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Ask HN: Does Your Country Require Voter ID?

5 points by RickJWagner ↗ HN
This is a lively topic currently in the US. There are competing claims: Voter ID prevents fraud versus Voter ID disenfranchises voters.

Ex-USA readers, where are you, and how does your country handle this?

4 comments

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andsoitis
The vast majority of countries require some form of voter identification. As of 2021, photo ID was required by 176 countries or jurisdictions for voting. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_identification_laws

Countries without voter ID requirements for elections at the national level are short: Australia and New Zealand. Close is Scotland, which does not require photo ID for Scottish government and council elections.

In the US, some states require voter ID to vote in national elections, while others don't.

So the US, Australia, and New Zealand are outliers.

It really boggles the mind why it is such a contentious issue in the US.

Tadpole9181
Historically, the US has intentionally created barriers of entry to voting for the purpose of preventing minorities or political opponents from participating in Democracy.

Furthermore, you do need to be registered to vote. Which requires proof in and of itself, then a form of photo ID at the booth to prove that you are that registered person. As a result, we have virtually zero voting fraud.

So voter ID would do absolutely nothing while making the process harder, and it's pushed extremely disproportionately by Republicans - who openly advocate against civil voting rights. It's beyond obvious they just want a way to make it harder for brown people, women, and students to vote - all of which skew away from their party.

Then you get into the US having no national IDs (historical and cultural reasons, mostly) and that almost nobody is advocating for free voting IDs, which is a poll tax, which is blatantly unconstitutional.

jhellan
Norway does. I think it was introduced in the 1990's after Helsinki Accord observers reported the possibility of fraud.

Until then, if you voted early and gave somebody else's name, you could have voted twice.

I don't think this happens often. It would have been included in the report of possible irregularities that is published after each election. I looked through the reports after two or three elections, and never saw reports about this.