<story><title>Advocates say paper ballots are safest</title><url>https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-08-10/advocates-say-paper-ballots-are-safest</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>fareesh</author><text>Can Americans explain why voter ID is seen to be disenfranchising or sometimes inarticulately simplified as &amp;quot;racist&amp;quot;?&lt;p&gt;Voter ID is mandatory in so many parts of the world. What are the rest of us missing?&lt;p&gt;Edit: Not that it matters, but I live in India, so &amp;quot;poor people can&amp;#x27;t get ID&amp;quot; confuses me even further.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>colemannugent</author><text>Surprised nobody&amp;#x27;s mentioned this yet: The most common form of ID in the US is a driver&amp;#x27;s license. To get one you need to meet a bunch of requirements and then take a driving test at a local branch of the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV). If you are ever looking for a great example of government inefficiency it&amp;#x27;s the DMV offices [1]. All of them run horribly, most have massive wait times for simple procedures, and the employees have a reputation for not giving a shit. Not to say all of them run like this, but in California it&amp;#x27;s so bad that the government officials have their own secret DMV office to avoid waits [2].&lt;p&gt;If you were a poor person who really only has the value of their physical labor to feed your family you might not want to waste spend hours and hours of your incredibly (relatively) valuable time for something you can make do without. Since these poor people are often minorities voter ID laws disproportionately affect them.&lt;p&gt;The question of racism being a factor for supporters of voter ID is kinda muddied. Voter ID laws seem to make a ton of sense on the surface, but a little bit of knowledge about the American election system makes it clear that voter fraud is really not a big problem. There&amp;#x27;s no doubt that racists would support voter ID laws as they do suppress the election turnout of the poor, but I haven&amp;#x27;t seen any evidence that racial factors contribute to the majority of people&amp;#x27;s support for voter ID laws. Like every topic in US politics, it has become hyper-polarized to the point where both sides talk past each other to try to demonize their opponents.&lt;p&gt;[1]: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.quora.com&amp;#x2F;Why-is-DMV-so-slow&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.quora.com&amp;#x2F;Why-is-DMV-so-slow&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[2]: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.sacbee.com&amp;#x2F;news&amp;#x2F;politics-government&amp;#x2F;capitol-alert&amp;#x2F;article216408570.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.sacbee.com&amp;#x2F;news&amp;#x2F;politics-government&amp;#x2F;capitol-aler...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>Advocates say paper ballots are safest</title><url>https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-08-10/advocates-say-paper-ballots-are-safest</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>fareesh</author><text>Can Americans explain why voter ID is seen to be disenfranchising or sometimes inarticulately simplified as &amp;quot;racist&amp;quot;?&lt;p&gt;Voter ID is mandatory in so many parts of the world. What are the rest of us missing?&lt;p&gt;Edit: Not that it matters, but I live in India, so &amp;quot;poor people can&amp;#x27;t get ID&amp;quot; confuses me even further.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>detaro</author><text>Not American, but from my understanding it is because US citizens don&amp;#x27;t have mandatory ID documents. If getting documents necessary to vote is voluntary but requires time and money, going to an office in the next bigger town, bringing documents not everyone might have, ..., disadvantaged people have a harder time to obtain them and are less likely to have them.&lt;p&gt;If you get ID automatically or are required to hold it in other parts of life, it&amp;#x27;s less of a hurdle.</text></comment>