scrubbedexpat099

After spending now 3 days not being able to access Connect for Colorado, I just wondered how the people who support this and who are the same people who oppose photo ID for voting justify their positions?

Bluegrass Lass

I'm not sure the two positions are related Boiler. I'm for the ACA (but I know it's far from perfect), but I am also for photo id for voting. I grew up in KY, and it's always been the norm to show photo id in order to vote, so I really don't understand what the big deal is about it.

I hope the CO site comes back up for you soon!

scrubbedexpat099

They sent me an e mail saying it was screwed up, but they are working on it.

Just made me thin, Photo ID easy, Obamacare pain in the but.

jeffreyhy

Today I agree with you - having had a drivers license with a photo on it for a while now, I don't see what the big deal is. But I might change my mind in the future when I get too old to drive. I suppose it could be argued though, that if one is too old to drive and can't otherwise get to a location to obtain a photo ID, how are they going to get to a location to vote? Oh, wait - polling places are usually local, while in many areas the nearest agency to obtain a photo ID can be hours away ... Of course, one can always fall back on the arguement that if one has become too old and feeble to drive they're probably also too feeble minded to vote inteligently. Not that all people of sound mind and body vote inteligently ...

I remember also that when I first started driving, the state I lived in issued drivers licenses either with or without a photo. People in their 20s would want the photo drivers license, so they could obtain alcohol, but the rest of us enjoyed the convenience of renewing our licenses by mail and had the non-photo licenses. I still have fond memories of the security officer at the airport who demanded to see my drivers license to get into the secure gate area. I told him, no you don't want to see my drivers license. He continued to demand my drivers license, so I showed it to him. He ultimately agreed to accept my company ID badge.

Regards, JEff

jeffreyhy

So, prior to Obamacare, people who did not have medical insurance through an employer had an easy time finding insurance?

Let's compare apples to apples - how easy was it to find medical insurance before Obamacare v. how easy will it be to find medical insurance going forward with Obamacare. However the comparison works out to be - easier, harder, or same-same. Different people will likely have different results.

Regards, JEff

Lord PercyPercy

It still blows my mind that in some states they don't even require ID, California and Vermont being two of them I believe.

I have no problem with Photo ID for voting, but that may be because I already have one and I'm not going to have to fork out money just for that privilege. I can imagine if I did not have one and there was no way I could afford to get one, I would be rather aggrieved.

sir_eccles

Terrible false equivalence argument.

In regards to voting most sane people would agree that it is a good idea that only people properly registered to vote should be allowed to vote and further that there need to be reasonable checks and balances to ensure only those eligible can register.

On the other hand it is unconstitutional to have a poll tax on voting. Is the need to acquire photo ID an unreasonable burden? For those who can take time off work to sit at the DMV for three hours and pay however much it is and present the however many different forms of ID with your address on needed for a drivers license/ID card to be issued, probably not. For those that can't find their birth certificate and have to first pay for a new certified copy, have to beg and plead with their boss not to fire them while they take the time off, perhaps don't have the money to pay the fee, not so easy is it?

Anian

I never needed to show any ID when I voted in the UK.

It has not been shown that widespread voter fraud has ever occurred, so you know there are political reasons for people trying to implement it.

Sally Redux

Of course there are.

What a pathetic thread.

sir_eccles

In fact most of the voting fraud that has been shown to exist is by the parties themselves: gerrymandering, lying about election dates, tampering with electronic voting machines, reducing voting hours, contesting provisional ballots etc etc.

paddingtongreen

Let's be very clear here, the requirement is not just for photo ID, it is for certain government supplied photo IDs, but not all government supplied photo IDs. In Texas, for example, a gun license can be used but a student ID from a state college cannot.

Lord PercyPercy

It's almost as if the gun owner demographic is more favorable than the student one...

Pulaski

Well that's a circular argument if there ever was one, because at the moment there are no reliable records because ID is not required, so we don't know who voted and using whose voting registration?

Perhaps the answer is to beef up security around mail-in votes, and require each in-person voter to have one digit stained (one specific digit, doesn't matter which so long as it's consistent for everyone) with indelible ink, as is used in some other countries, so that at least we could be reasonably sure it is only possible to vote once.

RoadWarriorFromLP

Voting is a right.

The US does not have a carte identite requirement, ala France.

An ID card costs money.

In essence, requiring an ID is akin to having a poll tax (US definition, i.e. a fee that has to be paid for voting.)

Poll taxes are unconstitutional, per the 24th amendment. ("The right of citizens of the United States to vote in any primary or other election for President or Vice President, for electors for President or Vice President, or for Senator or Representative in Congress, shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State by reason of failure to pay any poll tax or other tax.")

You would think that an ID requirement would therefore be unconstitutional. Yet it isn't. Perhaps one day, a liberal court will right this wrong.

It also helps to remember that obstructions to voting were a central part of Jim Crow legislation. In this country, voting restrictions have a nasty legacy of racism attached to them.

And it's no coincidence that it's the red states that are most eager to have ID requirements -- they don't want certain kinds of people to vote. Some things never change.

RoadWarriorFromLP

For some, it was easy. For others, it was not.

I am personally benefiting from the new law. Without it, I would not be able to change insurance carriers, because I now have a pre-existing condition that I didn't have when I first obtained the policy. (I went from being easily insurable to uninsurable at the drop of a hat.)

And my premiums will be dropping. To call them "affordable" is a stretch, but they will be less unaffordable than they are now.