The Voter's PollFollow

They need to hurry up and start implementing the thumb print and/or retina scanners. Problem solved!

Thank you for voting, Miss Smith. May we also take this opportunity to congratulate you on your pregnancy? Hmm, it seems you're not getting enough potassium in your diet. That's not good for the baby.

I went with the wishy-washy middle option as I haven't really been following the arguments. On the face, I'm not against it but the devil is in the details and perhaps someone has a good argument which would sway me to the other side.

In the Land of Lincoln, when you go to vote, they first ask your name. If you're on the rolls for the precinct, they look up your ticket (which has a digital copy of your signature from when you registered) and have you sign. So long as the two signatures reasonably match, you're golden. If it's in question, the five election judges there take a quick vote on if it matches or not. Even if 3:2 say "No", you can request a provisional ballot and it goes to the county clerk's office where they worry about handwriting analysis or whatever criteria they use. If the person can provide ID, they'd get a regular ballot instead of a provisional one so breaking your hand isn't an automatic out.

There's bunch of side paths down the flowchart for other issues (changed address, wrong precinct, etc) but the basic means of identification is your signature. While you personally might be able to forge your buddy's name and vote for him, it seems unlikely that you'd see wide-scale voter identity fraud.

Edited, Jan 9th 2008 10:36am by Jophiel

It wouldn't be overly difficult to provide for getting one in county buildings or even local municipal offices.Want or need isn't really a factor. If you want to vote and a card is required than you need to get a card. I don't need a library card until the time comes when I want to get books from the library. Even if I feel that it's wallet-clutter 99.995% of the time, that's not an argument for me being exempt from needing a card.The main impression I came away with yesterday after my couple hours of election judge training was that the State of Illinois really wants you to be able to vote. Normal ballot machines, special handicapped ballot machines, early voting, abstentee voting, provisional voting... hell, we'll come out to the curb and let you vote in your car if you're not able to make it into the building. The only circumstance I can think of where you'd walk away from the polling place (as is) empty-handed would be if your name was already marked as having voted. I guess my point is that I don't think that those are insurmountable obstacles.

But, like I said, it's all in the plan. If asked "Is it okay to require a card?", I lean towards "Yes". But any number of details in the plan could make me say "This isn't good". Personally, requiring a card wouldn't make me take to the streets, but I think the system we have here now is perfectly functional and a change would be unneeded expense for a very slim benefit.

Sort of on this topic, this is the very reason I am hesitant (almost to the point of refusal) to give blood. As it stands, they can freely document your DNA simply by donating. Oh, 4th Amendment, how I miss thee!.

That and my near-phobia of needles, but that's beside the point.

Voting is the right of the citizenry. The alive citizenry. The alive, legal citizenry. If you can't prove you are a member of that group, f'uck off.

Of course, if it were up to me, only land-owning, gun-toting white males over the age of 16 would be able to vote, so I'm obviously an ultra-right-wing fascist.

EDIT: As far as ID goes, you can't legally work (or collect a whole lot of federal poor people checks) in this country without a social security number. Put a picture on it, stamp it citizen or other and be done with it. Hardship averted.

Edited, Jan 9th 2008 1:25pm by MoebiusLord

I never understood what the big deal is with a government ID.


I'm not talking about the connection of said ID and voting. A conspiracy theorist at work, who's got some eccentric beliefs, was ranting about it the other day, but I ignored him.

I've ran into several people who are completely against the idea of a government ID. If anything, it will streamline a lot of processes particularly for out-of-state residents. I guess people just don't like the government having a huge list of names, but honestly, if they wanted your personal info, they'd make the state cough it up. I really don't see the difference.


For security reasons, particularly with the rise of identity theft, the SSN should be left off of it. Many states have removed the SSN from drivers licenses and state photo ID's.

The only real downside I see to it, is that it gives the wrong kind of people another opportunity to make a fake official ID.






EDIT: Rewording.

Edited, Jan 9th 2008 1:06pm by Rimesume

I've ran into several people who are completely against the idea of a government ID. If anything, it will streamline a lot of processes

Particularly the building and referencing of large databases of personal information. Oh wait. That's all it'll do.

Any progress in nationalizing voting standards is good of itself.

Again, no it isn't. The party in federal power will perpetually pass laws to skew election results to their advantage. If you think gerrymandering is bad, give Congress control over election laws.

You think said data base doesn't already exist?

I know it exists. I also know that the primary reason it's not constantly misused is the difficulty of accessing it, primarily because of the lack of uniform personal credentials.

Trust me on this, I know more about this issue than you, and my opinion isn't based on misinformation or lack of understanding.

I believe they should have an Id card that would essentially act as a faster way to be able to vote. Just swipe your card and head into the booth.

I'd like them NOT to make it mandatory, however, and allow voters to register the slower way as well.



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In news related to another recent thread:



My laptop has a fingerprint scanner on it. It rocks.

I was amazed when I moved to Kalifornia to discover I could walk into a polling place, look down at the voter registration sheet, point at my name, and go in and vote. The blue hair manning the desk didn't know me-- after all, I'm not part of her knitting circle or hanging out with the shuffle board clubbers --and didn't seem to care who I was.

Mind you, I think the chance of an organized group subverting an election is highly remote (on the order of me winning the lottery, even when I don't buy tickets), but still, the integrity of the process demands that one man, one vote be just that. I could have easily waited until another oldster took her place, gone back in and influenced a local election. Even more so, when you consider that there are a large number of polling stations in my town of 10,000 people. For that matter, I could easily go to a succession of polling locations and voted a number of times.

Convicted felons are not allowed to vote, nor are underaged, or unregistered voters, yet there is nothing in place to stop it from happening, should it occur. It seems the simple solution is to require an ID, poor people be damned. The number of people who don't have any identification is negligable. Moreover, if they can't be bothered to get some identification in this society, they prolly couldn't be bothered to go out and vote anyway.

Totem

That does sound pretty casual.Maybe not there. You'd probably have a harder time with it here.