In some cases, they allow people to vote who are not shown on the registration documents with the presumption that their ballot won't be counted unless the registration is subsequently confirmed.
What's wrong with that? There is a two-step process, registration and voting. Registration is supposed to assure that the person is a citizen and resident of that jurisdiction. Doing that in advance gives the state time to check his bona fides. Thus he doesn't have to go through that rigamarole each time he shows up to vote and the state can be assured that he's OK to vote. If he doesn't register in advance, the state doesn't have time to check him out before he votes so it delays accepting his vote until that check is done. Either way there's time between the registration and the acceptance of the vote. The only difference is that one occurs earlier in the election process than the other.
I do not understand the opposition to a formal voter ID just like we have for Social Security.
Did you not read what I wrote earlier about that? I am not going to keep repeating myself. If you find logical or factual flaws in my arguments, please point them out and we can deal with any differences. At least that demonstrates that you are engaging in good faith, that you have actively read my points. If you are just going to blow off my arguments as though I had offered nothing, then I will offer nothing. And conclude that you are for some unknown reason shut down and dug in.
OTOH, there is the need to protect SSNs, so a separate number is necessary.
Where have you been? The notion of a national ID has been raised and defeated many times in the history of the SSN if not before. We've included and removed SSN to and from data bases back and forth over the years multiple times. There is no consensus in the US on a national ID. You didn't mention REAL ID. That's the latest variation. Arose from 9/11. On the back burner, best I can tell. And then there's a question of a card. You don't need a Social Security card. The one I may still have somewhere is plain heavy-stock paper and over 50 years old. Never once used it. You didn't need an SSN back then until you got your first job. My SSN was my driver's license number until recently and my library card number. We have been all over the map with identifiers but have never accepted a national ID. We use drivers' licenses and non-drivers' licenses and passports. Is it perfect? No. There is variation in requirements for ID's from state to state. READ ID was intended to set minimum requirements for states. But even with that there are vulnerabilities. Do you really think that another new ID for voters is going to fly? It's a can of worms you're opening. If advocates couldn't get national ID's for flying, do you think we could get one for voting? In our lifetimes we have to rely on the states for driving and flying and voting.
You can't totally, absolutely, positively clean up all the vulnerabilities for voter fraud in the registration process without a national ID and a bureaucracy to support it. If you want to exercise yourself over the possibility that somebody will hire a few ineligible people so they can get registered to vote, have at it.
I think we have already discussed at some point how utterly hopeless most Americans are at assessing risk. I think I posted about it in the context of EPA being constantly challenged by folks who were upset that EPA allowed one part per gazillion of something or other in the water. Most people have no sense of proportion, at least in some arenas. You know that people are generally more afraid of flying than driving, which is not rational. WRT voter fraud, even if all the possibilities that concern you were implemented, we're still at background noise level of impact in state and national elections.
EDIT: Here's a link to a few easy paragraphs about the history of national ID. epic.org
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