At 11:18 PM 9/23/99 -0700, Ed Gerck wrote:
>> >that proposes to authenticate the voter by asking for his/her/its SSN#?
>>
>> It looked like the idea for this part was to prevent double voting,
>> plus make sure that only authorized people could vote. It
>
>The disconnect here is that it does not make sure that only authorized
*people*
>can vote -- but that an authorized he/she/it can vote. Thus, I find that
this is
>not similar to when I go vote in *person*, when election officials will
not allow
>bots or dogs to vote ;-) Here, anything can get an authorization, not
just anyone.
NB: In America, *anyone* with an address who can write [1] *can*
in practice vote because there is no authentication of citizenship. Note
that *everyone* is not legal to vote ---you must be a citizen, for
instance, and not a felon--- but there is *no* authentication done on your
citizenship when you register to vote. With absentee ballots, dogs and
cats can and do vote.
(It is of course a crime, as is noncitizen voting...)
And dead people are well known to keep voting after internment.
This is a regular source of November entertainment in SoCal, where the
Republicrats accuse the Demopublicans of encouraging voting by illegal
aliens (who tend to vote with them). Some years, the former party posts
unofficial guards and "Citizens Only" signs near voting places in the
barrios, and gets abuse for it later. Look up the Dornan vs. Sanchez race.
NB: There is no requirement in the US to carry identification unless you're
driving a car in public. And there are no laws
requiring ID to vote.
My point being, authentication of voters is a *very* tricky
political subject, because it has to do with political power allocation.
Much like plans to mess with the US census rose very quickly all the way to
the supreme court. The census is how
US congresscritters are allocated.
(Apologies for civics pedagogy/local anecdotes; I'm assuming there are
furriners reading)
[1] Probably illiterate citizens can vote too; the law lets
a witnessed "X" be a signature, and these days illiterates
would claim ADA applied... certainly blind (and braille-illiterate)
citizens vote.
