But I have come around to viewing the idea of requiring an ID to vote as reasonable. Is it "democracy" if folks who are not citizens vote, and affect vote totals? Or folks who don't live within a state or district? Or folks who vote in 2-3 different states? I recognize these issues are often overstated, but a ballot box stuffed by ballots from persons who are not eligible voters isn't exactly democratic either.
What do you consider acceptable as an ID, though? Drives licenses, passports, military IDs only? This is the problem I have with this. Putting aside that there are better ways to prevent fraud without turning away voters, with IDs there are still better ways yet:
1. Allow student ids from public colleges, and if they aren't satisfactory enough, bring them up to code.
2. Allow utility/bank statements, and mandate these companies provide a barcode on each statement that can be quickly scanned and verified. This is so incredibly easy to do.
3. Take photos of people without IDs and then let them vote. I'm sorry, but few people committing fraud are going to allow their picture to be taken. NH already does this.
4. Only require one of these IDs when people vote for the first time. This verifies their registration is actually theirs. The idea that there could be any mass fraud using real, verified registrations that were later "taken over" is just a crazy theory.
Fundamentally, I'm not opposed to the concept of voter ID, but I only support it if it is
actually needed. There are many other ways to protect against fraud, and it seems like a better idea to go with those first before we start implementing ideas that reduce abilities to vote for some people. Of course, this is not why many Republican politicians are pushing voting restrictions. It has everything to do with political advantages, and this has been admitted many times over the years.
