What did Democrats do wrong?

[P.J. Denyer]

But it happens so infrequently, or in such small numbers, the response looks to me to be taking a sledgehammer to kill a mosquito. There is much more legitimate fraud taking place that really needs addressing, e.g., voter disenfranchisement. Think Florida 2000 where (mostly) black voters were removed from the register.

Yes that's the point I've been making. No-one ever stole an election by going around from polling station to polling station casting a single in person vote at each and hoping the real voter who's name they have hasn't got there first. After voter ID requirements were introduced in the UK by the Conservatives their Leader of the House of Commons at the time it was introduced Jacob Rees-Mogg admited on camera that the intention had been to make it harder for groups that don't usually vote for them to vote & easier for their voters. It backfired on them, badly.

 

[Safe-Keeper]

I have to admit, as a non-American, the idea of voting being a kind of honour system is pretty mind-boggling to me, especially when you also have to register to vote beforehand, which just seems really self-contradictory to me. Imagine a system where any 17-year old can walk into a bar, say their name is John Smith, and have the bartender find that name on a list and go 'yeah, sure, I see you're 25, no problem, here's your beer'. Or a traffic stop where someone claims to be someone they know to have a driver's license and the cop just takes them at their word.

If the issue is that too many people don't have ID, obviously the immediate solution is to make it commonplace for 'everyone' to have some kind of identification. Roll out national ID cards for everyone, make it so driver's licenses can be used as ID if they can't already, use one of the secure apps that already exist.

 

[Random]

I have to admit, as a non-American, the idea of voting being a kind of honour system is pretty mind-boggling to me, especially when you also have to register to vote beforehand, which just seems really self-contradictory to me. Imagine a system where any 17-year old can walk into a bar, say their name is John Smith, and have the bartender find that name on a list and go 'yeah, sure, I see you're 25, no problem, here's your beer'. Or a traffic stop where someone claims to be someone they know to have a driver's license and the cop just takes them at their word.

If the issue is that too many people don't have ID, obviously the immediate solution is to make it commonplace for 'everyone' to have some kind of identification. Roll out national ID cards for everyone, make it so driver's licenses can be used as ID if they can't already, use one of the secure apps that already exist.

Ideally that would be the solution, but it is about motives, not reason. The people who are really pushing for voter ID are doing it the make it harder for certain people to vote. Giving everyone ID defeats the purpose, so....

 

[Segnosaur]

I have to admit, as a non-American, the idea of voting being a kind of honour system is pretty mind-boggling to me...

Except of course its not an honor system. When you vote your name is verified against a list of registered voters, and there are significant penalties for someone who engages in the type of identity fraud that photo ID laws are supposed to prevent. (Also pretty easy to catch, if you show up at a polling station and the actual voter has already voted.)

If the issue is that too many people don't have ID, obviously the immediate solution is to make it commonplace for 'everyone' to have some kind of identification.

In the approximately 5 years that Trump has been president, the Republican Klan has worked to cut spending on: meals on wheels, school lunch programs, college aid, and the national endowment for the arts. I am sure that if the government tries to make an easy-to-get identification, the first thing the republicans will do is to cut funding specifically to make the identification hard-to-get.

In fact we have already seen that, in at least one republican controlled state where they closed multiple DMV offices (where you would supposedly get your 'voter ID' in districts that have a large proportion of minorities.

Roll out national ID cards for everyone, make it so driver's licenses can be used as ID if they can't already,

Ummm, pretty much ever state that requires photo ID for voting allows you to use a driver's license.

But here is the problem... if you are wealth and/or middle class, you will probably have a driver's license by default because, well, you probably own a car. If you have a lower income and cannot afford a car, then you will likely not want to spend the money to get a license that you will never use.

use one of the secure apps that already exist.

Not really sure what you mean by that.