Wisconsin Voter ID

Unabogie said:
The judge is exactly right. If you start with a law designed to stop a crime that virtually never happens, yet it puts a burden on millions of Americans trying to exercise a fundamental right, then you've passed a bad law.
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I agree with you for once. Voter ID laws are a solution in search of a problem.
 
ravdin said:
No, you don't. I don't show my ID when I vote.
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I don't anymore either- I vote by mail.

And if I had my sample ballot with me, that was taken as an ID- name and address on the mailing label.

But when I showed up without the sample ballot I had to show driver's license.
 
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Neally said:
Most of the rest of the world including our neighbors in Canada and Mexico have voter ID laws as a proactive reasonable measure to help insure honest elections.
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Except that, in Canada at least, the list of what is acceptable ID is fairly lengthy and thus a voter has plenty of options. Indeed, a voter is very likely to have some of the necessary identification types just a natural matter of course of being a citizen. Here are the current voter ID requirements for Canadian federal elections. As that list shows, plenty of options, and a government-issued piece of identification is not required (though that naturally makes it easier).
 
casebro said:
I don't anymore either- I vote by mail.

And if I had my sample ballot with me, that was taken as an ID- name and address on the mailing label.

But when I showed up without the sample ballot I had to show driver's license.
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Nothing I could find says that ID is required to vote in CA unless you are voting for the first time and left certain information off of your registration. If that is the case, there are over 30 acceptable forms of identifying yourself, including :

Driver license or state-issued ID card
Passport
Employee ID card
Credit or debit card
Military ID
Student ID
Health club ID
Insurance plan ID
a recent utility bill
bank statement
government check
government paycheck
document issued by a governmental agency

It looks very similar to how PA does it (ignoring its own new ID law which is in a sort of limbo). First time you vote at a given precinct, you need to bring either your voter registration card or some form of identification which can include things like a utility bill. After that, you sign the book they have, and from then on every time you vote, you just give them your name and sign the book; your signature is compared to the one you gave the last time you voted.

ETA:

My standard rant on the issue.... In person voter fraud in the form of showing up to vote as a different person, is exceedingly rare. So rare, it is for all practical purposes, non-existent. The reward is just too little for such a high risk. If there is going to be voter fraud at any significant amount, it's going to happen at a different level that voter ID is not going to help. If anything, we should be fixing voter registration to eliminate duplicates, deceased, and people who have moved away. I just see voter ID laws as a solution in search of a problem.

That said, I'm not inherently against requiring id when you vote. But if you must go that route, it needs to be something slowly introduced over the course of several elections (IMO presidential ones) and there must be a means of ensuring everyone can easily obtain acceptable ID for free.
 
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Is that the one that blocked the guy who wrote it from voting because it was too restrictive? When you write a law that even you can't follow it might be a problem.
 
Unabogie said:
The judge is exactly right. If you start with a law designed to stop a crime that virtually never happens, yet it puts a burden on millions of Americans trying to exercise a fundamental right, then you've passed a bad law.
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You would think the party of small government would be on this side of the issue.

SezMe said:
I guess you forgot about that Pennsylvania Republican who explicitly stated the purpose in his state was to elect Mittens.
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Yes.
 
maxpower1227 said:
Are the people pushing voter ID laws taking any steps to make IDs accessible to people who don't have them?
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Yes, they are. In fact, the Wisconsin law in question does exactly that. For example, here's the provision which makes ID's available for free:

"343.50 (5) (a) 3. The department may not charge a fee to an applicant for the initial issuance or reinstatement of an identification card if the applicant is a U.S. citizen who will be at least 18 years of age on the date of the next election and the applicant requests that the identification card be provided without charge for purposes of voting."

There are other things it does as well to make ID access easier, such as making university photo ID's valid for voting.
 
bonzombiekitty said:
ETA:

That said, I'm not inherently against requiring id when you vote. But if you must go that route, it needs to be something slowly introduced over the course of several elections (IMO presidential ones) and there must be a means of ensuring everyone can easily obtain acceptable ID for free.
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This... I would be able to agree with this part. The idea in of itself is fine with me. Its just that since its not an established policy I think would be best practice to build protections into those laws from the get go and probably this is one issue where national standards would work best instead of a patchwork. Fixing issues from the voter registration stage also isnt such a bad idea
 
Grizzly Bear said:
This... I would be able to agree with this part. The idea in of itself is fine with me. Its just that since its not an established policy I think would be best practice to build protections into those laws from the get go
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There are protections built into the law. Every voter ID law I've ever seen has included the ability for people without ID's to cast provisional ballots, for example, and all of them have a requirement for states to provide free ID's. Voter ID laws are popular with the public, but built-in protections would probably also be popular. Why aren't democrats focused on that, rather than on categorical opposition?
 
Ziggurat said:
Why aren't democrats focused on that, rather than on categorical opposition?
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Because, as it is quite clearly articulated in the decision cited in the OP, there is no point to these laws.

I'm sure a "Free Ice Cream for Everyone!" law would poll quite well. Perhaps you should contact your Congressperson to get that legislation moving forward since you seem so fond of pointless but popular laws.
 
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Ziggurat is also ignoring the other aspects of these voter suppression laws. The drastic reduction in voting hours, the elimination of weekend voting, etc. These are measures specifically designed to counter things like the "Souls to the Polls" voter drives that bring the members of largely black congregations out to vote on Sundays. They have nothing whatsoever to do with fighting non-existent voter fraud, and everything to do with voter suppression.
 
johnny karate said:
Because, as it is quite clearly articulated in the decision cited in the OP, there is no point to these laws.
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Almost every other developing country feels otherwise. Are they all wrong? Is there something special about Americans which renders photo ID's irrelevant for voting (but not for air travel, etc?)?
 
Ziggurat said:
Almost every other developing country feels otherwise. Are they all wrong? Is there something special about Americans which renders photo ID's irrelevant for voting (but not for air travel, etc?)?
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The bar you want to use is what other developing countries use? I'd prefer a higher standard.

Lemme ask you Zig, do you honestly believe all the laws Republicans passed in the immediate wake of the gutting of the Voting Rights Act by the Supremes was honestly aimed at eliminating voter fraud? In Indiana, as a great example, the proponents admitted that they could not find ONE SINGLE CASE of voter fraud yet passed an ID law anyway.
 
Ziggurat said:
Almost every other developing country feels otherwise. Are they all wrong?
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When the US was a developing country, it used such laws to prevent over 75% of the population from voting (women, blacks, various immigrant groups varying from county to county). We decided that wasn't a good thing a long time ago.

That still developing countries haven't figured it out comes as no surprise.
 
Ziggurat said:
Almost every other developing country feels otherwise. Are they all wrong? Is there something special about Americans which renders photo ID's irrelevant for voting (but not for air travel, etc?)?
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So "Do it because other countries are doing it" is your rationale for why the U.S. should enact certain legislation?

Does that go for healthcare and guns as well, or is it just in this one particular area that the U.S. should model itself on other countries?
 
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