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Voter Registration
VOTER REGISTRATION....Matt Yglesias seconds Rick Hasen's proposal to make ACORN's registration drives (and the quadrennial conservative meltdown over them) obsolete by just having the federal government do it:
The solution is to take the job of voter registration for federal elections out of the hands of third parties (and out of the hands of the counties and states) and give it to the federal government....The next president should propose legislation to have the Census Bureau, when it conducts the 2010 census, also register all eligible voters who wish to be registered for future federal elections....When people submit change-of-address cards to the post office, election officials would also change their registration information.
I'd go even further: implement a national ID and give one to everybody, free of charge. You get it when you turn 18 (or whatever), and you get a free update every five years (or whatever). Post offices would handle most of the work, and roving mobile vans would trek through rural areas periodically to make sure everyone has easy access to whichever federal agency is tasked with providing the cards. Instead of simply requiring people to have picture IDs, the federal government would do everything it could to make sure everyone actually has a picture ID, with as little hassle as possible. Once this was in place, everyone with an ID could vote on election day unless they were barred for some affirmative reason, which might still vary from state to state. No registration required.
This wouldn't be perfect. Nothing is perfect. But it would be a damn sight closer than the squirrelly system we have today, and the only real objection to it is that, by God, Americans will never accept national ID cards. No "showing of papers" here in the land of the free!
But this is ridiculous. For all practical purposes we already have a national ID system. The feds require virtually everyone to have a Social Security number, and virtually all state ID cards are based on that number. Your name is already in a zillion public and private databases keyed to your SSN number, and one more won't really change things much. You won't be required to show your papers any more than you already are. It will just be easier, cheaper, and more consistent for everyone — including students, the elderly, the poor, and minorities — which should make liberals happy. And if the govenrment affirmatively generates IDs free of charge for everyone, then there's no objection to requiring ID at polling places — which should make conservatives happy.
Which, come to think of it, is one reason we'll probably never do it. For a lot of people, it would take all the fun out of presidential elections.
Geez are you naive, Kevin.
As for "national ID," there's going to have to be decades of trust-building before I'd accept a national ID card, given what the current administration would have done with one.
And, given his status as a FISA 45 percenter, the "that one" from Illinois likely to be elected Tuesday hasn't raised the cockles of trust inside me very much on civil liberties issues.
Four words Kevin:
Number of the Beast
Evangelicals won't put up with making the SS number even more powerful than it already is.
I continue to fail to understand how people seem to take voter registration as an onerous process. One only fills out a simple card once (unless you move), then continues to vote.
That being said, I think this ID system could be good for a host of reasons, and even if one objects to a "national" ID, separate state ID systems could be mandated (isn't that an objective of some of the 911 commission laws?) and these could be used in lieu of a registration process.
everyone with an ID could vote on election day unless they were barred for some affirmative reason, which might still vary from state to state. No registration required
I'm not sure this part of the plan is well thought-through. One major reason for registration in the U.S. to ascertain address as much as eligibility, given that each ballot contains a multitude of nested or overlapping precincts, districts, states, and other constituencies. True centralization of voter ID would be a nightmare in some ways, given the mobility of the population. One simplification would be to abolish the Electoral College at the same time, and to institute national proportional-representation elections for the House of Representatives. But the Senate is an unamendable part of the Constitution and the local races would continue to be very vexing.
Jack,
If you had national ID's you could vote wherever you wanted. Precincts would cease to exist and you would vote according to your census information, or as updated by the postal service. Kind of amazing in my opinion.
Don't know why evangelicals would oppose anything that sped the return of their deity, but I'm no evangelical.
Good point, Mark. In effect early voting in many locations already uses that principle. I can go to any early-polling place in my county and receive a ballot for my precinct. It could extend nationally with a bit of programming ingenuity.
I don't want to get all republican on you but . . . what makes you think the government is going to do a better job than local community organizers? In spite of jhm's opinion it's actually a fairly daunting task to register and ID senior citizens and minorities in urban districts. Having local support and knowledge seems critical.
Link national ID to a stimulus check and you might make some economists, xenophobes, terrorphobes, liberals, and conservatives happy.
Mexico cleaned up their electoral system before 2000 and finally threw out the corrupt entrenched party in power for 70 years. Part of the way this happened was with a registration system quite similar to what Kevin outlines. Everyone has a government issued voter ID with a picture. The voter lists at the polls had the same pictures, too.
A national ID card carries with it mental images of the Gestapo or the KGB demanding "Papers, papers." I think you're going to have to move very carefully along these lines to avoid giving the black helicopter crowd something they can use in their heroic, never ending (except when Republicans are in office) struggle against creeping state power.
Jack,
All electoral districts are kept on Census Bureau maps and Census forms are coded to addresses which are themselves geo-coded to precincts, so if Yglesias plan is to involve the Census in the process, it would be quite easy to have the voters geographic precinct information marked on the ID card itself. (I actually work at the Census in the branch responsible for updating the precinct boundaries in our database)
I think it's a great idea. We spend enough on the Census, might as well get something else out of it. Of course it probably violates some aspect of our Title 13 (confidentiality) charter, so I doubt it will happen anytime soon.
Walker's right, but wrong. I am hopeful civil libertarians won't stand for it either.
Where are your papers citizen?
Your birth bar code tattoo is wearing off citizen, have it renewed at once.
Progressive liberal democrats, and the ACLU used to be against such things.
Glad to see that in the name of convenience, we are so ready to give up our security and liberty.
Except, of course, the one place it DOESN'T work is replacing voter registration. People with two or more residences could still vote in more than one place. People who move from state to state could vote in more than one place.
In Germany no body worries about the national ID card. It's really convenient for all sorts of situations where some sort of ID verification is needed. By law, you are required to have it, as soon as you leave home, but police don't do more than raise an eye brow if you haven't.
There is no voter registration. About six weeks before the election you get an election information letter telling you where your polling place is and with a sample ballot, so you can study it in advance. Then on election day (always a Sunday) you take your ID card, go to your polling place, stand in line (maybe two or three people in front of you), show your ID, get your ballot and an envelope and go to the booth. All a matter of five minutes.
We take democracy really serious here.
With due respect and sh*tloads of ignorance on my part Jorgen, Germany is of course one of the two canonical examples of "your papers please" and the dangers of having a national ID card.
But if you enjoy it's benefits, good on you.
jerry:
As long as you live in a democracy, an ID card is no problem. When the electorate allows the country to devolve into a dictatorship, the question of ID card is secondary.
A national ID card is fine in theory but before I'd be ok with signing up for one I'd want to make sure the following was written into the law establishing it:
1)Clear definitions about what it could and could not be used for (e.g. Voting, receiving government services, getting on a plane)
2) Clear, sensible rules that protect the ID databases, who can access it, what's required to link across the different databases that would exist in the government. (The number will show up in health databases, tax databases, credit databases, voter registration, travel, etc. I want to make sure that there are protections in place that keep people from linking all of these databases together without having a good reason to do so.)
3)Prohibitions about commercial interests requiring it use in order to receive services (it shouldn't be used as a frequent shopping card at Safeway or needed to get a cell phone or rent something at Blockbuster)
4) Clearly defined, sensible guidelines about security features (no RFID, no smart card chips, etc.)
5) Clearly defined rules about resolving mistakes, identity fraud, etc.
If congress and the new administration puts this much thought into it then you're a lot closer to a safe, workable ID system.
But it seems to me that a safe, secure ID system requires a large effort with new government laws and oversight plus a tremendous cost. Is all this really worth it just so people can vote? Wouldn't it be easier to institute universal registration as Hasen's proposing?
As long as you live in a democracy, an ID card is no problem. When the electorate allows the country to devolve into a dictatorship, the question of ID card is secondary.
Allowing the government to wiretap with needing a warrant is no problem. If they do crappy things with that, it's your fault as the citizen.
Allowing the government to search whatever/whoever/whenever is not a problem, if they go all crazy on you, look in a mirror to see who is at fault.
Allowing the government to enact zones where you can have a limited amount of free (but not anonymous) speech is A-OK. If they become deranged, it's probably because you weren't doing your job.
YMMV
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Here's an easier way:
When you file your 1040 you get a voter ID that's entered into a federal database; any dependent turning 18 before November also gets an ID.
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Voter registration fraud has checks and balances which prevent fraudulent voters from casting votes. Voting fraud isn't a problem. Election fraud, by caging and purging legitimate citizens from the rolls and preventing lawful ballots being cast, IS A PROBLEM!
I'm outraged that on the eve of getting rid of the most corrupt administration in the history of the country, we fail to have learned (much less recognize) the danger of a government that has legalized carte blanche invasions into citizens' privacy. Now, we're on the brink of electing Barack Obama, a moderate-Republican-running-as-a-Democrat, President who intends as a cost savings measure to put our medical records online, and Kevin Drum thinks it's all good. [How, again, are you a progressive Democrat, Kevin Drum?]
Let's see the newly elected roll back the Bush laws, prevent corporations from accessing our information without our express permission, and unplug the NSA's wiretapping of citizens, and then I'll consider National ID cards.
You're an enabler for Republicans, Kevin Drum, and I suspect that a President Obama will, like Bill Clinton before him, will yield on Democrats' positions to get past Congressional gridlock (especially if Tuesday doesn't yield a 60-plus Democratic majority in the Senate) - He will govern as if the campaign for his reelection in 2012 had already begun, and once again, the people of the US will be screwed over in the name of one man's, one party's, personal ambition.
So, in Denmark we get an "election card" about 2 weeks in advance of an election. Tells you where to go and when and what the election is about; city council, regional counsil, parliament, whatever.
Come The Day of Democracy you bring your "card", some sort of proper ID - i.e. drivers license, passport, social security card - and you vote.
Usually no one asks for any ID, the poll workers know the peeps allowed to vote at their polling station.
This is possible because we're all registered in the "Central Personal Register" with adress and SSN, and because any danish citizen aged 18 or above is allowed to vote. Even criminals doing time or on probation.
Come on ... the way it's done in the US is ridiculous - not the actual registration process but the uncertainty of the registrations,the purging of eligible voters, the challenging of voters eligibility etc. etc. etc. and the absolutely ludicrous 8-10 hours of waiting to fucking vote! It makes you look like some 3. World "Democracy" gone astray.
The US of A could land a man on the moon - but can't devise some fair non-partisan scheme to register voters???
We're a couple of years away from being able to build a cheap, easy-to-use machine that will give you a little jab like a blood-sugar tester, analyze your DNA, and produce an absolutely unique 30- to 50-digit number that could only be you. Have the voting machines do that (not knowing your name) and associate the number with your vote. Then do a massive cross-check using Al Gore's tubes and throw out any votes that show duplicates. It's the electronic equivalent of the ink-stained finger.
If your voting machines produce a paper trail, let the left-over blood soak into the paper for that vote. It's an additional cross-check.
Yes, identical twins are a problem; they may need to be made illegal.
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Let's go for the whole bit--incorporate the national health ID plan proposed by RAND corporation. It may drive the "number of the beast" types wild, but if you incorporate safeguards based on experience in DEnmark, Germany, etc. it can be done.
I dream of ending the SSN mess.
The checks that cptspalding recommends would hopefully be put in place.
But it seems like some of resistance is a bit odd to me. For example, you can not get on a place without a proper photo ID, issued by...the government most likely. You can not sign up for most things in this life without a social security number. You're credit is already tracked behind your back mostly without your knowledge.
Modern society is very open. Most people know what you do. If you want to move off the grid, you'll probably have to move to Canada.
Anyway, there would have to be local and state government participation in such a system so concerns about the feds not being able to deal with it as good as local doesn't seem applicable. I mean, we are 8 years since "hanging chads" and some places STILL USE THEM. Methinks local elections officials aren't always the cream of the crop.
Adrock: Paper and pen(cil).
Touch screen machines? Paper trail? You vote "Candidate X" and you get a receipt saying you voted for "Candidate X".
Who's gonna stop the programmer from registering your vote for "Candidate Y", even though your receipt says "Candidate X"?
How are YOU going to tell that YOUR vote got eated by the system and ended up as a vote for the wrong candidate? Who's going to have the standing to challenge the vote count?
Probably not you because you can't prove that YOU where a victim of bad programming/fraud. Unless the receipt has some sort of unique ID-number which is tied to the registered vote - in that case you could go back and check if the voting is all right; but in that case the election isn't secret any more is it?
I.e. you can't tell if you're a victim of fraud, hence you won't have the standing.
Paper and pencil.
Whoever benefits monetarily from identity theft would probably try and prevent a national ID/ voter card. Isn't this lack of positive ID already built into the system to make money for a few? Who would these people and companies be?
I'm doing temp work in a County Auditor's office in Iowa, (and I'm speaking in an unofficial capacity) and we are REMOVING Social Security numbers from our voter registration database. In Iowa, driver's license numbers used to be your SSN, but now they're a different number, but the database is full of the old SSH/DL numbers.
Removing the SSNs is a huge pain because it requires extra paperwork, the registrant must give us a signed document to permit us to alter their records.
the absolutely ludicrous 8-10 hours of waiting to fucking vote
I have never had to wait anything like that length of time. Long waits are the exception rather than the rule.
To the Europeans looking down their noses at us stupid Americans, I imagine that if you had ballots as long and complex as ours, you might find the voting lines going a little slower. Aside from presidential, House and Senate races, we have a full slate of state and local officials, plus judges, state constitutional amendments, bond issues and ballot initiatives.
Personally I think it's inane to have so much stuff on the ballot, as few voters know anything about judges or have any handle on the vagaries of ballot initiatives, but due to the way local, state and national governments are run, it would be pretty difficult to clean things up.
To those decrying the notion of a national ID, could you give me some concrete examples of what is so pernicious about having a unified national ID? (Bluster about "liberty" and generic sneering about how modern americans are too softheaded to defend their privacy isn't what I'm looking for.) I'm interested in plausible scenarios of actual bad things that would happen with a national ID, but which don't happen already. Thanks in advance.
What Joergen said. One think that is strange about this debate (in Britain as well) is that there's a lot of a priori theorizing about how ID cards are really, really dangerous. But there is little interest in looking at other countries that have made ID card systems work without loss of civil liberties. From a German perspective, the problems of the American voting are almost incomprehensible. It's like something you'd expect to hear about Uganda.
Slow down. Everybody imagines that lists and databases are "already there" or "easy" to run. Nope. Look at all the problems we have already with just trying to match applications to mailing lists, SSN lists, etc. Add to that how frequently Americans move and you have problems for National ID cards, too. Whatever the solution, the need for nonprofits to do voter registration to capture people that aren't in the systems or lists (e.g., disabled or youth that move often) is necessary. I cann't imagine anybody who is sensible on these issues trying to get rid of the nonprofits. They are NOT THE PROBLEM. Indeed, as factcheckers and court cases and others have demonstrated, the GOP fraud scare is mostly falsehoods. Let's not go around solving the wrong problems.
I really can't believe I am reading this-I am a teacher. I know 8 th. grade girls that dress up in an older sister's clothes, put their hair up, their blouses down and go out dancing and downing "Brewskis with the Guys at the Singles Bars. They have fake I.D.s but are seldom asked for it-we have a hospital in the area whose Nurses blew the "whistle" on Arabic women coning in from various Countries and having baabies on a relatives Social Security or Insurance Card-We have key positions in Government filled with Contractors that hire the cheapest labor they can find and YOU come up with this? Gimme a break!
There is no way in hell that I would ever accept a national ID card, under any circumstances. I'm extremely disappointed that you'd even suggest it.
"and the absolutely ludicrous 8-10 hours of waiting to fucking vote! It makes you look like some 3. World "Democracy" gone astray."
Yes, indeed! Is there any other western democracy where you have to wait in line for hours in order to cast your vote? I simply can't understand why there isn't a huge public outcry in the US about this. Instead, the media is full of stories about how a mere 5000 out of 1.3 million voter registrations by ACORN turned out to be babd, most of them already marked as possibly fraudulent by the organisation. Imho, there's something seriously wrong with your priorities regarding problems of the democratic system. Holding elections on a tuesday, and then making it so time consuming that millions of workers will lose a full working day has a much more serious effect on democracy than the very remote possibility that "Mickey Mouse" may manage to cast a vote. That's ridiculous.
"There is no way in hell that I would ever accept a national ID card, under any circumstances."
Uh huh. But driver's licenses, voter registration, and credit cards are ok? Where's the big difference???
There is no way in hell that I would ever accept a national ID card, under any circumstances.
Still waiting for the plausible scenarios of actual bad things that would happen with a national ID, but which don't happen already.
"Uh huh. But driver's licenses, voter registration, and credit cards are ok? Where's the big difference???"
The big difference is that no rational person would agree to a law where people could be arrested for not having a driver's license/voter registration card/credit card. And it's possible to get through life without all three, if you're so inclined.
Look, I'd love to think that the goverment would only use centrallized data collection derived from a national ID for benign and beneficial purposes. But look at what a hash the Bushies made of the No Fly List. The potential for inconvenience through functionality creep is just HUGE (to say nothing of the unlucky few typographical non-persons who'd get stuck in a Kafkaesque nightmare during the early stages of adoption). And that doesn't even include the increased potential for identity theft (if they include a life-info-containing RFID chip, as some proposals have suggested), or the possibility of increased covert surveillance of undesirables (like peace activists or union organizers or whatever), or the needs of people who have good reason for starting a new identity and keeping it secret (Protected Witnesses, battered wives, recovering substance abusers, etc.). And the cost of actually implementing something like this would be huge - money that we'd have to take away from other, more valuable programs (alternative energy research, early childhood education, universal health care, etc.)
And, of course, I just don't like it. I'm not a number, I'm a free man. Full stop.
I went door to door on Halloween.
I asked each person if they were registered to vote.
I got some rather interesting results.
The best part is, I got it on video.
http://vbykm.wordpress.com/2008/11/03/have-you-retested-to-vote-asking-t...
-KM.