Voter ID Laws
Jan. 9th, 2008 08:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
varjohaltiaI've been listening to news about the controversy regarding Voter ID laws for a while now, and frankly, I'm ready to express my opinion on the matter (rant.)
In a perfect world, people wouldn't need government photo ID, much like things used to be in Great Britain surprisingly recently. We are not living in a perfect world. I need a government photo ID to go to my dentist, to pay with a credit card, to drive a vehicle, to attend the university, to travel by air domestically or in any fashion internationally, to visit the FBI, to homestead my property, to get my own medical records, to open a bank account, to cash a check, to rent a mail box... you probably get the idea.
Requiring a person to prove their identity when voting is common sense. Even requiring a person to have an ID is not unreasonable. I'd rather it wasn't that way, but you cannot function in today's society without one. Mind you, there's a difference between having ID and having to produce ID. There shouldn't be any right for a anyone to require ID unless it is to protect your information or money, or unless there's a real law-enforcement need. Looking or acting suspicious isn't real need.
Yes, the purpose behind a lot of these laws is undoubtedly political, underhanded, and specifically targeted against Democrats. No, there hasn't been any documented abuse that these laws would in fact fix. Yet the end of the day, I find the requirement that voters prove who they are when voting perfectly reasonable. Having an ID is not an undue burden. Quit whining about it, and start spending your energy figuring out what keeps people from getting IDs and improving the system of granting IDs, or at the very least making the rest of the voting system resistant against much more egregious violations.
In a perfect world, people wouldn't need government photo ID, much like things used to be in Great Britain surprisingly recently. We are not living in a perfect world. I need a government photo ID to go to my dentist, to pay with a credit card, to drive a vehicle, to attend the university, to travel by air domestically or in any fashion internationally, to visit the FBI, to homestead my property, to get my own medical records, to open a bank account, to cash a check, to rent a mail box... you probably get the idea.
Requiring a person to prove their identity when voting is common sense. Even requiring a person to have an ID is not unreasonable. I'd rather it wasn't that way, but you cannot function in today's society without one. Mind you, there's a difference between having ID and having to produce ID. There shouldn't be any right for a anyone to require ID unless it is to protect your information or money, or unless there's a real law-enforcement need. Looking or acting suspicious isn't real need.
Yes, the purpose behind a lot of these laws is undoubtedly political, underhanded, and specifically targeted against Democrats. No, there hasn't been any documented abuse that these laws would in fact fix. Yet the end of the day, I find the requirement that voters prove who they are when voting perfectly reasonable. Having an ID is not an undue burden. Quit whining about it, and start spending your energy figuring out what keeps people from getting IDs and improving the system of granting IDs, or at the very least making the rest of the voting system resistant against much more egregious violations.
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no subject
Date: 2008-01-10 02:32 am (UTC)From what I've gathered, my stance would be that yes, we should require some form of identification, which brings up the whole idea of having state-issued (rather than federal) photo ID cards for everyone. The trouble comes when figuring out how to go about handing those IDs out. The state specifically in question during the supreme court arguments offers free IDs, if I remember what I heard correctly, but the trouble was proving one was one's self without having the other forms of proof like birth certificate, social security card, etc., which are not necessarily easy to obtain nor are they necessarily free.
I think that given that voting is a right and registering to vote is free (if I recall correctly), we should require the identification at that time (don't we already require that?), and issue a photo-ID voters registration card instead of the paper cards we have right now (at least in Florida). The card remains with you unless you need to have it amended (change of party affiliation, address, etc.) just like you would a driver's license.
Doing this would cost tax-payer money, however, and there's a good chance the states will screw it up (touch screen voting anyone? no paper-trail included), but perhaps this will put the issue to rest.