And we never will.

We could iron out all the vote-counting shenanigans. We could pass an amendment guaranteeing or obligating the right to vote. It won’t matter. We don’t vote for president; we vote for the electors (remember them?) And enough people like it to keep it that way.

You want election reform? Reform the Electoral College. Winner-take-all is the real corruption in presidential elections, never mind the chads. It put all 25 Florida electors in the basket in the 2000 recount and made it a fiasco. Those 25 electors put Bush’s total at 271; he needed 270 to win.

Maine and Nebraska choose their electors differently – two at-large, the rest by district (just like Congress – go figure!) If Florida did this then only three electors would have been at stake in a recount – one for the bechadded district plus the two at-large. Bush would have won at most 14 Florida electors, putting his total at 260. Gore would have won the election.

Reforming the EC won’t solve all our voting problems but it will put them in separate compartments.

And the address you gave them against the address you used when you registered. When you registered, you had to give them your social security number or driver's license number, depending on your state (I think this is a state, not a federal, law, but I could be wrong about that). If you'd made up a number, they would have realized that and nullified your registration. If you gave the number of someone who was not eligible to vote in that state (too young, a convicted felon in a state that doesn't let felons vote, etc.), they would have nullified your registration. After you registered they mailed a confirmation to your house. If you'd made up an address, the confirmation would have gone back to them and they would have nullified your registration. If you registered to vote using someone else's name and address, you could get away with it if the other person is colluding with you (though why would they?). Otherwise you might both try to vote, in which case your fraud would be discovered.

When you register you also have to sign that you are who you say you are, that you have never committed vote fraud, etc. Which isn't so different, really, from signing a paper saying that you are who you say you are in order to get a copy of a birth certificate.

In other words, registering to vote is no more prone to fraud than obtaining the documents to verify your identity is.

My question on this is always this: This article seems to be claiming that 4% of the electorate will not be able to meet the ID requirement. Is that because they don't currently have ID, or because they genuinely can't get one? Just how many people really *can't* get ID, and is there something that states could do to fix that rather than not requiring ID?

I was stunned at 18 when showing up at the poll required nothing more than signing my name. I wasn't a longtime voter; nobody sitting there knew whether I was myself or not! This could be a concern regardless of party affiliation. If Republicans were really quite so malicious as these articles indicate, what's to stop them from, not content with intimidating minorities away from the polls, then sending other people in to sign their names? Given the history of voting fraud, is that really so inconceivable?

Rather than arguing that one shouldn't have to prove one's identity to vote, I think we should be arguing that these bills ought to include ways for those without birth certificates or passports to get identification that would suffice for voting purposes. Maybe an income cutoff for the cost of ID, too--I know they've gotten sort of pricy up here in Ohio, so say that if you have paystubs or tax returns showing that your income is less than (x dollars) annually, a non-driving state ID would be free. Showing that you are who you are is perfectly reasonable, to me. We ought to be concerned with ensuring that everybody, regardless of income level or race or whatever else, is able ot do that.

First, if more legitimate voters are prevented from voting than fraudulent voters are, then the democratic process is harmed.

BUT!

How hard is it to get a fake ID? Not very, so these laws won't stop the people it's intended to stop, but will stop those who should be able to vote. In other words, it's lose - lose, except for the GOP.

Birth certificates are not a nominal fee, at least where I live. I lost my BC when I was in my 20s (I'm now 50). I did look into getting one recently and the charge is $40. I'm not going to pay $40 for a birth certificate until I'm forced to because I need it for something, ie. a passport. I've been voting since I was 18.

Aside from the disenfranchised voters argument, do we really want to live in a society where picture identification is necessary for the most basic right in a democratic nation? The poll workers have my name, signature, and address. I go in and sign the book, the signatures match, and that should be enough. And contrary to popular belief, ID isn't necessary (by law) to get on an airplane. It may be airline policy, and homeland security may strongly encourage it, but there is no law in this country that says I need to prove who I am in order to fly or really do anything else that doesn't require licensure to do it.

I have yet to see any evidence that indicate that poor people or minorities are less likely to have ids than white or middle class people. I have seen countless studies that indicate that poor people and minorities are less likely to vote.

Incidentially, I am hispanic and not poor, but I do come into contact with poor minorities often because I do work with the legal clinic at my law school and I have a lot family and friends who would fit the category. All of them have ids. You see, folks, they work.

For example, a roommate works as a package handler at Fedex. He makes 10/hr but works only about 25 hours a week. So he's poor and hispanic. But how do you think he got the job at Fedex? Well, by golly, he has a drivers license! He's 23 and has never voted. Why? No motivation, non-political, etc. But he could vote if he felt like it. Presumably political parties have never given him a reason to feel like it.

Perhaps the Democrats should be more concerned with motivating the working poor to vote, rather than focusing on strawman arguments?