Young man obtains voting ballot under Attorney General Eric Holder's name

[Tender Branson]

I have warned of this stuff before, but this is too good ...

That's why I find it good that here in Austria, and I guess also in Germany, the government or your town sends you your voter information card via post, with which you have to go to the polling place, shows a valid government issued photo ID (only passport, driving license, personal ID counts) and then you get your ballot there and can vote.

[Tender Branson]

Does this thread even warrant a response? Yes, if you deliberately look up the address and full legal name of voters with the specific intent to lie about your identity at the voting booth, you will succeed. However, there's no record of this voting fraud happening at a rate worth excluding a sizable percentage of voters from the rolls.

The possibility alone that you can potentially commit voter fraud warrants a change in the system to avoid such fraud. Because after the election, who will check the signatures of millions of voters if they are similar to the one on the registration forms ? I wonder how any sane Democrat can oppose voter photo ID.

[Tender Branson]

Does this thread even warrant a response? Yes, if you deliberately look up the address and full legal name of voters with the specific intent to lie about your identity at the voting booth, you will succeed. However, there's no record of this voting fraud happening at a rate worth excluding a sizable percentage of voters from the rolls.

The possibility alone that you can potentially commit voter fraud warrants a change in the system to avoid such fraud. Because after the election, who will check the signatures of millions of voters if they are similar to the one on the registration forms ? I wonder how any sane Democrat can oppose voter photo ID.

There have been plenty of cases where investigations were conducted using that same method and it showed that fraud was virtually non-existent. I'm only opposed to voter photo ID because it would disenfranchise a large portion of the electorate over what I view to be a non-issue. Minnesota's alternative is good though:

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Would you also be opposed if there's a photo voter ID law that provides free government issued photo voter IDs to people who cannot afford it ? Because if we use the standard price of a government ID (ca. 25$) and this ID is valid for 10 years, the average annual price per voter would be just 2.5$ to subsidize a free voter id. In a state like North Carolina with 6 million voters (out of which an estimated 20% have no ID), the annual cost for providing free IDs would then only amount to 3 million $. A very small sum in my opinion if you consider what is wasted each year in other areas. And many of these 20% who don't have an ID are not even low-income earners, they just never needed one. So, the annual cost is probably even lower.

[Tender Branson]

I have warned of this stuff before, but this is too good ...

That's why I find it good that here in Austria, and I guess also in Germany, the government or your town sends you your voter information card via post, with which you have to go to the polling place, shows a valid government issued photo ID (only passport, driving license, personal ID counts) and then you get your ballot there and can vote.

Well, de jure, at least. Our little town in Southern Hesse (at least in my precinct) never really checks IDs.

Yep, here too. But there are so many precincts here that there are rarely any lines and the poll commission knows most of the voters in the precinct anyway because these people are usually your neighbours and if you give them your voter information card which has your electoral register number on it anyway, there's almost no need to check for a voter ID, (even though if I were strict I would demand it ... ) But if you have your voter information card with you, it's almost certain that no other person is impersonating you and voting in your name, unless that person has broken into your house and stole your voter information card. I have also seen that the poll commission asks for ID's of people they don't know or have previously moved into town. What about that in your town, Franzl ?

[Tender Branson]

The fundamental question is this:

Do you want to make sure that the franchise is extended to as many people as possible, or do you want to make sure that the people who are not eligible to vote are prevented from doing so?

If you want the former, you have to be willing to accept that there will be a few cases of fraud.

If you want the latter, you have to be willing to accept that millions of eligible voters, mostly those with some form of economic or social disadvantage, will be prevented from voting.

No, you can have the latter and have ID's for all people, like in almost any other western country. But due to the polarizing political system, apparently it cannot be done in the US, even though it would be easy, if the GOP/DEMs would display some common sense once in a while and work for the people and not against each other.