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Trump looks increasingly desperate to restrict voting rights
(www.motherjones.com)
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this post was submitted on 09 Mar 2026
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I am from a country in which you normally take your ID document with you and cast your vote in person. All the millions of us do it, and the afternoon of that day we have the total count of votes. It is a very straightforward process.
I am not supporting Trump, really, but why would the implementation of this be a negative thing?
How do you get your ID document? Does it cost a lot to get? Does any official look at perfectly valid ID and say "I don't think that's real, so you don't get to vote"?
We have no national ID here, the closest thing to prove citizenship is a passport but people are not required to have one, and it is expensive. For most people, the only definitive proof of citizenship they have is their original birth certificate.
That is why here, in the US, when politicians push Voter ID laws it's mainly to disenfranchise poor people.
I once hard (here) that people in USA is kind of against having an ID document.
It ended up anyway giving them one of the crappiest IDs in any country: SSNs
to answer your questions: it is super cheap (~5 US dollars), fast, has many security systems, it is quickly verifyable agains government databases, it has a photo, your signature, and, if valid, nobody will question it.
It looks like a mini version of the plastic card in mdern pastports (of the size of a credit card)
The police can stop you and without probable cause ask you for your ID (and car/driving documents if in a car), check it against the national database, and give it back to you. You have to show it (required by law) and it is your responsibility (if you are over 18) to keep it with you. The intention is to catch people with pending charges or arrest orders and stuff. If you are not hiding from the law, it is a simple, civilized interaction that would take you 2~5 mins.
You know, the kind of things that you would expect from a 3rd world country, less developed than USA.
Here in Australia this would be considered a draconian overreach and an invasion of privacy.
You're not required to carry ID generally, and in my state you're not even required to carry your driver's license when driving. They might ask you some details so they can look you up, and they might ask you to bring your id to a police station within 48 hours, but honestly I've never had that happen.
You're describing the requirement to carry ID like its just a basic feature of modern society, but not all societies work that way.
In the SE Asian countries I've visited national IDs are more common because of porous borders. Checkpoints on highways are opportunities to exploit migrant workers, basically.
SSN are not an ID. Well they aren't meant to be an ID. It's just a number assigned to every citizen eligible for an account with the Social Security Administration. It just so happens that this is a convenient, unique number that every citizen has to use to get a job (employees pay into social security with each pay check) so it's been used to identify people by their numbers.
Mine still has that expressly printed on the back, "NOT A VALID FORM OF IDENTIFICATION" or something like that.
Same
https://www.ssa.gov/number-card/request-number-first-time
Did you read that article? Its all about fraud and how a scammer could get and use your ssn, not about getting issued duplicate ssn. Also talks about typos from corporate.
Edit typos
It is an ID. A crappy one, but ID, by definition!: it was created to identify people
Strange for an id to say its not a valid id. 🤔
https://www.ssa.gov/history/ssn/ssnversions.html
It is a unique number that is associated to your person in an injective manner in the country (specifically designed to identify your tax documents by the IRS).
Regardless of what is printed in the card, that, BY DEFINITION is an ID.
It is strictly NOT an ID. It is an account number. Your bank account number is not an ID either. This is the same idea, except ID is what it is being used for.
An account number is a unique number that is associated to your account. That IS an ID.
You have that number → you can find the person.
That is an ID. Even if you call it banana shake and say "bro, trust me this is not an ID". It is still an ID: a piece of information in a domain that uniquely maps to elements in a co-domain, being the later, the set of persons in this country with a SSN.
Under your logic, a rifle stops being a rifle if it has a sticker that says "not valid as a rifle"
Because the hoops they make you jump through to get one are fucking ridiculous.
I'm a US citizen. I was a born here. I have a driver's license and a US-issued passport. Both of these are current and I had to prove citizenship to get the passport.
I'm still not able to legally vote in my state, though, because the law now requires that my driver's license, which doesn't expire for 4 years, have a Gold Star on it. No gold star, you can't vote.
I now have to make an appointment and drive to a licensing station in another city to get my Gold Star license in order to vote. I have to bring my still-valid passport, two pieces of mail, and a copy of my birth certificate. I can't even vote in a primary if I don't do that first.
I was born here, I haven't changed my name or moved, this is just the law now. They just really don't want people to be able to vote.
And, it might cost up to $97, just for the real id upgrade.
Wait, they won't take a passport? That's nuts. I can see them requiring a DL in addition to the passport, because your passport doesn't prove where you live, while a DL does. But not accepting the passport as proof of citizenship at all is bonkers.
Which backwards state is this?
Iowa.
When I was a kid, our state essentially set the national standard for education and college readiness. While we were a deep purple state for a long time, the conservatives here were more of the balanced budget and family values variety.
The last 30ish years of education defunding and media balkanization has had a colossal impact on the rural population here. Outside of the cities, I barely recognize it as my home state anymore. People are hateful, fearful, distrustful of outsiders, and paranoid. They wear hate like a badge of honor.
I know this is happening in all of the rural states, but witnessing it firsthand has been pretty brutal.
as others have stated the US doesn't have what other countries would consider a national ID. they have a Drivers License and a Passport, that's it. I think some states might have a regular photo ID but I'm not sure it's been several years since I lived in the US. and then some people have like a military ID.
The problem is other than the Passport none of those are proof of citizenship. None citizens can get a drivers license, none citizens can serve in the military, none citizens can even get a social security number/card. So the only way to prove citizenship is like Passport or Birth Certificate. Not even sure how US Citizens who became citizens after landing would prove it and with how ICE is that would be an extremely risky thing to present/prove when going to vote.
So then you have the problem that A. Not everyone has/can afford a Passport and B. not everyone has a Birth Certificate or their name has changed on it or their gender has changed, etc.
Thus when you consider all these things you then realize that voting in the US only a fraction of the US population would be 100% eligible. and EVEN then they could deny you for whatever reason they deemed fit. And even just requiring a passport and birth certificate it's easy to then figure out WHO they're targeting based on demographics. Low income people aren't going to have a passport, like it or not a majority of Black Americans aren't going to have one, Trans people won't be eligible, Women who married likely won't be if they took their spouses last name, people who were adopted, all US citizens that became one after immigrating to the US, etc, etc, etc.
This country is so weird... It is so full of stuff that makes no sense. And the strange part (to me) is how natural this is for its inhabitants.
This is proof of citizenship. Not drivers license or proof of age. Passport, birth cert plus supporting, citizenship cert and supporting. Discrepancy between the latter two options resulting from change of name could disqualify voters.
"Nine percent of American citizens, or approximately 21 million people, don’t have ready access to citizenship documents."
Then you have my country where you enroll to vote, which requires id, lasts forever and you only have to update your address. On the day the volunteer looks up my given name on a ledger for my area, asks for my address and phone number, then explains how to write my vote.