It really seems to me, Americans are too paranoid/hysterical to even ponder a free national ID.

[DetlefK]

This thread showed me that US-citizens do not understand what a national ID actually is there for.
https://www.democraticunderground.com/100211277043

Let's start with this:
https://www.aclu.org/other/5-problems-national-id-cards
# The argument that a national ID can be obtained through other falsified documents is true for any and all forms of ID.
# Slippery-slope arguments... which can be made about any interaction with government.
# The database-argument is both disingenuous and slippery-slope.





Let's give an example: I live in Germany. Shortly after my 18th birthday, my mother took me to city-hall. She showed them my birth-certificate and her ID (for proof of my residence) and one month later I got a national ID-card.

Here's what the old version looked like


And here's what the new version (since 2016 or so) looks like.


It contains
* name
* alias
* photo (new version: biometric photo)
* birthday and place of birth
* recent address
* height
* eye-color
* your signature
* serial-number
* (new version: some data on a chip)





And here is what life with a free national ID is like:

* There is no centralized database. The county-register where I got my original, first ID has a copy of it. There is a serial-number because the IDs are produced individually in a central high-security government installation. (Meaning, this is the only place in the whole country where you could steal a blank ID.)
HOWEVER I am by law required to notify the county-administrations of any changes in address. There are databases, but they are at county-level. (You can register two addresses: My primary residence is my apartment. My secondary residence is my parents' house.)
If you change address, you get a very-hard-to-remove sticker (with official seal and all) taped over your old address.

* This ID is good for any and all forms of identification. Forever. Nobody has ever doubted who I am. Nobody has ever claimed that my ID isn't good enough. This is the ID that nobody is allowed to consider invalid.

* I CANNOT BE DISENFRANCHISED AS A VOTER. IT IS NOT POSSIBLE.
I was automatically added to the voter-roll when I got my ID.
It is not possible to disenfranchise me because my ID is insufficient or because there's problems with my name or my address or whatever.
It is not possible to disenfranchise me because BY LAW, NO GOVERNMENT-EMPLOYEE IS ALLOWED TO DOUBT THIS ID OR TO CONSIDER IT INVALID OR INSUFFICIENT.
There are two ways how somebody gets removed from the voter-rolls:
- They die.
- They move to another county. They go to city-hall to register their new address, they get removed from this voter-roll and at the same time get added to the other voter-roll. As an individual and right here and right now.
SUDDEN MASSIVE VOTER-ROLL PURGES AREN'T EVEN POSSIBLE, BECAUSE YOUR STATUS IS CLEAR AT ALL TIMES.



The bullshit somebody is trying to pull right now, to disenfranchise Native Americans after-the-fact by claiming their address is invalid?
It wouldn't even be possible to pull off this shit with a national ID, because you never would have gotten the ID in the first place if there were a problem with your address. If there were a problem with your ID, it would have been solved years and decades ago when you got the ID.

[JI7]

1. the ones who support it do so mostly for minorities

[hlthe2b]

2. Germany's version provides protections directed from their hard-learned lessons of the past and

thus, its intent is benign.

Do you really think that implementation here would be similar and thus free of abuse and manipulation? I doubt many believe so.....

[DetlefK]

4. It would be harder for local officials to manipulate the process.

The local election-officials would have no choice. They cannot manipulate elections on a whim because everything is double-checked by the databases and voter-rolls of the other counties and because there would be uniform national guidelines for IDs.

For example, in Germany the ID is valid 10 years, before you get a brand-new one (new serial-number).

That means, even if somebody were to declare that some kinds of IDs are suddenly invalid (e.g. when Germany switched from paper to IDs with microchips), the new regulation would only be phased in slowly over the years as people re-new their IDs.
Even if the government were to declare changes to what an ID must be like, your current ID would still be valid for many years until it's up for renewal.

There would be no last-minute sleight-of-hand before elections, because the national ID would be valid no matter what local officials say.

[hlthe2b]

5. I don't disagree, but as evidenced by the recent voter database debacle, they can be compelled to

create a National Database--and if you think the RW (Libertarian concerns aside) would not TRY, I've got lovely beachfront property to sell you.

When Kris Kobach (successfully) got that through in the guise of Trump's voter fraud commission, I was joined by many in line to sign legal affidavits to make my voter registration confidential and thus ONLY the local registrar has access. Given Kobach's database was NEVER secure and has been breached many times, not to mention being abused in its use, I'm thankful I took the day off work to do so.

So, you are reassured by a country that learned its lessons of its NAZI past enough to assume that a country that has elected a President--enabled by a RW electorate that has no compunction about moving in a fascist direction, would not abuse this id card as it has abused issuance of passports and other documents. I think you need to open your eyes... The evidence to the contrary is everywhere right now.

[muriel_volestrangler]

3. If there's no centralized database, what are the biometric photos and chip for?

Those both indicate that data is read off the card and communicated with somewhere central (yes, even if that means the data reader goes to one central point and is then handed on to the county computer, that is, in effect, a centralized database.

[Fortinbras Armstrong]

6. What is labelled "alias" in the description

And labelled "GEB." on the card is "Geboren", which is the past participle of the word meaning "born". In this case is almost certainly the woman's surname before she was married.

I have my mother's German identity card from the 1930s, which has a large red "J" on it for "Jude" -- Jew.

One thing I have never really understood is that the American Social Security Number is actually a national identity number. So why don't they call it that officially?

[WePurrsevere]

7. "the American Social Security Number is actually a national identity number"...

I hadn't really thought about it as one but you have a very good point. There are differences of course but it wouldn't take all that much to modify it into something similar to Germany's which I was thinking sounds very similar to my NY state's drivers license.

[DetlefK]

10. I was unclear. Sorry. There is also stuff written on the backside of the ID.

By "alias" I was refering to your artistic pseudonym. It's an optional field. So, the ID would be for "Stefani Germanotta" and the listed alias would be "Lady Gaga".

Yes, in the example it shows the maiden-name of the woman.

[Lonestarblue]

9. We need automatic voter registration.

When getting your first driver’s license or renewing a driver’s license, you should automatically be registered to vote—forever. The only changes would be local address changes or moving to another state. Some states do this already, but we need consistent registration. The issue of how to deal with students away at college, but the SC has said that they may vote wherever that is by registering there. Of course, some states—like parts of Texas—don’t like letting students vote because their votes make it harder to fake the local vote.

[DFW]

11. This USUALLY works.

Added advantage--most EU countries accept the normed versions most other EU countries have.

Disadvantage--it is not without its glitches. One election day here when my wife went to vote, they told her she couldn't vote because she was registered as living in Munich, at the other end of Germany. She protested that she had never even been to Munich, but the election officials said their computer said she lived in Munich, so she did, and could only vote there. My wife then asked them to check the residences of our children, at the time still toddlers. Sure enough, they were registered as living where they really lived. She then demanded that they either call the police to arrest her for child abandonment or let her vote. They let her cast a provisional vote, later confirmed by the mayor himself. The point is that the national data base is not foolproof (as we saw), and if one glitch like this can occur, so can mass manipulation from outside.

[Hortensis]

12. Speaking of paranoia, the right used to be adamantly

opposed to ID laws because of the "communist threat." Seen as coming from the left, of course.

That they've now gone 180 and want it is a dangerous sign, not because of the ID, but because many of them have become a grave authoritarian threat themselves. Now I'm paranoid. What would they use them for?

I'm nostalgic looking back. Being able to identify ourselves with a utility bill wasn't just adequate, it was nice and part of a nicer, healthier era before what had formerly been extremist longing for authoritarian government grew and metastasized around the right.

Btw, requiring mandatory voting with fines for noncompliance would also require stringent record keeping and throw a big hammer in election tampering machinations. Fines would do far more than just bring in revenue -- it'd bring in angry voters with demands for correction. And it would also change the public image of voting to a duty and put an end to the various means of voter suppression that are based on casting it as a privilege.