Reply #5: The standards shouldn't be ultra strict... [View All]

(EDIT: I missed an important point, so added.)

...about what consitututes adequate ID. More importantly, it should not be up to localities to decide -- states, I could see that working, counties, no. The standards should be uniform with no room for misinterperatation, and we should take care not to have any system that could be used by partisan poll judges to selectively decide who can vote. Like for example, it should be mandatory for everyone, even people that the poll-workers know personally.

Note that privacy is a non-issue because ID or no, you have to give them your name anyway.

So the question really becomes -- is a phone bill, letter of confirmation of registration, or such a confirming document in and of itself enough to provide sufficient security? The case would be stronger for letters of registration, IMO, than the others. One might argue that such really only adds forgery to the charges we could levy against the few voters who try to "vote often" without preventing the act in the first place.

What it really boils down to, and I think what you should say to them, is that almost all Democrats would not be opposed to it in principle, just we don't trust the Republicans who would implement it in some areas to do so fairly rather than twist it around in some perverse way to intentionally deny legal citizens their rights, like Blackwell did with just about every rule and regulation he could figure out a way to abuse.

A system that might work would be that you can still cast a provisional ballot if you do not have ID. If you do not bring ID, then you will have to drop by the town clerk's office sometime within the next week to produce ID and have the provisional ballot validated.