https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/jun/12/us-voters-citizenship-brennan-center-study
Study from 2024

I didnt say that. I asked if theres seriously a debate about voter ID, because voter ID seems like an obvious thing.

This post was edited by Kaltrato on Feb 6 2026 02:10am

That article isn't speaking to a top down voter ID system, it's saying that if that 9% cohort were under specific and extreme time pressure to produce proof of citizenship documentation, they couldn't. That's apples and oranges with a voter ID system. Is voter ID system going to require that cohort to slam their existing documentation in one day? I very much doubt it.

I agree that if done well the problem can be solved in a relatively short timeframe.

Unfortunately, it looks to me as if people are once again focused on accusing the opposing party of manipulation and trying to gain personal advantage from it, rather than working to improve the system.

The issue is, how exactly will more restrictive voter ID laws and red tape bullshit going to stop "The other party" from cheating anyway?

It's not. And neither will any other amount of laws or technological advancement.

Nationalizing the voting system, rather than relying on disparate state policies and 3rd party vendors can only be a positive for the integrity of elections. I can't imagine dying on the hill - "no, I want less secure, less infallible election results"

The major issue--at least historically--with Voter ID is the process by which valid IDs are determined. There's been a history of political parties comparing demographic data to types of IDs owned and disproportionately extending validity to forms of ID predominately held by the voters whom they believe would vote for them. Those that belong to a demographic they have little to no anticipated support from do not make the list of valid IDs.

I am not an expert on U.S. elections, but from a general point of view I would say it makes more sense to let individual states and local districts manage election systems rather than the federal government. There should be election observers from all parties involved at every major polling station and no intimidation in front of those places by authorities.
That way, they can observe each other. There should be no counting before polling stations close, and again, observers from each party should be present. Vote by mail should require both ID and a signature.

I think an election of this size cannot be held without some irregularities. However, i don't think mistakes (or cheating) large enough to change the outcome of an election have happened yet.

Another inevitable phenomenon these days is the flood of live reports on social media about irregularities on election day. Since it is nearly impossible to tell what is true and what is false in real time, I'd advice everyone to ignore them.

What would be the advantage of nationalizing them? While i support unified rules across a country, i just see disadvantages from this.

It's much harder to get thousands of districts to cheat for your side, rather than a system organised by the reigning party that fears to lose their positions.

You're making some very bold leaps of logic here, pulling an archaic form of centralization out of your bunghole for the sake of argument, when there are already existing forms of nationalization (Germany, Australia, in limited forms) that have proven perfectly effective. You're also assuming the extreme decentralization the US operates under is inherently more anti-corruption when it is merely more fragmented and corruption can therefore pick off smaller and weaker targets rather than attempt to subvert the entire system at once. And indeed this happens to frequently, with swing state districts and counties showing massive and virtually impossible data outliers that have chosen presidential elections.