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zbbrox t1_irw59s9 wrote

I mean, yeah, it is, because over here it's usually used to try and disenfranchise minority voters. Combine voter ID laws with, A: free state-issued IDs, and B: automatic voter registration, and then it would make sense. But usually the people pushing ID laws don't want those things, because what they want it to reduce the number of minority voters.

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paleale25 t1_irw5ma8 wrote

My state tried to offer free state issued one and people still didn't like that

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zbbrox t1_irw6f3p wrote

Well, I listed two conditions, because barriers to participation come in both the forms of money and also time/knowledge. Voter ID laws consistently reduce voter participation, so you need to make voting easier to balance that out.

Also, it's worth pointing out that "free" IDs often aren't actually free -- you need to pay for things like birth certificates, you may need to take a day off work to go down to the social security office to get a social security card, etc.

And, further, a lot of ID laws are actually written in ways that are designed to specifically target minority communities (e.g., through the choice of what forms of ID to allow or disallow).

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Veythrice t1_irx6tvs wrote

None of anything you have said actually impacts voter registration. Birth certificates and SSNs are confered at the earliest point of legalhood. Almost 18 yrs before anyone needs to vote.

Voter ID has no impact on turnouts and a majority of Americans 70%> support voter ID laws including minorities. White Democrats have the lowest support for IDs in the party.

>https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3446516

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zbbrox t1_irxag42 wrote

I think you're misunderstanding. Birth certificates and social security cards (not numbers) are commonly required to get the "free" IDs proposed in these laws. Many people don't have paper social security cards or birth certificates on file at home and need to go and get copies in order to provide evidence of their identity when requesting an ID. That costs time and money.

Saying that "Voter ID has no impact on turnouts" is false. Your source for that is not actually a study of impact on turnout -- they claim to find that only a small amount of voting occurs without ID, and thus assume the impact *must* be small. But it's worth noting that "small" here still means 0.1 - 0.31% -- more than enough to swing a close election, and potentially disenfranchising many thousands of voters.

There have been many studies on this, with some finding a negative effect of several percent. You can browse through some of them here: https://electionlab.mit.edu/research/voter-identification

It's worth noting that the reason for enacting these laws is, in itself, the hope that it will favor Republicans. Voter fraud is vanishingly rare, and when it occurs, IDs are unlikely to prevent it. These laws are pushed by Republicans, and almost always in states where Republican control is threatened by large non-White populations. Exactly how effective it is is open for debate, but favoring Republicans is the point.

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Veythrice t1_iryxrr5 wrote

All americans are issued paper documents automatically at birth and ID in many states with voter laws count for anything including bank statements and utility bills.

Do not misrepresent the source. The 0.31% is the most extreme rendition of the people who have been shown to vote without IDs in states that require it.

Again, do not misrepresent your own links. You have deliberately ignored the studies also finding a positive result in turnout of the same several percentage points directly linked in the same paper. The consenus is a null effect.

Majority of voters back ID laws including democrats. Georgia was the most recent state in which the majority went to the polls and willingly voted for ID laws.

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zbbrox t1_irz10ej wrote

>All americans are issued paper documents automatically at birth and ID in many states with voter laws count for anything including bank statements and utility bills.

1: Yes, at birth. How many adults still have those things lying around? I know I've needed new copies before. This is an obvious financial barrier you're pretending doesn't exist because it suits you.

2: In many states, sure, but not all of them, you're just hand-waving things away based on what might happen in an ideal situation.

3: Regardless of any of this, there is absolutely no reason not to pair the ID requirement with automatic registration except malicious opposition to voting rights.

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>Do not misrepresent the source. The 0.31% is the most extreme rendition of the people who have been shown to vote without IDs in states that require it.

That's... exactly what I said. I said that it found rates between 0.1% and 0.31%. Hence 0.31% being the highest. It was you that misrepresented the studies by claiming they found no impact!

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kalasea2001 t1_irz5khf wrote

It's all a moot point anyway because voter fraud practically doesn't exist and the only extremely rare cases they find are Repubs who have ID but choose to try to cheat.

No real problem = no need to make new laws

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Veythrice t1_irzcrms wrote

Near totality of american adults have those documents. They are integral parts of being an adult, signing up for credit cards, tax payments, product purchases, renting, venue admissions etc.

That is not an ideal cooked up scenario, its the working law in majority of states. Majority of Americans use these methods on a daily basis.

Please dont read abstracts then come to your own conclusions. The studies including yours literally says so. The effect is null. Are you currently now arguing also against your own link? Or you will just keep picking and choosing paragraphs to ignore?

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darkbee83 t1_irw96c7 wrote

You are required by law to always have some form of id on you, and it's not very complicated, expensive or time consuming to get one.

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