Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2020 February 19

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February 19

IDs to vote in the US

Hi,

I keep reading that some people in the US want to let people vote without an ID because it penalizes Black people. As a European, there are two things I really wonder. First, why don't Black people have IDs?? Is that even possible to live without an ID? Can you work or even rent a flat or hotel room without an ID? And second, how would the people in the voting place would know it's really you if you don't have an ID? Thanks for explaining, this sounds so weird to me! 42.117.170.66 (talk) 12:54, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

• This is an issue worldwide. Introducing ID to vote is usually seen as an unfair measure, skewing voting against the poorest. If it's already established, in a society where ID is compulsory and pervasive, then it's not so bad - everyone already has that ID.

I'm in the UK, this is an issue here. [1][2] We don't have ID. A few years ago, we rejected ID cards. Our ID card could be either a passport or driver's licence, both of which are optional, not universal and rarely carried (licences more so in recent years as they became smaller). The criticism is the same: it disenfranchises those without the ID, or to whom the additional cost of getting the ID would be enough to discourage them from doing so. Also, most importantly, such a skewed withdrawal from voting would have an obvious comparable skew in the voter numbers it removed, from particular parties over others. As we have an unchallengable one party state here for the next five years, that party will almost certainly impose voter ID. The justification for it was a tiny amount of election fraud involving postal votes (i.e. votes for those who can't vote in person), and ID would do nothing to fix that.

As it is, we vote on the basis of our address. You have to have a stable address to vote, having registered some months before as part of general local government services. You are authorised to vote on the day mostly by being the first person to claim to live at that address, with that recorded name! Surprisingly it works quite well and estimated fraud through it is tiny - much less than the disenfranchisation that ID would cause. We do have a small problem in that homeless or transient people tend not to register, but we've also improved that in recent years by allowing them to nominate an address through suport centres etc. Andy Dingley (talk) 13:19, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

• In the U.S., photo IDs incur fees, the only common photo IDs are the national passport and the state-issued driver's license, each of which cost money to get. Also, in the U.S., it is illegal to charge a poll tax to allow people to vote. If you put those together, many states that have enacted photo ID laws have found those laws quickly invalidated by the courts. The only legal way to do it would be to automatically issue a free photo ID whenever someone registers to vote on the spot, and to establish an equitable system to issue photo IDs to people already registered to vote. AFAIK, no state has ever gone through those measures. --Jayron32 13:39, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

See Voter ID laws in the United States. PrimeHunter (talk) 14:13, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

(EC) Well it seems possible the Virginia law is constitutional albeit also going to end. The law requires a photo ID. If a voter doesn't have one, they can appear in any general registrar's office and do the needful to get one, and it will be mailed to them. (I don't see any mention of what you can do if you can't receive mail, but it's possible you're also able to pick them up from the office.) If you try to vote without one, you can cast a provisional ballot and then either give proof of an ID, or apply for one and ask for a temporary ID as proof. [3] [4] [5]

Georgia seems to have a similar law [6]. Mississippi and Tennessee too [7] [8] Kansas I think too [9] Admittedly I couldn't find clear info on any challenges of these laws not helped by challenges to other parts of their voter laws or older laws, and Virginia no further than the federal appeals court. Still, I don't think these are clearly unconstitutional as things stand.

Note that other states have tried and failed. Most of these did offer free IDs, but there was debate over various aspects especially how easy they were to obtain as most relied on their driver licencing centres to issue them. However while the cost to obtain them (given the need to visit a location, probably during ordinary working hours and so all the costs involved) was often discussed and some did bring up poll tax issues, from what I saw though, often the challenge were not successful based on it being seen as a poll tax, but based on other aspects e.g. discriminatory intent in passing the law or discriminatory effect. See e.g. [10], 2011 Wisconsin Act 23, [11], [12] See also Voter ID laws in the United States.

Anyway you could go down the Indiana route. Indiana requires vote ID. But if someone doesn't have one, they can vote anyway and then either produce a voter ID, or sign a affidavit saying they cannot afford one. The Indiana law has survived a Supreme Court challenge Crawford v. Marion County Election Board and been around for nearly 15 years now, so it's difficult to argue it isn't constitutional [13] especially given the current make up of the Supreme Court.

Nil Einne (talk) 15:05, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

42.117.170.66 -- In the U.S., there's been a strong current of opinion against the idea that you need identification just to walk down the street, and that the police could arrest you if you don't have an ID card. The main reason that I personally need an ID card is to deal with banks -- I can go many months without showing my ID card to anyone outside a bank. Also, voter ID requirements only prevent one particular type of fraud, in-person voter impersonation, which is almost vanishingly rare... AnonMoos (talk) 17:30, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

I find this objection rather puzzling. The Greek identity card "is mandatory for all Greeks 12 years of age and older." It is the only identification currently needed to vote, it is used as a travel document to cross the border, and often needed for identification in school exams, banks, and most public services. And it is published by the Hellenic Police, with the only cost to the user being the obligation to provide your own photograph. Dimadick (talk) 19:06, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

No ID is required for voting in Australia. Voting is compulsory, but carrying ID isn't. The only places "demanding" ID on a regular basis are liquor shops, which theoretically require proof of age, but at my age of over 70, I never seem to be asked for mine. HiLo48 (talk) 21:07, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

Sure, but even at your age, you still can't freely choose from a list of banned video games in Australia. And don't say you don't mind because you weren't going to, anyway! You might have, had the system not prevented you from giving perverse interactive horror a chance. InedibleHulk (talk) 01:16, 20 February 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for explaining that. It's good to know exactly how oppressed I am. HiLo48 (talk) 02:25, 20 February 2020 (UTC)

• Are you saying that compulsory documentation would make censorship go away? —Tamfang (talk) 05:39, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

Dimadick, I'm having trouble following your point. You find what objection puzzling? Are you saying that because an ID card is required in Greece, we should be happy to accept such a requirement in the US? The "cost to the user" is not the main objection to mandatory identification simply to be in a place. It is a part of the objection to mandatory identification in order to vote, but I don't follow how that relates to the Greek example you share. --Trovatore (talk) 22:48, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

Dimadick -- in countries like Egypt, police constantly ask young men on the streets for their IDs, and a man caught without an ID has a high probability of being taken to the police station. The United States has overall rejected the Egyptian model of requiring identification... AnonMoos (talk) 04:12, 20 February 2020 (UTC)

"I believe that the requirement of an internal passport is more objectionable than an external passport, and that citizens ought to be allowed to move about freely without running the risk of being accosted by a policeman or anyone else, and asked to produce proof of identity." Aneurin Bevan MP, from the government benches in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom in 1947. [14] Alansplodge (talk) 19:06, 20 February 2020 (UTC)

I think Dimadick's puzzlement is: why would any government reject the option to hand out a free ids to every citizen and then update for free the photo on that id every 5 years after that? It would solve id fraud in so many cases (including voting) and it would not be unfair to the poorest, since it is a free government service. And if one will say "because of the cost to the taxpayer" then one should also wonder what is the cost of not trusting your own elections' results. As to Egypt and Mr Bevan, I don't think everyone having an id forces in any way the police to stop and check on random people more often than they currently do. --Lgriot (talk) 19:53, 24 February 2020 (UTC)

In the United States, most people's main ID is their driver's license, and for a number of reasons the individual states are not going to be handing out free driver's licenses (unless various things change from the way they've been done basically for the last 100 years). But supposing that in the future all citizens and legal residents have IDs. That would mean that everyone who doesn't have an ID would be an illegal, which would encourage police to increase routine checking of IDs without any valid reason to suspect criminality -- exactly what many people wish to avoid... AnonMoos (talk) 23:49, 24 February 2020 (UTC)

Again I am confused. Licences are permissions to do something (like driving). Different purpose, I don't know why Americans can't separate the 2 purpose in their minds, (apart from lack of imagination?). Any state could easily make it free to request a state id like this [15] but also make it always optional to carry it with you. You would take it out of your bedside table drawer only if you go withdraw from your bank, or if you are going to vote today. Then put it back wherever you keep your other paperwork at home. It is very simple legislation, and many countries have adopted something similar.--Lgriot (talk) 13:02, 25 February 2020 (UTC)

In America, whatever ID's you might need (if any) will depend on what you intend to do. If you don't want to drive, or fly, or use a bank, or buy on credit, or vote, or work for a living, then you might not need one. If you want to vote and don't have an ID and the state requires an ID to vote, then they must supply you one, because the US Constitution forbids having to pay in order to vote. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:40, 25 February 2020 (UTC)

Lgriot -- such U.S. state ID cards are for people who can't drive or don't want or need to drive. They are issued by the same agency which issues driver's licenses (notice "dmv" at the beginning of the domain name of the site that you linked to), and are not independent of driver's licenses -- you're only allowed to have one or the other in any given state. Making state ID cards free is a good idea, but by itself such a minor reform would do little to change the overall situation in the U.S. AnonMoos (talk) 22:48, 25 February 2020 (UTC)

I may not love my id, but I have no confidence that a state-issued id would be better. —Tamfang (talk) 05:39, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

Is there any fresh news on this the question?

The article states Qumran#De_Vaux's_interpretations that most of the archaeological work of Roland de Vaud is not published and not accessible to scientists. Has the situation changed since the moment of publication and have anything been published? --Vyacheslav84 (talk) 16:11, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

According to our article on Roland de Vaux, a further publication based on his notes was issued in 2016 (ISBN 978-3-525-54054-1). With 536 pages, this is clearly substantial. Since it is labelled "Volume IIIA", this is obviously not meant to be the final installment.  --Lambiam 21:04, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

Thanks!--Vyacheslav84 (talk) 07:23, 22 February 2020 (UTC)