Question for those that oppose requiring a photo ID for voting

[Sallow]

No need for one. State-issued IDs are perfectly suitable.

Sure there is..for the vote.
Gosh.

Noting again your insanely stupid leap in logic, offered as a red herring...

All elections are state elections. No need for a national ID card.

Ah..so this ID thing is bullshit..ain't it?

Just as I thought.

 

[Truthmatters]

New Study Finds Voter ID Laws Reduce Political Participation - Yahoo! Voices - voices.yahoo.com

 

[Ernie S.]

Do you support the requirement that people show a photo ID to buy a gun?
If so, how then can you oppose the same requirement in order to vote?

Voting is a fundamental right; owning a firearm is not – two different standards of judicial review.

Also, one’s citizenship is confirmed at registration, there’s no need to confirm it again and again with every vote, year after year.

Last, the state can offer a compelling governmental reason for checking ID when purchasing a firearm, which is not the case with voting – i.e., addressing ‘fraud.’

Huh? While the government doesn't provide people free firearms, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, certainly is fundamental.

My father is registered to vote in Connecticut even though he has been dead for 15 months. If someone went and voted for him, how would anyone know? It's not like Dad is going to ***** that someone stole his vote.
There is no way to tell how many dead folks vote and only a very slim chance of catching anyone voting in place of a live voter.

By your logic, I should leave my wallet at home when I head out on the Harley. My word that I am who I say I am should be good enough, right?

 

[ladyliberal]

For either a ballot or a firearm, requiring photo ID makes it more difficult to obtain. To me, under the practical constraints that currently exist, this is unacceptable for the former but not for the latter. There are a number of reasons:

1) Voting is more fundamental to our democracy than is shooting. Voting has been recognized as a nearly-universal right (excepting felons, genuine incompetents, etc.) for much of our history, whereas owning a particular firearm has not. Even the recent Supreme Court decision only (and by the narrowest of margins) struck down very far-reaching and expansive handgun bans, while permitting states to deny handguns of particular types or to particular people. Further, voting serves as a very effective (comparatively, if not absolutely) way of holding elected officials accountable to the popular will, whereas gun ownership simply does not (despite calls for "Second Amendment remedies").

2) The purpose of requiring an ID is so that the most dangerous individuals will be denied access to either the ballot or the firearm. A ballot in the hand of a dangerous voter is simply not as dangerous as a firearm in the hand of a dangerous shooter. Some people in this thread have disputed this, so let's examine it:

What constitutes the most dangerous voter? Presumably, someone who deliberately tries to select the worse of the two presidential candidates. Estimates indicate that the odds of such a person affecting the outcome of the election are one in the tens of millions (http://www.nber.org/papers/w15220.pdf).

So what is the danger of selecting the weaker of two candidates in a close election (in a non-close election, a single voter won't matter anyway)? It must be quite low because, knowing nothing else other than the candidates' popularity, we must assume them to be very similar. Even if they aren't, I don't see how, for example, the expected difference between a President Obama and a President Romney could account for more than a few thousand lives, and that in a murky and attenuated way. Thus, a malicious voter could effectively "kill" (again, in an attenuated way) about .001 people. Of course, few ineligible voters are actively malicious (and some eligible voters *are*, for that matter), so the real benefit of denying ineligible voters is quite a bit smaller.

In contrast, we have fairly good way of identifying dangerous shooters, particularly those who have histories of killing multiple people with guns. The most dangerous shooter can easily be expected to kill multiple people with guns, thousands of times more than the most dangerous voter.

So, by my estimate on the scale dangerous things, ballots fall not only under firearms but under knives and blunt objects. This motivates the question, for those who feel that ballots are too dangerous for people without easy access to government IDs:

"Why do you want to require photo ID to obtain ballots, but not to obtain knives?"

 

[Conservative]

Great flick!

Side Note: I prop build as a hobby... built one of these for my daughter for Christmas. 100% screen accurate.

Nice. An (ex) coworker was doing XFILE props he would sell on ebay. Did pretty well with it.

Just got into it, but have been a sci-fi fan my whole life. Most recent build was this...

we now return you to the regularly scheduled nonsense

 

[Conservative]

new study finds voter id laws reduce political participation - yahoo! Voices - voices.yahoo.com

2008.

 

[M14 Shooter]

For either a ballot or a firearm, requiring photo ID makes it more difficult to obtain. To me, under the practical constraints that currently exist, this is unacceptable for the former but not for the latter. There are a number of reasons:

Thank you for at least trying to explain your double standard.

1) Voting is more fundamental to our democracy than is shooting.

false premise. Both are fundamental rughts protected by the Constitution.
In that, they are equal; there is no sound argument that one demands greater protection than the other.

3) The purpose of requiring an ID is so that the most dangerous individuals will be denied access to either the ballot or the firearm.

Incorect. Both have the same puurpse - to verify that the individual is who we says he is.
One could easily argue that this is -far- more necessary in regards to the right to vote than the right to arms as the right to vote inherently necessitates that you are who you claim to be, whereas the right to own a gun does not.

Your "dangerous voter" argument holds no water -- the "danger" in allwoing people to vote w/o an ID is that a fundamental tenet of the right to vote - that you are who you say you are when you cast a ballot- is not secured. This injures everyone and gravely diminishes the right.

 

[Ernie S.]

Well, I'll take a stab at it.

A person with a gun that's registered to someone else can kill someone, wipe the prints off and ditch the weapon... thereby taking a human life and putting the person who's name the shooter used in a potential Criminal situation....

A person who votes without ID can, at the very worst....screw up a local, or perhaps(with a huge amount of luck) a State election.

Huge difference.

How does one go about registering a gun?
I have 2 pistols, a rifle, and a shotgun. All of which I've bought legally.
None, however, are "registered.

I own, um, several guns.
None are registered.

I sold my only "registered" weapon.

 

[M14 Shooter]

Sure there is..for the vote.
Gosh.

Noting again your insanely stupid leap in logic, offered as a red herring...

All elections are state elections. No need for a national ID card.

Ah..so this ID thing is bullshit..ain't it?

Just as I thought.

Again - another insanely stupid leap in logic.
You have quite a knack for these.

 

[Ernie S.]

The answer to the OP requires another question: What, in each case, happens if a person cannot get a valid ID (for whatever reason) by date X?

In the case of the firearm, he or she must obtain the valid ID after date X, come back then, and buy the gun. The only harm suffered is a delay in acquiring the firearm. The person can still buy the gun, though; it's only a short delay.

In the case of voting, by the time he or she obtains the valid ID, the election will be over. The harm suffered is denial of a fundamental right of citizenship. The person cannot come back and vote later because the election will be over.

State DMV offices are typically open 310 or so days/year. What could possibly prohibit an person that has a year plus to obtain a state ID from finding a couple hours to comply?

 

[M14 Shooter]

The answer to the OP requires another question: What, in each case, happens if a person cannot get a valid ID (for whatever reason) by date X?

In the case of the firearm, he or she must obtain the valid ID after date X, come back then, and buy the gun. The only harm suffered is a delay in acquiring the firearm. The person can still buy the gun, though; it's only a short delay.

In the case of voting, by the time he or she obtains the valid ID, the election will be over. The harm suffered is denial of a fundamental right of citizenship. The person cannot come back and vote later because the election will be over.

State DMV offices are typically open 310 or so days/year. What could possibly prohibit an person that has a year plus to obtain a state ID from finding a couple hours to comply?

Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

The opposition to the ID requirement has nothing to do with the infringement of the rights of the prospective voters.

 

[daveman]

So long as it is free..and the voter registeration requirement is either removed..or made same day..

I'm fine with it.

IDs should be mailed to everyone's home.

And the homeless should be able to pick them up with no troubles.

You good with that?

How can you register someone to vote same day and still verify their eligibility to vote?

You can't. And you know that.

Course you can.

With the Photo ID..silly.

Citizenship: The concern for election officials we spoke with regarding
a registrant’s eligibility based on citizenship was the reliance on selfattestation.
As stated by the FEC, the challenge for states is to develop
procedures that maintain the integrity of the election process without
penalizing the majority of applicants, who are law abiding citizens.26
Two types of standard sources of identification, such as a driver’s
license, state identification or social security numbers are not useful
because neither are evidence of citizenship. Other sources, such as a
passport or birth certificate more clearly indicate citizenship. However,
these sources may not be available, or conveniently at hand for all who
would like to register to vote, according to a review by election
officials in Philadelphia.

http://www.gao.gov/assets/250/246628.pdf Page 24


You may as well just type, "I support voter fraud because it mostly benefits Democrats." It would be more honest.

 

[daveman]

Does the right support a national identity card? This should be fun.

No need for one. State-issued IDs are perfectly suitable.

Sure there is..for the vote.

Gosh.

You seem to be attributing to me a position I haven't stated.

 

[daveman]

Sure there is..for the vote.
Gosh.

Noting again your insanely stupid leap in logic, offered as a red herring...

All elections are state elections. No need for a national ID card.

Ah..so this ID thing is bullshit..ain't it?

Just as I thought.

Seek help.

 

[Crackerjack]

The answer to the OP requires another question: What, in each case, happens if a person cannot get a valid ID (for whatever reason) by date X?

In the case of the firearm, he or she must obtain the valid ID after date X, come back then, and buy the gun. The only harm suffered is a delay in acquiring the firearm. The person can still buy the gun, though; it's only a short delay.

In the case of voting, by the time he or she obtains the valid ID, the election will be over. The harm suffered is denial of a fundamental right of citizenship. The person cannot come back and vote later because the election will be over.

If one was all hot and bothered to vote in an election, why would he put off doing what is necessary to register? Election days are announced far in advance. Hell, the date of presidential elections is written in the Constitution! If you don't even know that much about the Constitution, you're too ignorant to vote anyway.

Additionally, if you didn't have available the necessary documents to obtain a state-issued photo ID, it's unlikely you'd be able to have a job. So shouldn't that person's priority to go get a job first?

 

[ladyliberal]

For either a ballot or a firearm, requiring photo ID makes it more difficult to obtain. To me, under the practical constraints that currently exist, this is unacceptable for the former but not for the latter. There are a number of reasons:

Thank you for at least trying to explain your double standard.

1) Voting is more fundamental to our democracy than is shooting.

false premise. Both are fundamental rughts protected by the Constitution.
In that, they are equal; there is no sound argument that one demands greater protection than the other.

3) The purpose of requiring an ID is so that the most dangerous individuals will be denied access to either the ballot or the firearm.

Incorect. Both have the same puurpse - to verify that the individual is who we says he is.
One could easily argue that this is -far- more necessary in regards to the right to vote than the right to arms as the right to vote inherently necessitates that you are who you claim to be, whereas the right to own a gun does not.

Your "dangerous voter" argument holds no water -- the "danger" in allwoing people to vote w/o an ID is that a fundamental tenet of the right to vote - that you are who you say you are when you cast a ballot- is not secured. This injures everyone and gravely diminishes the right.

"Voting is more fundamental to our democracy than is shooting" was not a premise- it was a claim that I then supported. You seem to disagree, so let's expand on it:

- Far from a right plainly guaranteed by the Constitution, the individual right to own a handgun was not recognized (and indeed was derided by a conservative chief justice as "one of the greatest pieces of fraud" http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/supcourt/stories/courtguns051095.htm) for hundreds of years. It was not until a few years ago that a bare majority held that there was even a limited right in this respect (District of Columbia v. Heller - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

- Even under Heller, enormous restrictions still exist on gun ownership. The government can still ban bearing a gun in public and can ban certain models of gun. Further, requiring licensing, training, and denying guns to certain people not convicted of crimes (eg, the mentally ill) are all still permitted. These latter requirements would be plainly unconstitutional if applied to ballots.

- Even if we believed that constitutional jurisprudence treated gun ownership and voting the same, they still wouldn't be equally fundamental to our democracy, in that they don't protect other rights in the same way. The ballot serves as a good guarantor of, eg, the right to free speech, since one can vote against an official that denies it. In contrast, as I asserted earlier, gun ownership simply is not terribly effective in this respect.


Now, you say that the purpose of ID is to "verify that the individual is who we says he is". I agree that that, pronoun choice aside, is by definition "identification". However, identification is a means, not an end. We don't go around identifying people for its own sake. Indeed, forcing someone to identify themselves is a (minor) invasion of their privacy, and is to be avoided.

You also say that the

right to vote inherently necessitates that you are who you claim to be, whereas the right to own a gun does not.

I'm not sure how you conclude this. It seems to me much the opposite. By modern sensibilities, voting is done by secret ballot because we hold that this is the best way for voters to be free from intimidation and bribery. Then, it seems fundamental that the voter identifies him or herself to the least extent possible, not the greatest. (Of course, in other settings, such as Congress, public votes are necessary to hold those voter accountable). In contrast, the licensing of firearms seems to admit the necessity that a gun owner is who he or she claims to be.

You also say "This [voter impersonation] injures everyone and gravely diminishes the right." Can you expand on that? How does it injure people? To what degree? Can you quantify it, or identify a flaw in my own quantification?

 

[Ernie S.]

Side Note: I prop build as a hobby... built one of these for my daughter for Christmas. 100% screen accurate.

Nice. An (ex) coworker was doing XFILE props he would sell on ebay. Did pretty well with it.

Just got into it, but have been a sci-fi fan my whole life. Most recent build was this...

we now return you to the regularly scheduled nonsense

I haven't done props, but I have done industrial models. I built a model of an FTIR microspectrophotometer about 10 years ago that set in my office next to a working prototype. I would regularly swap their positions to catch the other engineers and even fooled myself a couple times.
20 bucks worth of Foamcore, Bondo and spray paint in the right hands can be made to look just like a $150 grand instrument.

 

[gallantwarrior]

Well, I'll take a stab at it.

A person with a gun that's registered to someone else can kill someone, wipe the prints off and ditch the weapon... thereby taking a human life and putting the person who's name the shooter used in a potential Criminal situation....

A person who votes without ID can, at the very worst....screw up a local, or perhaps(with a huge amount of luck) a State election.

Huge difference.

Yeah cause voting bad leaders in doesnt kill people...

First off.... Voter fraud doesn't dictate good or bad in a leader... just the potential of a person getting elected. That's personal deflection on your part.... second... that potential of a person who wields enough power to get people killed is miniscule.

So I guess the 4000+ military dead attributed to Bush are a puny nothing? I suppose the continued loss of life resulting from Obama's escalated military presence overseas is merely a drop in the bucket and totally unimportant? Neither of these guys wields jack shit for the power to get people killed? So I extrapolate that allowing voter fraud has no affect on who lives or dies, in any way.

 

[gallantwarrior]

Well, I'll take a stab at it.

A person with a gun that's registered to someone else can kill someone, wipe the prints off and ditch the weapon... thereby taking a human life and putting the person who's name the shooter used in a potential Criminal situation....

A person who votes without ID can, at the very worst....screw up a local, or perhaps(with a huge amount of luck) a State election.

Huge difference.

Welll sure.

"Screwing up the election" devalues the rights of, and thus, harms -everyone- that voted in that election -- as such, it's far, far worse than what you decribed in regards to the gun.

So, what was your point?

Now wait, I've read elsewhere on this forum that if just ONE legitimate vote is saved by TEN fraudulent votes, that's acceptable.

 

[M14 Shooter]

"Voting is more fundamental to our democracy than is shooting" was not a premise- it was a claim that I then supported. You seem to disagree, so let's expand on it:

As I said - that one fudamental right deserves greater protection than another is unsupportable. Your premise is flawed, and your defense of that premise does nothing to change that. You dont get to simply pick and choose what rughts get what level of protection - fundamental rights are, well, fundamental, whaever they may be.

Now, you say that the purpose of ID is to "verify that the individual is who we says he is". I agree that that is by definition "identification". However, identification is a means, not an end. We don't go around identifying people for its own sake. Indeed, forcing someone to identify themselves is a (minor) invasion of their privacy, and is to be avoided.

Apparently not, as you are OK with it in regards to buying a gun.

You also say that the

right to vote inherently necessitates that you are who you claim to be, whereas the right to own a gun does not.

I'm not sure how you conclude this.

Quite simple - the efficacy of your right to vote -depends- on the people who cast a vote being who they claim; the efficacy of your right to own a gun does not.

That is, If voters are not who they claim, then your right to vote is diminished, potentially to the point of meaninglessness -- the very nature of the right to vote -depends- on people being who they say they are, and the government has a compelling interest to ensure that this is the case as much as possible. This should be abundantly obvious.

In contrast, your right to arms is diminished not in the slightest if someone else claims they are someone who they are not when the buy a gun as your right to arms does not depend on and is not affected by the actions of others.