Strict Id Laws Don’t Stop Voters: Evidence from a U.S. Nationwide Panel

This will be true provided that states make an effort to assure that all can obtain the required ID, for free (any fee to vote would violate the 24th Amendment) and don&#x27;t play games to try to make it harder for some groups than others.<p>Examples of ways to put your thumb on the scale:<p>* refuse to accept college IDs as valid for voting, even those issued by the state government because it&#x27;s a state school (college students are more likely to vote for the &quot;wrong&quot; party). Hunting licenses? Cool (people with hunting licenses are more likely to vote for the &quot;right&quot; party).<p>* prevent college students who live most of the year in-state, and can prove it, but have an out-of-state driver&#x27;s license, from voting.<p>* place extra hoops on people whose name doesn&#x27;t match their birth certificate, make them produce every document with every change and toss their registration if there&#x27;s a typo (this mainly affects married women, who are more likely to vote for the &quot;wrong&quot; party). This is an effective way to disenfranchise a lot of older women who don&#x27;t have a current driver&#x27;s license.<p>* close as many DMV offices as you can in counties where people don&#x27;t vote your way, restrict the hours on the remaining offices.

The title should have been &quot;Strong mobilization efforts needed to neutralize voter turnout reduction of ID laws&quot;, because that&#x27;s what the data in their abstract <i>actually</i> says.

I am amazed about low level od voter authentication in the USA. Living in Europe, we get national ID card when we turn 18. Everyone gets it. It is not hard to get it, it does not cost anything, even mentally challenged people get it. When there is an election, you need to show up with your ID card on voting place close to your residence - you cannot show in any voting place but one assigned to you. There they have a printed list with names of all eligible voters in the area, they check your ID card and you vote. When the votes are counted, any ordinary citizen can be present and verify the counts, providing he has registered in advance to be present at vote counting. Empty ballots are counted and verified against number od people that did not show up. American elections seem like a joke.

Honestly, that&#x27;s not even the biggest problem.<p>Here in Australia, there are so many checks and balances when it comes to counting votes that it actually disgusted me when I heard some of the games various entities were playing in your last presidential election. The fact that the number of votes cast wasn&#x27;t released until results were tallied and they kept &quot;finding&quot; more to count was perplexing. That partisan orgs like unions were given the contract to do the counting was also a really strange thing to do. And that scrutineers were kicked out in places was a disgusting act, here they by law must be allowed to watch everything regardless of political affiliation.<p>We also do not let counters out of the room until everything has been counted and accounted for and have multiple checks along the way to make sure nothing has been lost or added. Seems statistically unlikely to me that individual fraud would make any difference in US elections given how decentralised it is, if anything was happening it&#x27;d be powerful players controlling who is counting and how they are deciding which votes count and which don&#x27;t.

I lived in a state that made it insanely difficult to register to vote, but easy to vote. Registration required two forms of ID, one with your picture, both with address.<p>A while ago, the state changed the rules so that one form of ID was required to register (photo required) and one form of ID required to vote (photo required).<p>This made registering much, much easier, which made voting much much easier, especially for young people.<p>There was national freak out over this. HOLY FUCKING SHIT THE REPUBLICANS ARE REQUIRING IDS TO VOTE! YOUNG PEOPLE AND MINORITIES WONT BE ABLE TO VOTE!<p>Voting rates went up, especially among the young. The only people who had problems were very elderly people who had lived at the same address for long time (no need to register) and we’re had stopped driving. Most were Republican.<p>Partisan organizations released non-peer reviewed studies showing the vote was superseded. Partisan publications (for example, Mother Jones) treated these press releases as fact, but mainstream fact checkers pointed out they were bullshit. They have since been largely scrubbed from the Internet.<p>I can’t imagine why it’s OK to require two forms of ID to register (a consensus position as of 2007 or so), but requiring a single ID to register and vote is a human rights violation.

I&#x27;d love to read the actual paper, not just the abstract.<p>The statement near the end of the abstract - &quot;Finally, strict ID requirements have no effect on fraud, actual or perceived.&quot; - seems surprising to me, and I&#x27;d like to see how they arrived at that conclusion.

To me the much bigger problem is this idea of putting inside people on the certification boards, saying the results are laced with fraud and flipping the election to the state legislators. How do you fix that?

What this doesn&#x27;t take into account is the degree to which introducing such requirements can more easily be exploited in future to introduce barriers to voting. We&#x27;ve already seen how far some people are willing to go to undermine the integrity of elections.<p>This means the real question is, to what extent does the current system contribute to integrity issues? So far, there doesn&#x27;t seem to be much evidence that it does. So, what is the rationale for introducing additional ID requirements, beyond what already exists via voter registration, matching at the polls, etc.?

Oh, I&#x27;ve just read on axios about the new &quot;voting rights&quot; bill. As expected, the bill is a book-worth of boilerplate that obscures the important details, but if you search for &quot;identification&quot;, you&#x27;ll see what they&#x27;re trying to do there.<p>Again, if this is how software was developed, this bill would be a pull request with 5000 changed files and a million changed lines, mostly refactoring, but there will be a few tiny changes that break the security model. Of course, when you try to point this out, they try to shout you down.

If third world nations can have national voter IDs (some mandate you vote as well), then there’s no excuse that we can’t do the same: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Voter_identification_laws" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Voter_identification_laws</a><p>You need an ID to drive, buy alcohol&#x2F;tobacco, get on an airplane, get state&#x2F;federal benefits, apply for a bank account or loan, but somehow you aren’t required to prove your identity when voting everywhere in this country.

In New Zealand you have to register months in advanced, you receive a voting ID in the mail and you use this to vote in person along with (from memory one form of ID)<p>You can register on the spot but you need both ID and proof of address.<p>Also telling anyone who you voted for on the day is illegal. You can not post about it, because all party voting advertising is banned on the day.<p>I find this funny when Americans argue about things we figured out in the 90s.<p>We also have MMP which means you have more than one party so for example Bernie would have his own party.

&gt;<i>...and +1.4 percentage points for the effect on the turnout of nonwhite voters relative to whites</i><p>&gt;<i>the likelihood that nonwhite voters were contacted by a campaign increases by 4.7 percentage points, suggesting that parties’ mobilization might have offset modest effects of the laws on the participation of ethnic minorities.</i><p>So, what they&#x27;re saying here is that increased efforts to contact minority voters (ostensibly endeavored because the laws were interpreted as punitive towards that group) may have resulted in a slight increase in turnout sufficient to overcome suppressed numbers.<p>There is also anecdotal evidence that these laws make some in groups who feel targeted by them more determined to vote as a matter of principle (irrespective of campaign outreach efforts).<p>At the end of the day, however, the requirement that some voters wield outsized determination is not exculpatory for those who seek to disenfranchise them, and these efforts don&#x27;t stop with voter ID laws. Poll location closures leading to massive overcrowding and long waits in select areas; outlawing efforts to make those who wait more comfortable by, for example, providing water; attenuated hours at select locations; weekend closings; outlawing Sunday&#x2F;church-sponsored efforts to vote; curtailing of mail-in ballots, etc are just some of the surgically targeted tactics employed.

Doesn&#x27;t pass the smell test. There is a group spending a lot of time doing this. Do you think it&#x27;s because it makes no difference, and they&#x27;re just having fun?

They don&#x27;t stop fraud, either. A common form of double voting is among voters who have multiple homes voting in more than one place.

As a person not from States: It is insane to see elections without ID verification. If having a document to verify your identity is &quot;too big of a hassle&quot; to vote - not sure that qualifies voter too choose future for their country

there is an obvious compromise here - require voter ID but only in counties where enough registered voters (say over 95%) have one. Regardless of voting, people not having an ID is a serious problem local governments must solve.

This seems like a bit of a departure from one of the authors’ papers from 2017(1). I wonder what the big differences are that somehow the US is immune to disenfranchisement but France isn’t.<p>1. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;scholar.google.com&#x2F;scholar?q=author:%22Pons%20Vincent%22#d=gs_qabs&amp;u=%23p%3DKq0AbvN5fUMJ" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;scholar.google.com&#x2F;scholar?q=author:%22Pons%20Vincen...</a>

We already knew that: everywhere in the West, bar English speaking countries, you must show an ID to vote.

I recall in the 2016 election here in NJ I went to vote (we are in a deep red town).<p>Despite the fact that I voted in multiple cycles in the same town and polling place and the ladies working at the polling station remain unchanged over the years, because my signature was slightly off from the ones in their records they started saying out loud &quot;hey wait a minute this does not seem legit&quot;.<p>They started getting visibly angry and I started getting terrified because I am not white and there were a bunch of semi angry looking Trump people in the room with us.<p>They asked me for another form of ID so I showed them my drivers license and then they were like &quot;OK all is well&quot; and calmed down.<p>But still that experience of fear is what I imagine is going to prevent people from coming out to vote, especially in districts where Democrats haven&#x27;t provided any meaningful reform when they have been in office(see rural areas getting killed under Clinton&#x2F;Obama). If you combine an electorate that is already discouraged + the fear of altercation it spells doom in the long term.<p>This culture of fear is what the Republicans want and its what they need to hold on to power amid changing demographics. They will strip the government of every last thing they possibly can on their way out of relevance.<p>I won&#x27;t ever give up my right to vote but would I have fought back if they continued pressing the issue? Would I accepted a provisional ballot that may result in my vote being thrown into the trash or becoming ineffective on election day? I don&#x27;t really know.

When push comes to shove, this whole ID argument is just shenanigans of blue vs. red, and everyone knows it. Nobody trusts their vote, and nobody even <i>cares</i> about their vote--it&#x27;s the party they least dislike.

This doesn&#x27;t really gel with the observed increase in voter turnout in states with mail in voting. Anyone want to square that circle?

ID laws aren&#x27;t really a debate at this point. The overwhelming majority of Americans are in favor of showing some sort of ID to vote as long as said ID is free (i.e. being poor isn&#x27;t a possible impediment to voting). By &#x27;free&#x27;, that means free or reasonably free of time as well. People working multiple jobs with children simply don&#x27;t have time to wait down at the DMV for three hours (if you&#x27;re lucky) to be able to vote.

It’s as if opposing voter ID has never made any sense and only increased suspicion of the people who oppose it.

This makes sense for many reasons.<p>Yet, it makes completely sense for the Democrats to highlight that the Republicans are the ones who are trying to prevent absolutely legitimate citizens from voting because they are an anti Democratic Party.<p>Because between 2 groups, one which prefers more citizens voting and one which tries to win by preventing citizens from voting, it’s good that the group that encourages citizens to vote wins.

It truly boggles my mind that the US has such a backwards stance on government issued IDs.<p>Whatever argument you have about why this is a good thing is utterly lacking in substance, because the US has a defacto ID and it&#x27;s horrendously bad (talking about that SSN).<p>Just issue a proper ID system for goodness sake, what a stupid set of problems to have in the modern era :&#x2F;

Why have IDs for anything?

Voter ID laws don&#x27;t deter voters and vote suppression schemes can hurt the constituency of whoever is doing the suppressing. That makes me wonder what endgame current proponents of tightening laws and auditing results have in mind.

If people wanted to <i>encourage</i> voting, it&#x27;s hard to beat Oregon&#x27;s system in the US. There is very little fraud.

We can only see the abstract, sadly, so it&#x27;s hard to say what it&#x27;s actually found. But, I disagree with the headline, for several reasons.<p>1. Requiring ID to vote requires definition. The various laws hastily passed in the wake of the 2020 election are not all the same. For example, Texas allows you to use a gun club membership as ID but not a student ID [1]. Other states have different requirements for allowed IDs;<p>2. There&#x27;s absolutely no evidence this is even necessary. Example: less than two dozen cases of voter fraud from 2020 [2]. Different states have different numbers but over the years we&#x27;re talking about possibly hundreds of cases;<p>3. Strict ID requirements are merely one aspect of an overall and coordinated effort of voter suppression by GOP-led state governments aimed at people who tend to vote Democrat.<p>4. Voter suppression is endemic within the GOP. Example: the Ballot Security Task Force [3] that resulted in a consent decree with the Federal government to try and curb voter suppression. There is a long history, particularly in the southern states in the post-slavery era of denying the right to vote to African Americans through requirements such as owning property or literacy tests not required by white voters;<p>5. The GOP is by far the biggest source of voter suppression but it doesn&#x27;t have a monopoly. Example: efforts by the Gore campaign in Florida in 2000 to invalidate military ballots [4]. Note that such efforts are generally wildly unpopular even in the Demoratic voter base.<p>6. Margins of error in the effects of voter suppression being well less than 1% doesn&#x27;t mean they aren&#x27;t significant. That can swing elections.<p>7. The rush by GOP-led state houses to pass voter suppression bills under the guise of election integrity should be taken as evidence of the effectiveness of the measures;<p>8. The intangible part of these voter suppression efforts is to deter minority voters from going to the polls and also as virtue signaling to the Republican base;<p>9. Even though state IDs themselves can be free the supporting documentation might not be. There are a significant number of Americans who don&#x27;t, say, have a valid birth certificate. Getting such documents if you were born, say, on a Native American reservation can be extremely difficult. Even if you can get all that, it&#x27;s often painful to even get various forms of IDs. You might have to travel far out of your way and spend half a day or more to get such ID. Some people have the flexibility with work. Some do not; and<p>9. Poll access isn&#x27;t universal. Certain areas may have limited polling places that mean queueing for hours whereas others might allow you to vote within minutes.<p>All of this is why mandatory voting is so important. It fundamentally undermines democracies if the election process itself is politicized. You see this as some states have given the authority to overturn election results by a political figure (eg the Secretary of State).<p>Denying the right to vote to convicted felons is an example of something that sounds noble but is nothing more than a form of legal voter suppression.<p>In Australia, elections are organized by a quasi-government body, the Australian Electoral Commission (&quot;AEC&quot;). You vote on a Saturday so polling places are easy to find (ie schools). In your registered district your name will be in a book and when you show up they just cross off your name. Voting out of district doesn&#x27;t require any special procedure. You simply fill out your details and these are consolidated later to ensure you didn&#x27;t vote twice.<p>It&#x27;s worth repeating that Democrats aren&#x27;t necessarily against any form of voter ID as this straw man argument is used a lot. There are degrees of voter ID and allowing a gun club membership card while disallowing a university student ID is clearly intended to target Democratic-leaning voters so it should be exposed for what it is.<p>[1]: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.statesman.com&#x2F;news&#x2F;20160923&#x2F;politifact-take-gun-license-but-not-student-id-to-texas-polls" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.statesman.com&#x2F;news&#x2F;20160923&#x2F;politifact-take-gun-...</a><p>[2]: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.washingtonpost.com&#x2F;politics&#x2F;2021&#x2F;05&#x2F;04&#x2F;despite-gop-rhetoric-there-have-been-fewer-than-two-dozen-charged-cases-voter-fraud-since-election&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.washingtonpost.com&#x2F;politics&#x2F;2021&#x2F;05&#x2F;04&#x2F;despite-g...</a><p>[3]: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Ballot_Security_Task_Force" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Ballot_Security_Task_Force</a><p>[4]: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.cnn.com&#x2F;2015&#x2F;11&#x2F;02&#x2F;politics&#x2F;bush-gore-military-ballots&#x2F;index.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.cnn.com&#x2F;2015&#x2F;11&#x2F;02&#x2F;politics&#x2F;bush-gore-military-b...</a>

A pastebin, please.

Already got forbidden from the URL.