rides are being provided to go get IDs are an outlier, and still does not account for having to miss work or other obligations to utilize them. </p>
<p>Again, it also comes down to what form of identification is being required. If it is any photo ID with your name on it, that is a lot less onerous than requiring a current state-issued ID. My father for instance went several years during which his legal ID was expired. As for my parents, other than their state IDs, they don’t have any form of license or photo identification at all. They do not have photo work badges, or obviously school IDs because one only made it through high school and the other dropped out in 9th or 10th grade. </p>
<p>Then there’s another issue in producing the documents required for getting an ID. For instance, my local area was hit by a massive flood that inundated many local homes completely. That includes any and all documentation that would be required to go through with getting a legal ID. My sister in particular lost everything in her apartment, and while she fortunately has a state-issued ID, all of her other documentation was destroyed. And to even GET your birth certificate (the original of which was destroyed by my parents’ basement flooding), you need so many points of ID that my sister wouldn’t have because they were destroyed by flooding…</p>
<p>Reading the article, it strikes me that this Hinako Dennett, who says she votes every year, is doing a better job of acting like a citizen than many citizens. Perhaps we are looking at this from the wrong end of the telescope. Perhaps we should be looking at mandatory voting, and punishing people who do not fulfill their duty as citizens by fining them, or publishing their names in their local paper.</p>
<p>But I’m just kidding. I’m not in favor of making more laws that require people to conform.</p>
<p>I would, however, like to see a voluntary halt to negative political ads. I just recently read an article somewhere that said that if campaigns cannot present something positive about their own candidate that will draw people to the polls, the next best strategy is to suppress the vote for the other guy through negative campaigning. It appears to have worked all too well. It seems likely that the miserable turnout we see these days is the result of decades of unrelenting and increasingly vicious negative campaigning, and I include talk radio in that.</p>
<p>Zoosermom, the point is that in many if not most places the voting system is NOT broken and there is no “fraud.” We can barely get real registered voters out to the polls, much less fake ones. If NY has a problem with voter fraud, then let NY develop a system to combat it and YOU pay for it. Don’t ask my state to waste money on a problem we do not have.</p>
<p>BTW, I have NEVER been asked for a fingerprint by a bank.</p>
<p>I went to the doctor this morning. I had to show my insurance card and my DL which they photocopied. I asked what they would do if I did not have a pix ID. She said they would not see me and refer me to the Emergency room. I guess they are seeing a lot of stolen insurance cards.</p>
<p>“I guess they are seeing a lot of stolen insurance cards.”</p>
<p>Yes. Forged certificates are a big problem here in CT. It used to cost $10 for an Emissions Sticker. Some entrepreneurs figured out how to make money making and selling forgeries for $5 each. Today? No sticker required. No registration sticker either (purportedly as a cost-saving measure, but they could be had also). Fake photo ID? If college students can get them, well … need I say more?</p>
<p>In our town a person can’t vote without a government-generated photo ID. I’ve been in town twenty-five years and I have to produce it every time. (Last year the Registrar of Voters “lost” me … but that’s a different story.) You wanna vote here, you need photo ID. Does that keep votes and voters from being “lost?” No. Does it keep bad politicians from being elected? No. The system’s not perfect. If photo ID was going to solve the problem then CT wouldn’t continue to have the, um, “challenges” it continues to have.</p>
<p>Can be done easily … I know because it happened to us (flood). Truly it isn’t hard to do. (Been there, done that.) Maybe other states are different: in my state, I can request a copy of my birth certificate on line, off line, or go in person.</p>
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<p>Don’t make things seem harder to do than they are.</p>
<p>Wanted to add that I’m sorry your sister had to experience loss due to flooding. There are so many things you can truly never replace.</p>
<p>I’m always leery when says “it’s easy … now go away.” If it’s so easy then why doesn’t the Registrar of voters provide one at time of registration? OH, I GET IT … too hard, costs too much. Of course it’s easy and costs nothing if the citizen is made to do it … right?</p>
<p>“If it was a requirement to provide the voter photo ID when registering to vote (just as state DMVs provides a photo ID to new drivers) then I’d have no problem with the concept. But requiring a person to pay to exercise the constitutional right to vote puts us right back in Poll Tax territory.”</p>
<p>An id obtained for voting reasons in IN, the state with the most restrictions, is free. The state also has mobile units so one does not have to pay transportation costs and advocates to help obtain the required documents. That’s why SCOTUS upheld the IN law.</p>
<p>“What about homeless people? Can you get an ID issued when you have no permanent address? Plus there are poor people who do not get benefits that require a state ID and may not have one,”</p>
<p>You do not need a permanent address to get an id, just to prove state residency. Are not you supposed to be a state resident in order to register to vote there anyway? People ( poor or homeless) who do not get any welfare benefits when they are legally entitled are usually mentally ill or alcoholics or do not know that they are entitled to the benefits. If you breath and are a US citizen/permanent resident/certain alien categories, at a minimum can get food stamps.</p>
<p>“Then there’s another issue in producing the documents required for getting an ID. For instance, my local area was hit by a massive flood that inundated many local homes completely. That includes any and all documentation that would be required to go through with getting a legal ID. My sister in particular lost everything in her apartment, and while she fortunately has a state-issued ID, all of her other documentation was destroyed. And to even GET your birth certificate (the original of which was destroyed by my parents’ basement flooding), you need so many points of ID that my sister wouldn’t have because they were destroyed by flooding…”</p>
<p>OK, let’s take a random state like AK, the fee is $12 to get a birth certificate and the requirements are beyond laughable and do not require many points of ID.
" 1) The full name of the person on the birth certificate (please provide maiden name or name at birth); 2) The date of birth; 3) The city or town and county of birth; 4) The father’s full name; 5) The mother’s full name, to include her maiden name; 6) The requester’s relationship to the person named on the certificate; 7) The requester’s reason for requesting the certificate; 8) A check or money order payable to Arkansas Department of Health."</p>
<p>How difficult is that?</p>
<p>May I also add for those over 100 yrs old,
“State office has records since February 1914 and some original Little Rock and Fort Smith records from 1881”</p>
<p>I’m pretty sure that welfare recipients are one of the groups which Voter ID is intended to discourage. If VID proponents really wanted everyone to vote, that’s an obvious solution. I haven’t heard them proposing it yet, though.</p>
<p>BTW, even if we all agreed in principal that photo ID is necessary, what are we going to do about fake IDs? They’re awfully easy to get.</p>