Indiana officials are discussing a new policy that would allow Indiana voters to vote without showing photo ID at the polls, according to an Indiana Daily Student article published on ?Oct. 22.
Indiana voters are currently required by law to show identification when voting for government officials.
Though this law was created to prevent voter fraud and to ensure that officials are elected out of choice by citizens who are registered, it also disenfranchises certain populations that have difficulty obtaining a photo ID.
Everyone hates waiting in line at the BMV. Multiply that by bus routes, walking and long lines, and it becomes undesirable, and in some cases impossible, to obtain a driver’s license or a state ID.
Certain populations of older voters whose IDs have long expired are not able to vote, even if they are registered.
If we are going to require photo identification at the polls, we need to create easier channels to acquire it. Or we need to allow people to vote ?without showing photo identification.
Moreover, the government needs to realize that other tactics are used for voter fraud besides the lack of ?identification.
In states with more lenient absentee voting policies, opportunities for voter fraud are multiplied. If people are able to submit absentee votes but are still required to show photo identification if they do go to the polls, there’s an odd double-standard in identification law that should be reviewed.
We want people to show valid ID at the polls and we want our government to prevent voter fraud.
But we cannot nix other forms of identification that could be used at the polls, such as a social security card or a birth certificate.
Every person is required to have one anyway, and these forms are usually kept in a safe place. This way those without a photo ID could still vote, but it would still limit the chances of voting fraud.
The government also needs to make an effort to accommodate people who don’t speak English. If non-English speaking people go to the BMV only to discover no one there can speak their language, it just adds more difficulties to the process of obtaining an ID.
The frustration of these situations may drive those populations away, which prevents them from voting.
The BMV should employ bilingual workers to assist minority populations in obtaining identification to vote.
Photo identification can be distributed when someone registers to vote. A person is not allowed to vote without registration.
This way, they simply obtain a photo ID when signing the registration forms. This might allow more ?disenfranchised populations to vote.
The voter identification law does disenfranchise certain populations. However, voting without any type of identification heightens the chances of voter fraud.
A sound solution would be to make obtaining photo identification more accessible to disenfranchised ?populations.
