Maxleod wrote: Wed Feb 18, 2026 4:42 pm
Gonna be honest, tl;dr, so dr, and I'm reluctant to partake in political bickering (seeing as it's not my country and I don't give a flying fck anyway).
But.
What's the problem with asking for an ID and making sure there's no fraud?
It's my understanding that both sides have accused the other side and been guilty of election fraud?
It's hard not to give you a tl/dr answer, but I'll try. First of all in the US, people have to register to vote before they go any actually vote. States decide their own rules for registering, with some national standards in place based on a 1993 law.
All 50 states already require ID to register, and you must provide a social security number and an 'under penalty of perjury attestation'. These documents are crosschecked both via database and verified by a human. The social security system is pretty bulletproof in identifying who is/isn't a citizen, and the other ID provided is escentially a crosschecking tool to ensure you are the person who matches the social security name.
There is a separate conversation about being ID'd the day you go in person to vote. Many states do require ID here, some do not. I think this is what you question is kinda specifically about, and there are people on both sides in congress who are on the record saying they would vote for a bill that creates a national standard to require you scan a drivers license when you vote just to confirm it's you and you match the name that is registered. There are some on the left and right who are against it over a variety of reasons but they are the minority.
The SAVE ACT being debated does not address being ID the day you vote at all. It's ONLY about the registration process.
Where this gets hyper partisan is that this bill changes what is considered a valid ID to
register to vote. Many Americans don't have passports and don't travel and are very used to using their drivers license as their primary form of ID anytime they get ID for anything (at the bank, when they questions/ID by police, to buy alcohol, to watch internet porn in Texas).
This bill makes a big change where drivers licenses would no longer be considered a valid form of ID to Register to vote.
Anyway I tried to get to the root of it without being overly partisan... The right's argument is that illegal aliens are voting en masse, it's pretty easily provably wrong but obviously repeating the lie often enough works as attested by Karel in the above post. The center left position is that we already require ID and changing what ID is required to documents many americans don't current have makes it much harder to vote in 2026. It also puts a huge burden on states to re-register 80%+ of the people currently registered prior to their registration deadline (for some states it's 4-5 months away)using documents those voters may not even have (passport takes 4-6 weeks and costs $165). There is no center right position, and the far left position is 'in line' with the center left position on this issue.
You can play it out pretty easily, let's say a non-citizen wanted to try and vote under the current system... They would need to find photo ID that looks like them but contains someone elses name that matches a social security number of a citizen. They would also need for the actual person who that SS# belongs to NOT to vote or there would be 2 ballots for 1 person that the system would easily flag. All of this is further complicated by many states having a hybrid system where you can go in person OR vote by mail so the standards are different for being ID 'at the time of voting'.
Anyway this is now too long, and you probably didn't read it all and that why people using Karels argument will likely win. It's wrong but it's short and digestible and not bogged down with details or reality.
