alt Hacker News> . You should ask yourself why you - a pakistani - has such strong feelings about Voter ID when Voter Fraud is completely a non-issue when both political sides look at the data.
Because as I said somewhere else in this post, when americans are unhappy, they spread their frustration on the entire world with a shovel.
And when I see that this frustration arises from something as stupid as voter ID, I wonder why they don't just fix it. I am not interested in the actual voter fraud numbers or some random foundation... I am interested in YOU guys being happy. And if (a sufficient number of) YOU believe in voter fraud, then for ffs, get voter ID, we all have it, why can't you?
It's like with the kids' blankie to save them from the monster under the bed, don't argue about the probability of bed monsters, understand the frankly low cost of providing the blankie, realise it's not worth quibbling about and just GIVE IT TO THEM.
It isn't about about voter fraud, it's about trust in the system. When americans don't feel trust in the system, they are unhappy. And when they are unhappy, they are often distracted by their elected leaders by other things.... things that affect the entire world, like tariffs or wars.
I don't speak about Brazilian issues, not because they don't affect us (we import soybeans from them which affects chicken prices, for example) but the effect is less... catastrophic.... but a Texan sneezes, I get the flu here.
It's part of the curse of being the world hegemon.
Unfortunately, it seems people can't or won't wrestle with the underlying issue. The underlying issue is complex, and it's easier to believe Americans are just too dumb to do voter ID.
I'm not explaining this just for you - but anyone else reading this post. Here is a video from Paul Weyrich, a highly influential republican, in the 1980s discussing why voter turn out should be reduced: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fR4wxlCGIu0
The symptoms are "trust in the system", "voter id" and "voter fraud". The PROBLEM is one major political party has found it extremely advantageous to ensure as few people vote as possible. If every American got voter ID tomorrow, republicans would simply invent a new issue to manufacture distrust in the system in order to suppress votes. Then another pakistani/european/canadian will be flabbergasted as to why American just don't do X and how all their friends do X everyday.
That's why I'm saying the problem is complex. You are viewing the problem as "Americans just won't adopt voter ID", and on it's face you are probably confused as to why a country as rich as America can't do Voter ID. What I'm saying the problem is that it is actually financially and politically advantageous for one party so sow distrust in the voting process (and this isn't some leftist conspiracy, this is openly admitted by them). Once you understand that you will see why Voter ID is so salient. It's not that we can't do Voter ID, its that Voter ID is the current boogeyman to sow distrust and if that is ever solved, we will simply invent a new problem in order to suppress voters.