It's relevant because considering what other people/places consider normal allows you to recontextualize and examine the frame you are in. The idea that IDs should be required for voting is only a hyper-politicized issue focused on race in the US, and noticing that lets you break your thinking outside that frame to some extent.
Ultimately I am against anything requiring IDs, but so long as I need to show my ID and vaccine card to get seated at a restaurant in SF, it doesn't seem outlandish to me at all that elections should require IDs.
Regarding national IDs, I'm not sure what you think this would look like but frankly that is the whole point of the REAL ID initiative which began in the wake of the Patriot Act reauthorization in 2005. Perhaps you have objections in light of the changes brought on by the REAL ID Modernization Act wherein the SSN requirements were significantly defanged, but IMO the point still remains.
The thing is, I'm aware about how voting is done outside of the US, at least to some extent.
That doesn't explain how readthenotes1's comment is relevant.
The amount of fraud in mail-in-voting is astoundingly low.
Mandatory voter id doesn't seem to provide any benefits except for calming an artificial fear that was hyped just to pass mandatory id laws.
I don't know why you say "focus on race" when the history shows that voter id requirements are there to elect Republicans, of which race is one correlated factor.
Why can a gun license be used as valid id, but a state college id cannot? College students tend to vote for Democrats. Gun owners tend to vote Republican.
Why do DMV offices (where you get ids) tend to close down in poor areas when there are cutbacks? Poor people tend to vote for Democrats.
Now, if we really do look to other countries, we can ask why the DMV is in charge of issuing id. In at least some of those other countries, it is the police which are in charge of ids.
So if we follow readthenotes1's suggestion see what other countries do, my point is that perhaps doing that correctly requires certain prerequisites that don't exist in the US.
so long as I need to show my ID and vaccine card to get seated at a restaurant in SF
I didn't realize that getting seated at a restaurant was a constitutional right.
Why can a gun license be used as valid id, but a state college id cannot? College students tend to vote for Democrats. Gun owners tend to vote Republican.
That's quite the conspiracy theory. Here's a more reasonable explanation: the identity verification that you go through to get a college ID is way more lax than it is to get a gun license or basically any other government-issued ID.
That gotcha answer aside ... since the existing amount of in-person voting fraud is something like a few dozen cases per decade - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_impersonation_(United_St... - what justifies the need for higher strictness than a college id? Or even a city transit id?
the existing amount of in-person voting fraud is something like a few dozen cases per decade
The number of cases we've caught might be low, but when your safeguards are so lax that it's easy to get away with fraud without a trace, that doesn't mean much.
Comments
It's relevant because considering what other people/places consider normal allows you to recontextualize and examine the frame you are in. The idea that IDs should be required for voting is only a hyper-politicized issue focused on race in the US, and noticing that lets you break your thinking outside that frame to some extent.
Ultimately I am against anything requiring IDs, but so long as I need to show my ID and vaccine card to get seated at a restaurant in SF, it doesn't seem outlandish to me at all that elections should require IDs.
Regarding national IDs, I'm not sure what you think this would look like but frankly that is the whole point of the REAL ID initiative which began in the wake of the Patriot Act reauthorization in 2005. Perhaps you have objections in light of the changes brought on by the REAL ID Modernization Act wherein the SSN requirements were significantly defanged, but IMO the point still remains.
The thing is, I'm aware about how voting is done outside of the US, at least to some extent.
That doesn't explain how readthenotes1's comment is relevant.
The amount of fraud in mail-in-voting is astoundingly low.
Mandatory voter id doesn't seem to provide any benefits except for calming an artificial fear that was hyped just to pass mandatory id laws.
I don't know why you say "focus on race" when the history shows that voter id requirements are there to elect Republicans, of which race is one correlated factor.
Why can a gun license be used as valid id, but a state college id cannot? College students tend to vote for Democrats. Gun owners tend to vote Republican.
Why do DMV offices (where you get ids) tend to close down in poor areas when there are cutbacks? Poor people tend to vote for Democrats.
Now, if we really do look to other countries, we can ask why the DMV is in charge of issuing id. In at least some of those other countries, it is the police which are in charge of ids.
So if we follow readthenotes1's suggestion see what other countries do, my point is that perhaps doing that correctly requires certain prerequisites that don't exist in the US.
I didn't realize that getting seated at a restaurant was a constitutional right.
That's quite the conspiracy theory. Here's a more reasonable explanation: the identity verification that you go through to get a college ID is way more lax than it is to get a gun license or basically any other government-issued ID.
Ahh, I see you've never had a transit id then. Here's the Transit Discount Photo ID Application for Roseville, CA - https://roseville.ca.us/government/departments/public_works/... . Only need a city utilities statement for that one.
That gotcha answer aside ... since the existing amount of in-person voting fraud is something like a few dozen cases per decade - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_impersonation_(United_St... - what justifies the need for higher strictness than a college id? Or even a city transit id?
Or, you know, no id it all.
The number of cases we've caught might be low, but when your safeguards are so lax that it's easy to get away with fraud without a trace, that doesn't mean much.
There is no evidence that the safeguards are lax. Despite a LOT of time, work, and money spent trying to demonstrate it over the last 10-20 years.
After the 2020 election people searched high and low to dreg up examples, finding only a paltry few.
If it's so lax, how would you go about doing it?