As a non-American what's wrong with asking for voter ID? A particular party pushing for open border and waving voter ID requirement seems like a ploy to influence the election. I am open to hear how people can justify both of these policies at at the same time.
Nobody is pushing for an "open border" and the absence of a voter ID leading to fraud is just a dumb conspiracy theory promoted by people that are ignorant of how elections actually work.
All voters need to be registered in the first place at which point they verify your identify, your ability to legally cast a ballot, and your address (falsely registering is a felony in most jurisdictions). On voting day, you show up to the correct precinct and tell the administrator your name, they typically verify that your address is correct and then you can cast a ballot. Casting a fraudulent ballot is also a felony.
So the theory is what? That all of these illegal immigrants are going to register to vote? They wouldn't be allowed to register as non-citizens and falsely attesting is a crime. They would show up on election day and cast a ballot under their own name? They're not registered, so their votes wouldn't be counted. That they're going to imitate an actual voter on election day? Instant felony which is easily caught if the real voter shows up at any point to cast their own ballot. That they're going to intercept the mail-in ballots somehow? Again, when real voters figure out their ballots are missing but votes are recorded in their name, the fakes would be immediately found out.
When the states advocating for voting IDs have a long history of race-based voter suppression, analysis shows the ID mandates have race-based impacts that would suppress votes, and there isn't an actual "attack surface" that would be solved with voting IDs, it's clear it's just a transparent attempt to suppress votes.
Not everyone has ID that meets the requirements laid out by voter ID proposals, and sometimes getting those IDs can be extremely expensive. Defenders like to say that the ID is free but when you point out the cost of getting birth certificates and proof of name change (common in marriage) they disappear quick.
And if it can't be shown that the number of people prevented from voting is fewer than the number of fraudulent votes, the policy is bad and should not be pursued.
Opponents of voter ID never seem to address the fact that Americans need a valid drivers license or state ID to do virtually anything as an adult in America. Including, but not at all limited to:
- Opening/accessing a bank account
- Driving a vehicle
- Requesting government assistance
- Renting or buying a home
- Getting married
- Buying tobacco/alcohol/cannabis
- Registering children for school
- Getting a hotel room
- Getting a cell phone
Where are these mythical minorities who want to participate in absolutely nothing else in American life except for voting?
Plenty of people haven't done any of those things in years. I don't think my grandmother had any reason to show id during her last few decades of life, and why should a possibly expired id be cause to prevent her from voting?
This is addressed elsewhere in the discussion. Access to ID is inequitable. So you need to either be willing to fund the solutions to that problem, or at least show that the supposed voter fraud problem is worse than the ID inequity problem, and neither has happened.
