<story><title>Did You Vote? Now Your Friends May Know (and Nag You)</title><url>https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/04/us/politics/apps-public-voting-record.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>erwan</author><text>I don&amp;#x27;t have a horse in that race, I&amp;#x27;m not even a US citizen - and I must say that whole debate on voter id laws is puzzling to me.&lt;p&gt;After reading a bit on &lt;i&gt;disparate impact&lt;/i&gt; and what constitute the &amp;quot;crux&amp;quot; of the issue, I get why the ID requirement can be problematic if it makes people jump through a ton of hoops. However, the common suggestion that IDing people be stripped altogether just sounds bizarre to me.&lt;p&gt;I would think a path to resolution would rather include making it easier to obtain an ID.</text></item><item><author>tiles</author><text>The preset party supports stronger Democratic norms like same-day registration, the other supports Voter ID laws and reducing the number of polling locations. Of course an app encouraging voter maximalism can work in favor of the party that aligns with their goal.</text></item><item><author>keiferski</author><text>&lt;i&gt;Anyone can use the apps, but executives say they hope to improve voter turnout particularly among young Democrats. The VoteWithMe app, for instance, is preset to show likely Democrats among a user’s contacts. Users must change the app’s settings to see the voting histories of all of their contacts.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;This, combined with the “Our Trusted Partners” section, clearly shows that this isn’t about getting people out to vote in order to strengthen the democratic process - it’s about supporting a particular political party.&lt;p&gt;As an independent, this is really troubling. It will only result in more tribalism and more shaming for having “undesirable” party registration. Yeah, your actual vote is still private. But considering that mere membership of a party has been an issue in the past, this isn’t very reassuring.&lt;p&gt;Then again, maybe it will lead to an implosion of the party system and a shift to independent voters.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>CobrastanJorji</author><text>There is not a voter fraud problem in the US. Estimates of the rate of voter fraud in the US put the rate at about 0.0003% or lower, far less than what would ever swing an election. Regardless of whether national IDs make sense for other reasons, there is no issue with voter fraud that needs addressing.&lt;p&gt;And yet, in the last decade, at least 11 states have passed laws adding new voter ID requirements. Because of the lack of a voter fraud problem, the disparate impact is clearly the main objective of the laws, which proponents of the laws are frequently quite clear about. The idea that they might be used to theoretically avoid fraud is basically a convenient justification that just might pass constitutional muster.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s not that Democrats hate national ID cards because freedom and Republicans like them because safety. It&amp;#x27;s that Republicans like requiring voter ID cards because adding barriers to voting benefits Republicans, and Democrats dislike them because adding barriers to voting hurts Democrats. If it weren&amp;#x27;t voter ID cards, it&amp;#x27;d be something else. Previous obvious attempts included poll taxes, grandfather clauses, literacy tests. When those fail, you just make sure the lines to vote in the wrong party&amp;#x27;s districts are going to be much longer than the lines to vote in the right party&amp;#x27;s districts.</text></comment>
<story><title>Did You Vote? Now Your Friends May Know (and Nag You)</title><url>https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/04/us/politics/apps-public-voting-record.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>erwan</author><text>I don&amp;#x27;t have a horse in that race, I&amp;#x27;m not even a US citizen - and I must say that whole debate on voter id laws is puzzling to me.&lt;p&gt;After reading a bit on &lt;i&gt;disparate impact&lt;/i&gt; and what constitute the &amp;quot;crux&amp;quot; of the issue, I get why the ID requirement can be problematic if it makes people jump through a ton of hoops. However, the common suggestion that IDing people be stripped altogether just sounds bizarre to me.&lt;p&gt;I would think a path to resolution would rather include making it easier to obtain an ID.</text></item><item><author>tiles</author><text>The preset party supports stronger Democratic norms like same-day registration, the other supports Voter ID laws and reducing the number of polling locations. Of course an app encouraging voter maximalism can work in favor of the party that aligns with their goal.</text></item><item><author>keiferski</author><text>&lt;i&gt;Anyone can use the apps, but executives say they hope to improve voter turnout particularly among young Democrats. The VoteWithMe app, for instance, is preset to show likely Democrats among a user’s contacts. Users must change the app’s settings to see the voting histories of all of their contacts.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;This, combined with the “Our Trusted Partners” section, clearly shows that this isn’t about getting people out to vote in order to strengthen the democratic process - it’s about supporting a particular political party.&lt;p&gt;As an independent, this is really troubling. It will only result in more tribalism and more shaming for having “undesirable” party registration. Yeah, your actual vote is still private. But considering that mere membership of a party has been an issue in the past, this isn’t very reassuring.&lt;p&gt;Then again, maybe it will lead to an implosion of the party system and a shift to independent voters.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>gmueckl</author><text>Mandatory state issues IDs are a cultural red flag for many Americans. This leads to practical absurdities like having the driver&amp;#x27;s license double as a de facto ID card. As a European, this seems byzantine and unnecessarily inconvenient to me, but such are cultural differences.</text></comment>