Mandating voter ID is good, but only after making sure that getting an ID is free and accessible to everyone. Otherwise it's just voter suppression.
this post was submitted on 31 Aug 2025
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Yeah, something that I see come up from time to time is defenders of voter ID pointing at the fact that Canada has it, and its like.... Yeah, we do. But the list is acceptable ID includes
- deeeeeeeeep breath *
(sung to the tune Yakko's Countries of the World)
- driver's license
- voter registration card
- band membership card
- birth certificate
- Canadian citizenship card or certificate
- Canadian Forces identity card
- Canadian passport (accepted only as proof of identity)
- card issued by an Inuit local authority
- firearms licence
- government cheque or cheque stub
- government statement of benefits *health card
- income tax assessment
- Indian status card or temporary confirmation of registration
- library card
- licence or card issued for fishing, trapping or hunting
- liquor identity card
- Métis card
- old age security card
- parolee card
- property tax assessment or evaluation
- public transportation card
- social insurance number card
- vehicle ownership
- Veterans Affairs health care identification card
- targeted revision form to residents of long-term care institutions
- correspondence issued by a school, college or university
- student identity card
- blood donor card
- CNIB card
- hospital card
- label on a prescription container
- identity bracelet issued by a hospital or long-term care institution
- medical clinic card
- bank statement
- credit card
- credit card statement
- credit union statement
- debit card
- insurance certificate, policy or statement
- mortgage contract or statement
- pension plan statement
- personal cheque
- employee card
- residential lease or sub-lease
- utility bill (e.g.: electricity; water; * telecommunications services including telephone, cable or satellite)
- letter from a public curator, public guardian or public trustee
- letter of confirmation of residence from a First Nations band or reserve or an Inuit local authority
- letter of confirmation of residence from an Alberta Metis Settlement authority
- letter of confirmation of residence, letter of stay, admission form, or statement of benefits from one of the following designated establishments: student residence, seniors' residence, long-term care institution, shelter, soup kitchen, a community-based residential facility
And if you can't find any of that, you can have someone else vouch for you.
Also registering to vote can be done on the spot at the polling booth. It takes five minutes.
So if you're willing to provide aaaaallllllllllllllllllll those options for voter ID, then I'll believe that the intent is to secure your elections, not make them more difficult.
By the way, we also have mail in voting, proxy voting, advance voting (typically up to a month ahead of an election), votes are always done by hand on paper with a pen (for provincial and civic elections they can be machine tallied with manual recounts as needed, for federal elections they are only ever hand tallied), we put voting stations in prisons (yes, for the people incarcerated there), hospitals, retirement homes and army bases, there are so many voting stations that you are never more than a five minute walk from your nearest one, and your work is obligated to give you time off to go vote if you need it.
Voting doesn't have to be hard. Canada has proven this time and time again. Our elections are some of the most secure and well managed in the world. And even in elections with a high turnout I have never ever waited more than five minutes to vote. Lines of voters queuing for hours is a choice, not an inevitability.
Here in European country it's mandatory, and generally it has to be id or passport (very very few and usually not generally accessing alternatives exist, drivers license in particular is not a valid id).
The thing is the id is
- Mandatory in general to have (wich on itself some people might disagree with)
- Generally easy to get (surely not convenient in the most rural/remote)
For me to have an official id and to have to use it sounds just normal really. Changing the rules last minute of course is not OK, but with with enough notice...
Our voting might not be entirely fair but hell yea, at least we can do it. Voting has always been absurdly easy for me, and I always go early.
I assume by "not be entirely fair" you're referring to the fact that we cling to first past the post like a concrete bollard on a sinking ship, in which case yes, absolutely agreed. Our voting is impressively fair in the sense that every vote is tallied and everyone has ample opportunities to vote, but our vote distribution still fucking sucks and needs to be changed pronto.
Yup, exactly. You can tally everyone’s vote perfectly but if it doesn’t lead to an outcome that makes sense it’s not worth a whole lot. The change to make it properly fair would be so easy, too.
Thanks for the thorough answer.
Otherwise it’s just voter suppression.
Yeah, that's what they want. Much of the conservative project for decades now has been trying to suppress the vote of POC.
Hell, many conservatives are still butthurt that women can vote, FFS. I have to laugh when low-info and/or conservatives accuse liberals of "engaging in conspiracies" when anyone shows concern over women who changed their name for marriage having a hard time voting under a system corrupted by conservatives. It's not a "conspiracy" when you understand what your enemy's proclivities are and call them out...
I haven't read the article, but I think it's safe to assume I have bad news for you.
Edit: I read the article, it doesn't say. It's still probably safe to assume bad news
It's Republicans, so of course it's about voter suppression. It's never been about preventing fraud.
Presumably there's a way to make literacy tests make sense too but we don't live in that world. The history of American voter suppression says voter ID laws in the United States are a form of voter suppression. One Person, No Vote by Carol Anderson is a great read. It should make you angry.
Don't worry the Supreme Court is working on that
Sign as much dumb shit as you want, the states on their own still decide, you fat dying fuck.
I'm just waiting for the inevitable 'These states are willingly committing voter fraud, we will decide the presidency based on the states that followed the rules.'
Yeah, this sounds like an end run to "justify" blue states not being counted.
Now you're thinking with your fascist cap on. And when the blue states don't comply then the elections will be "taken away"
Damn! Right for the throat! 😂
Which is unconstitutional.
Just like the tariffs, unconstitutional, yet still exist because our government reps are spineless cowards and mushroom-slurping sycophants.
He could also do something that he actually has the authority to do, like, I dunno, release the Epstein files.
He won’t because he’s in them. You know that - everybody knows that.
I wish that were true. I just had a MAGA moron today explaining how that's just "liberal propaganda." and how "if you get your facts from the internet, they're always going to be wrong."
he was also saying that Chicago was the most violent city in the country, even though IL had the most restrictive gun laws (no. that's Birmingham, 'bama,)
We started with gun rights because of the shooting he found out I train security in use of force and launched into as if that meant I was on his side, but at one point I called him out for caring more about protecting pedophiles and enabling mass shooters than protecting kids.
Yeah. maybe don't talk politics at a family thing; because frankly I'm tired of "keeping the peace" with these assholes.
if you get your facts from the internet, they're always going to be wrong.
I'm going to guess he doesn't consider Facebook memes and truth social posts as internet?
I think he gets his talking points from OAN or whatever.
He got particularly stupid when I explained that I pull data from the internet- specifically FBI crime statistics- from the gov’s own database.
He also didn’t believe you can road trip to another state.
It was an amazing display of ignorance and arrogance.
He also didn’t believe you can road trip to another state.
That broke me. I don't know how you even respond to that.
"You're saying you can't go to Arizona and buy a firearm? what's the matter get lost in the Dakotas?"
(to be fair it's not difficult to get lost in the Dakotas. there's really not a lot around out there.)
Who gets an ID? What IDs are valid? Who issues and validates them? How do I replace one if lost or stolen? If my name changes, how do I update my ID? Does a name change restrict me from voting? Could it potentially allow me to vote twice?
All civilized countries except USA answered those questions long long time ago.
- White people
- The kinds of IDs white people are more likely to have
- Whoever will go along with our bullshit (realistically state governments; no idea if he'll actually try to force blue states to go along with it or just use it to deny unfavorable election results)
- We totally thought about this, and we have a great idea for it
- Women can't vote, stupid
- See 5
- See 5
/s, in case anybody reading really needed it
And? How is he going to enforce it?
Insurrection if it doesn't go his way?
We should have our own insurrection against his. With blackjack and hookers!
That's fair.
Weekend at Donnie’s continues
We have that since forever in Portugal. What's so wrong with it?
Voter fraud is very rare, the only real effect it could possibly have is to keep poor people from voting. What's so right with it?
Yea, German here. I‘d love for someone to explain this from a US-American perspective. In Germany, if you want to vote, you’ll need a valid personal ID or passport. Granted, you are also required to have at least one of them by the age of 16 but if you don’t, for some reason, it’s not really that hard to get one (if you’re a German citizen). Having a German ID/passport is also an automatic voter registration.
it’s not really that hard to get one
That's the rub. It is not convenient at all here to get ID. The joke universally understood here is that the DMV (the place where the vast majority get their ID) is the worst run, least efficient government body, taking hours to days to navigate.
Add to this that getting to and from the DMV is mostly car dependent. If you're extremely lucky, you live in NYC that has good* public transportation. If you're regular lucky, you live in a large city with a very unreliable bus system that might come by your stop once an hour. Going to the DMV becomes a day long chore. If you're not lucky, you live in a rural area where the DMV is miles away from where you live, underfunded, and understaffed. If you don't have car (elderly? disabled?) or you're too busy to make it during business hours (can't take off work? tough shit) you'll be out of luck.
And none of this is to say that it is easy to acquire the ID once (if) you arrive. You need various forms of paperwork that may or may not be readily available to you. Sometimes you have to get paperwork from other government bodies, which are also cumbersome. Also the backlogs. In my state, the backlog for driver license renewal is months long.
To summarize: nothing is really made for convenience here as it concerns voting. Decades of Republican sabotage has put as many obstacles in place to make voting (and registering to vote) difficult as possible. Even getting ID is cumbersome and relies on being healthy enough and well-off enough to be able to afford the trouble of getting it.