If one defines "election security" as "ensuring that each voter is registered, is alive and present, votes only once, and votes only in the correct location," then obviously requiring voters to legally identify themselves, just as they do when doing any number of everyday activities that involve local government, improves election security. Your assertion seems a bit knee-jerk.

None of those things you've mentioned requires voter ID, so I'm not sure why you're advocating for a solution that fixes nothing you claim is an issue.

Specifically: You can figure out if a voter is registered by cross-checking with the voting rolls, you can figure out if someone is alive by cross-checking obituaries and the other two issues can similarly be figured out by cross-referencing across all elections in a state. None of this requires strict voter ID to figure out and while it's possible that identities could be hijacked to vote for a certain person I believe but voter fraud is incredibly rare in practice.

Additionally all of those checks actually open up more avenues for hackers or less honest individuals to take advantage of said systems. For example dropping a bunch of people off of voter rolls to ensure that they have trouble voting or can't meet the deadline, mistakenly registering people as deceased and so forth. One of the major fears during the possible election tampering was that by altering voter roles you could shift the outcome of an election.

I think your assertion seems more knee-jerk than the person you're responding to.

> None of those things you've mentioned requires voter ID, so I'm not sure why you're advocating for a solution that fixes nothing you claim is an issue.

Respectfully, you're putting words in my mouth. I did not advocate for anything.

I was responding to the OP's assertion that, "democrats are working to improve election security while republicans are not." That assertion is facially incorrect, and Voter ID (whether you like it or not) is a reason why.

> Specifically: You can figure out if a voter is registered by cross-checking with the voting rolls, you can figure out if someone is alive by cross-checking obituaries and the other two issues can similarly be figured out by cross-referencing across all elections in a state. None of this requires strict voter ID to figure out.

Voter ID solves those problems at the ballot box. The volunteers sitting behind the desk aren't cross-checking obituaries or all elections in a state. You know that, so why did you say all that?

> voter fraud is incredibly rare in practice.

Why do you think that? After the last election, we saw video evidence of people being bused across state lines to vote where they weren't registered. That's just one example.

> Additionally all of those checks actually open up more avenues for hackers or less honest individuals to take advantage of said systems.

How would requiring photo ID matching that on the list of registered voters open up more avenues for attack? It's an additional form of authentication.

> For example dropping a bunch of people off of voter rolls to ensure that they have trouble voting or can't meet the deadline, mistakenly registering people as deceased and so forth.

What does requiring photo ID have to do with those forms of attack? Those can be done right now, without requiring photo ID. Why are you confusing the discussion with irrelevant issues?

> I think your assertion seems more knee-jerk than the person you're responding to.

Actually, your comment is the most knee-jerk in this thread so far. You've put words in my mouth and torn down a bunch of strawmen. You've identified me as an enemy when I haven't even advocated for one side or the other. All I'm doing is making logical observations. If you disagree with those observations, by all means, show me why.

To be honest, Voter ID addresses a made up problem. Search for wikipedia for 'Voter ID laws in the United States'.

Regardless of your political persuasion, I suggest you read a bit about how these voting machines are built. Assuming you are in tech, you will be horrified. Do you feel comfortable knowing your voting machine was written in VBA with a Excel spreadsheet as the backing data store? This is the level of incompetence we are dealing with. Integrity of our elections is an incredibly important issue for both parties, and this was a problem before Trump, Russia and the 2016 election.

I also suggest you read up on the stuxnet virus if you want to see what a determined state actor can create given unlimited resources.

Voter ID addresses a threat model that has been repeatedly proven to be minor at worst. It does absolutely nothing for the much more serious threat model of digital tampering.

Why do you think that that threat has proven to be minor? From what I've heard, I suspect we have only seen the tip of the iceberg. Voter fraud has been going on, no doubt, for as long as voting has.

> It does absolutely nothing for the much more serious threat model of digital tampering.

I agree that they solve different problems. I think we should use only paper ballots, and eschew all forms of electronic voting.