[EL] Absentee ballots and voter ID

[Greenberg, Kevin]

Jon,

Apparently all 50 states require not only that every baby has a name, but that the child’s parents do too.

The discrimination against the truly nameless is an issue that we should all get behind.

Can I suggest a joint Rick Hasen/John Fund book to promote changing the laws in each of the states to allow the truly nameless to register as “You, Hey”?

Kevin

From: law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu [mailto:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu] On Behalf Of Jon Roland
Sent: Friday, February 08, 2013 12:04 PM
To: law-election at department-lists.uci.edu
Subject: [EL] Absentee ballots and voter ID

One of the reasons why voter ID is getting a stronger push is simply because it is easier to explain,  to sell, and to legislate. Reform of absentee balloting involves a lot of subtleties and no easy legislative prescriptions.

I vote absentee myself because of a heart condition that makes it difficult for me to walk far or stand for very long. But I admit that I also like being able to take half a day researching each candidate on the ballot before marking and mailing it. I would never sell my votes, but it must be admitted that others might, and there would be no way to detect that.

As for voter ID, it is reasonable to request some kind of ID that one is eligible to vote, but not ID that shows one's name or is government-issued. The system has to work for people without names, and while such people are rare, they do exist, and were once more common. There is no constitutional authority to require anyone to have a name. A name is just what other people call us, and they can choose to call us anything they want.

Government cannot be trusted to require government-issued ID. That is letting elected officials control who gets to vote for them, and we have too much of that already with things like gerrymandering. We need to stick to the traditional notary system by which a trusted independent notary, not a government agent, certifies that a person is a citizen who is old enough to vote and is a resident, but nothing more. One should be able to vote while remaining completely anonymous, other than that.


-- Jon



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