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gsprtoday at 6:39 AM1 replyview on HN

The comparison to western European countries doesn't hold up. Speaking from Norway: yes, it's true you have to provide ID to vote, both in national and local elections. The difference is that obtaining ID is trivial, to the point where essentially everyone here legally has ID. I wouldn't be surprised if the most common way for someone not to have ID would literally be "all of it was in my luggage and the airline lost it", or some similar very temporary state. In the US, the people who do have ID do not even form a representative sample of the population as far as I understand

I can't speak for the Americans, but I would imagine there'd be far less liberal pushback against voter ID if everyone could trivially obtain it.

How's this for a compromise: republicans get voter ID laws, in return for a national, bipartisanly monitored program to ensure that anyone who wants it can trivially obtain ID. Once that's realized, the voter ID laws can kick in?


Replies

teh_infallibletoday at 6:51 AM

You need an ID to drive, buy alcohol, buy cigarettes, board a plane. And people manage to do all those things.

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