Ironic, since the Ad Council released commercials like these after 9/11 showing someone getting questioned after asking about a book in a library, and ending with "What if America wasn't America?":
At first I thought, this makes no sense. Why would the Patriot Act care more about who's getting a library card than incorporating when the dirty money is obviously flowing through the entity?
And then I realized, the government gets all of the ID information they need about the corporation the moment the entity needs to open a bank account. ID not just for the single corporator, but information about all of the officers and directors, and increasingly, about shareholders and major investors as well.
From the government's perspective, it actually does make quite a bit more sense to gather more (and better) information through the banking system at a later time. It's low risk and the additional information is significantly more valuable.
And then I realized, the government gets all of the ID information they need about the corporation the moment the entity needs to open a bank account.
Only if the corporation has a US bank account. A Cayman Islands bank account, not so much.
There's too much tolerance of anonymous corporations. In California, it is a criminal misdemeanor to ask for a credit card number on line before the actual name and address of the business has been given to the consumer. BPC § 17538. Useful to know if you have a dispute.
There is absolutely _not_ too much tolerance of anonymous corporations. If anything, there's not enough. The majority of them are likely used for lawful reasons. What an absurd, anti-privacy statement.
it's good to hear there are legitimate use cases. Care to share some examples? For me, and likely many others, the nefarious ones are the first that come to mind.
Assuming incorporation benefactor details would be kept private by the state, the only legit use-case I can think of is protection from politically motivated actions by public bodies.
Or is the fear that no list can truly be kept private, even by the state, and it would eventually be hacked or leaked, violating privacy?
> In California, it is a criminal misdemeanor to ask for a credit card number on line before the actual name and address of the business has been given to the consumer. BPC § 17538. Useful to know if you have a dispute.
> Only if the corporation has a US bank account. A Cayman Islands bank account, not so much.
Yes but usually the purpose of the nefarious shell companies is to “anonymously” transfer the proceeds of illegal activities to the Cayman Islands. A drug lord or a terrorist can’t just wire the money from their own account.
It’s a moot point anyway. C-Corps aren’t the primary vehicle for laundering money anymore, trusts are. Usually a trust with one or more shell corporations or LLCs as trustee.
Edit: Step 2 is Obtain a Federal Employer Identification Number (FEIN) from the IRS. I started clicking through that process. The 2nd question the IRS application asked is are the co-founders married. Definitely more information required :-)
For the FBI, CIA, NSA and local police to investigate terrorism and other crimes (also to conduct parallel construction and CIA/NSA/FBI feed no-warrant intelligence gathering under "national security" and "terrorism" banners).
> Why would the Patriot Act care more about who's getting a library card than incorporating when the dirty money is obviously flowing through the entity?
Because the Patriot Act was about using terrorism as a pretext to shove through an authoritarian wishlist, much of which and previously been pushed unsuccessfully on other bases (rooting out Communism, the Drug War, etc.), rather than a rational focussed response to any real need.
> Required by: Sections 214-216 PATRIOT Act of 2001
I looked at these sections, and they do not require the states do anything, nor contain any sort of reference to library cards.
Besides, I don't think they have the authority to order states to collect library users' information, and then compel them to divulge this information to federal authorities, in a blanket manner.
There is a limited set of enumerated powers listed Constitution (and the Tenth Amendment restricts all power to these enumerated ones), and nothing in the Constitution grants the sort of authority that would allow such interference in state-owned state-run public libraries.
Although I agree with you, the constitution now is largely irrelevant. For the most part, it is generally ignored by all three branches, except for when one political group can club the other with it. And once they do it, It goes largely ignored until it can be weaponized again.
In Chicago the only requirements are a photo ID with address, or a letter with your name and address + an ID with your photo and name.
Enough to comply with the anti-PATRIOTic act. But if that weren't the case, having your name/address/photo seems like a reasonable prerequisite for loaning you materials for free - the system would be very easy to abuse otherwise.
They also want to know that you live in the area they serve since local taxes are paying for the library. I can get a library card in the town over. They just want 80 bucks a year for it.
I feel like this comparison would be more accurate if you split up the address portion for both of them. The corporation is also going to require payment information which is going to tie into all the identification requirements of the banking system.
On the other hand, if a library card allows you to borrow books, it is a form of credit. It does make sense to keep track who you are extending credit to, right?
This varies extremely across various states and cities. If you live in new York city for example, to incoroerate an llc, you need to take out a section in a news paper to say you created an llc of name so and so, every day, for like a week, within a year (if I remember right) of your incorporation. Across three news papers too.
If you go "OK fine, I will incorporate elsewhere, like Delaware", then NYC views you as a foreign investor and mandates you still do the news paper thing.
Here is the kicker though, the news paper you are allowed to do this in vary based on county. You live in queens? That's a solid few thousand dollars. Brooklyn? Also a few thousand. Staten island? Less than $300.
If you do not do this then the enforcement mechanism is that when you get sued, then a court can take back the corporate veil perk of your llc (llc is void so it turns into a sole proprietorship I think) and go after your personal assets if you loose a lawsuit.
> If you do not do this then the enforcement mechanism is that when you get sued, then a court can take back the corporate veil perk of your llc (llc is void so it turns into a sole proprietorship I think) and go after your personal assets if you loose a lawsuit.
This is a common misconception.
In real life there is no actual penalty for not placing the ads. In the event you’re challenged on it, the deficiency could be remedied by immediately placing the ad, but that literally will never happen.
It is, in fact, a special interest giveaway to some local publications, but there’s no teeth to the law.
It's a really annoying process, agreed. If you're looking to setup an LLC in NYC, I've heard you can form it upstate and do the newspaper requirement there (where publication is cheaper) and then transfer back to the city.
Went to rent a mailbox at the UPS Store. My drivers license and passport weren't enough identification. I needed something additional. The owner suggested I get a library card and then he could rent me the mailbox. What did the library accept as identification? My drivers license. That was all. Seemed like a weird little bit of bureaucratic red tape that accomplished pretty much nothing.
California DMV wouldn’t take my lease because it was just a printout. Changed my address with Chase from my phone while in line (no verification), walked over to the branch to get a certified statement with the new address, walked it back into the DMV, got the address on my license.
The credential that actually proves where I live is rejected while the one that just repeats my arbitrary inputs is accepted!
I understand there’s a strong deterrent but any reasonably smart person could defraud this. They seem not to be even trying.
> The credential that actually proves where I live is rejected while the one that just repeats my arbitrary inputs is accepted!
A lease doesn't prove where you live, though I generally agree with your point here. That being said, I think most people are fine or even supportive of them seeming to not even try.
Sure you don't need much 'info' to create a corporation. But if said corporation has any income/employees the reporting and maintenance requirements are far greater than maintaining a library card.
In reality, a corporation with no documentation or operating history will have a hard time getting access to other people's assets. The requirements to actually operate a corporation are a lot more stringent than the requirements to create one on paper.
The information for California is incorrect. At least in San Francisco:
- you can get a library card without any proof of address (with this type of card, you can only check out one physical item at a time: https://sfpl.libanswers.com/faq/129952)
A library is loaning you property, usually collateral-free. A corporation is just a placeholder essentially for the activities it will perform, each of which will likely have far more stringent requirements than a library card.
Moreover, the State collects a filing fee... That is, a library card grants you permission to borrow something from the State, while the Corp application entails you giving the State your money.
A library is not loaning you property, it is a public good which you already paid for and have a right to use, the administrative overhead is for the convenience of all library users.
A corporation's activities are unknowable but not being a real person it is not entitled to an assumption of good faith and there is no particular right to create new legal entities. We should definitely know who the beneficial owners of any corporation are to reduce the potential for fraud.
It does if that corporation is used to conceal income in a way that reduces the local tax base, which could negatively affect the utility of nearly all communally owned goods/services.
The article was about the ease of setting up series of shell companies, which can easily move money around the world in a hard-to-detect way in order to conceal profits made by people, with no way to determine who those people are or what their tax obligations are.
I'm fairly certain most libraries would consider "loaning books" as one of the services they provide. The public good paid for by taxes is that they loan for free.
Part of the administrative overhead is making sure they get the books back.
Not just taxpayers vs non-taxpayers, but WHERE you pay taxes. My taxes don’t pay for public libraries in other states or even other areas of my own state.
A corporation creates a fictitious person. Allowing the beneficial interests to be hidden is disgusting and not compatible with a free market.
Long ago, a corporate charter required an act of the state legislature to authorize it. Obviously that’s a heavy handed approach, but the idea that any agent of any person or other entity can anonymously create a company is ridiculous.
A corporation is not a fictitious person. You can't get a corporation a passport, or a welfare cheque, or enroll it in school. You can own and freely erase a corporation, you can't own or erase a person.
A corporation is a legal entity which can engage in some of the same contracts as people can, because its entire purpose is to serve as a legal framework for organizing economic activity. In primitive societies, economic activities must be organized around flesh and blood people, like nobility. Corporations are much more flexible and efficient in achieving these aims. This legal structure, like many others, has massively improved human welfare since its invention by allowing people to pool and deploy resources and power in flexible ways. It beats depending on a rich guy to finance and organize everything himself.
If having this legal status makes a corporation a person, a country would also have to be a fictitious person. So would the UN, and the EU, and the AU. So would every government agency and every province and state in every country. A whole world of fictitious people! Except they're not, any more than my dog is a child because she has a birth certificate and an immunization record, just like a child.
Please, let's let this 'corporations are people' myth die.
The notion of an enterprise as a fictitious person is a well established idea that has existed since at least the Roman Empire.
Many government entities are fictitious persons. All public authorities are, and many agencies. I’m unsure of how a sovereign state compares to a corporation legally.
Your dog is entirely different. It is a chattel, or your personal property. Your dog has no agency, ownership of anything, etc.
If we understand 'fictitious person' in the limited legal sense, you're right. It becomes wrong when laypeople start to think that this means a lot more than it does, because they take the literal words out of context and attach a bunch of meanings that aren't present in the legal meaning.
Also why having a Library Card for certain IRS forms like an I-9 is a valid form of identity. Which at first I thought was crazy, but given this article, I suppose it's valid. I just hope all states make getting a Library Card complicated enough.
Read page 4 for an actual side by side comparison.
You’ll see that all you really need to get a library card is present a form of identification, and perhaps a utility bill to prove your current address. Whereas for registering a corporation:
” No state requires any information about the person(s) who directly or indirectly own or control the company (often referred to as a beneficial owner)”
... along with many other similarly surprising statements that establish not even a low bar, but the absence of a bar at all.
How does that make any sense when, as the report highlights, those shell corporations - that is corporations whose placeholder status is used in itself to realize some gain, and thus never have to meet “more stringent requirements” - can then be used for “tax evasion, shady campaign contributions, cigarette smuggling, and weapons dealing”?
As the parent said, just setting up a Delaware corporation isn't going to be much protection for most criminal enterprises. If they want to, the ATF will get you for tobacco or gun smuggling whether you have Articles of Corporation or not.
And in the US, to continue that example, there are multiple agencies and thousands of pages of regulations overseeing tax accounting and campaign finance. Sure, tons of shady shit still happens... but not because the criminals happened to file as an LLC instead of as sole proprietors.
reminds me of other reading from today. You can get a US National (healthcare) Provider Identifier (NPI) without any verification:
> @Aetna @Cigna @UHC 27/ Medicare officials declined to be interviewed about Williams. But in a statement, they acknowledged that the agency doesn’t verify whether an NPI applicant is a medical provider or has a criminal history.
> @Aetna @Cigna @UHC 16/ He kept getting new NPIs. For every application, Williams also obtained a new employer identification number, used for tax purposes.
But he never hid who he was, using his real name, address and phone number on the applications.
I'm a doctor. This is insane. Usually I prescribe electronically, but there have also been times I had to call a pharmacy or just walk in and in either case all I have to do is verbally give my NPI number. (not for controlled substances)
Preface: I keyword searched for 'county' & 'counties' on this page & didn't see my point raised.
The article compares library cards state by state.
However, I've never heard of a state issued library card, only county, city or other local municipality.
My point is I'm not clear where the researchers found 50 sets of state library card requirements.
There's ~3000 counties and at least 4000 cities in the US. Somewhere in those numbers ought to be how many different sets of library card requirements, there are in the US.
> To obtain a library card in any state in the U.S., the applicant must be the person who will ultimately be controlling/using the card, and a significant amount of identifying information must be provided by the person to the state in order to obtain the library card.
This is nonsesne, or at least was here in Sunnyvale California. I walked in with a phone bill. No ID, nothing else. In hindsight it probably could have been anyone's bill, or even a fake.
Based on the title, I thought this was going to be a hackeresque how-to style thing, distilling techniques that the rich use and getting them into the hands of every day people. But no, rather it's a call for legislation that will stifle less-moneyed actors, keeping the privilege reserved for the elite. The end result would undoubtedly contain a loophole akin to FACTA's directly-held art exemption.
> To form a company in any state in the U.S., it is not necessary to identify or provide any information about the person(s) who will be ultimately be controlling the company. In some cases it isn’t even necessary to provide information about who will be managing the company and, where some information about managers (i.e. officers or directors) is required, it is very limited.
Creating companies should be as frictionless as possible. You shouldn't need to provide much information at all, and it should be extremely cheap. Some states do this pretty well, others not so much.
I'd rather a library card take almost no information as well, but you could run into issues with stealing, so it makes sense that it would take more.
Starting a business should be something anyone in the US can do without hiring lawyers and wading through complex paperwork.
In Massachusetts you can even download a fill-in-the-blank articles of organization and look up the filed articles for any existing company online if you want to see how others are doing it.
It says "significant" amount of info for a library card. Yet every library I've ever registered at just needed a piece of mail with your name on it. That's it.
This could actually be a really fun project to do with your child. It's a pretty inexpensive way to teach them about how companies work, the basics of organization, and even introduce them to the idea of taxes.
Registering a simple company in your local state, issuing stock, designating your board, doing your meetings and minutes, filing your $0 tax return, then dissolving it would probably only cost you ~$100 - $200 in supplies and fees.
Since the company is never going to actually conduct business in California I wonder if you could register in another state like Massachusetts and skip the foreign qualification in CA?
Yea that was my thought process as well. First idea was to use Stripe Atlas. https://stripe.com/en-ca/atlas. Costs more than your estimate but seems pretty turn key and it's a good segway in to building simple web applications and hosting them on product hunt.
The reasons for requesting robust identification for those filingbfor incorporation, dismissed by several comments here, are given in the first parafraph of the linked report:
In early April 2016 the largest cache of private documents in history were leaked to journalists and subsequently exposed the shadowy world of offshore tax fraud, money laundering and corruption that hides behind anonymous shell corporations. The documents, which included email, incorporation papers and other private communications, were from a little-known Panamanian law firm called Mossack Fonseca and were released by the nternational Consortium of Investigative Journalists which had received them from a whistleblower. The ensuing scandal followed two others before it – Lux Leaks and Swiss Leaks which were related to bank-enabled tax evasion – but dwarfed them in the sheer amount of data involved.
The Securities Act of 1933, setting among the few national registration requirements in the USstates as its basis, following an episode of history in which such need was established:
To provide full and fair disclosure of the character of securities sold in interstate and foreign commerce and through the mails, and to prevent frauds in the sale thereof, and for other purposes.
The history of Delaware incorporation law makes clear at numerous point obligations for good-faith dealings and power to pierce the legal fictions of incorporation:
It is well settled that a court of equity may disregard formalities and break through the shell of fictions in order to prevent, or undo fraud. ...
Directors of a corporation are trustees for the stockholders, and their acts are governed by the rules applicable to such a relation, which exact of them the utmost good faith and fair dealing, especially where their individual interests are concerned."
Note that incorporating is not necessary to run a business -- sole proprieterships and partnerships exist. Incorporation extends specific legal protections by the state in return for net social benefit. In theory.
I don't see any particular reason why the identification process for a corporation should be more stringent than a library card. What is astonishing to me is that both are meaningfully more stringent than voting. In Minnesota for example, all one needs is another registered voter to vouch for them.
In Minnesota for example, all one needs is another registered voter to vouch for them.
My thoughts on this are old school. Like 1700's old school.
A person's right to vote exists with or without documentation. A piece of paper, an entry in a ledger, or a row in a database has no bearing on whether that right exists, or should be exercised.
In many of the states where I've lived (13 so far), all that was needed to vote in the absence of identification was to sign an affidavit stating that I am who I say I am. The people at the polling station could ask for ID, but they couldn't require it. It's up to the people who handle the vote (often the county clerk or county board of elections) to decide later if my vote was valid or not.
A lot of that is changing these days as the concept of being constantly tracked, monitored, and tabulated becomes normalized in America.
Just a generation ago we made fun of the Soviet Union and various totalitarian regimes for having police stop people for no reason and demanding, "papers, please." Now there are people who think it's perfectly OK to require domestic passports ("Real ID" and similar) just to walk down the street.
I wonder if two generations from now people will think we're old and crazy because we don't think it's OK for the government to require a chip be implanted in our brains so our thoughts can be monitored by bureaucratic minders.
It's sounds like tinfoil hat sci-fi slippery slopism, but so would today's facial recognition in airports to people just 50 years ago.
Your thoughts are not old school at all. The Constitution initially left it up to the states to determine who was eligible to vote and most states restricted voting to white, male, property owners - thus requiring a deed of property to register. NJ was pretty progressive allowing women to vote if they had property.
Identification and Soviet papers are two completely different things. In the Soviet Union and in China until very recently even your travel was restricted by your papers. They weren't just identification, they literally defined where you could go. There is no comparison with a simple, national ID system like the one used in India.
Our voting system was largely based on community to enforce voting rights. Meaning you live a small town, everyone knows who you are, and if you aren't supposed to vote you won't get away with it because everyone knows everyone. Today even in small towns many people have no idea who their neighbors are.
Your notion on voting rights runs contrary to the concept of citizenship in general, is quite recent, and radical. There is nothing old school about it.
I believe the minimum criteria to vote is citizenship. To ensure that only citizens are voting, some paper, ledger, or row in a database must exist somewhere and a means to check that criteria must exist.
Oh and letting politicians decide after the fact whose votes count is recipe for disaster.
There are way more people nowadays than there used to be. To make things harder, people can easily move from one place to other very far ones in a short notice, nearly instantly, and with no quarantine period when they will be distrusted by everyone.
Speed of transportation and speed of communication - when ideas and capital move at light speed instead of horse speed, society changes in correspondingly massive ways.
Umm the 1700's in America were the era of needing to have land ownership to vote (more than half of white men couldn't vote), poll taxes, exclusion of blacks, native Americans, and women, religious tests, and so on. The 15th Amendment that changed some of that wasn't even passed until 1870.
However, that's orthogonal to the issue; documentation of your right to vote is not one of the requirements of possessing that right. (as parent said, "A person's right to vote exists with or without documentation.") It is a dramatic improvement that the people with the right to vote has been expanded since the 1700s, but what you said doesn't actually speak against the basic idea that documentation is not relevant to the exercise of ones rights.
As an aside: once documentation is required, we enter a position where we do not have our rights until proven otherwise.
It's orthogonal, but if you don't see how the shift in (the orthogonal) political power structures has affected the exercise of basic rights, then you probably won't see future violations of rights coming as effectively because you're not fully alert for them.
Amendments to the constitution have establish the right.
As a society, we decided that tenants, people of non-white races, women, and 18-20 year olds should be allowed to vote. We also eliminated odious standards like counting then-slaves as 60% human.
I'm no expert and could be missing something. But it doesn't look to me like we have an "inalienable" right to vote. Various amendments do say that our right to vote can't be revoked for certain specific reasons, e.g.,:
- The 15th amendment prohibits denying the right to vote on certain grounds (race, color) but doesn't go beyond that.
- The 19th prohibits denying the right to vote based on sex.
- The 24th prohibits denying the right to vote (in certain federal elections) based on outstanding tax bills.
- The 26th prohibits denying citizens over 18 the right to vote based on age.
But this seems like a weirdly specific list. If the reason isn't on the list, is it still fair game? For instance, AFAIK some states don't let convicted felons vote.
We have a second amendment that talks about well-regulated militia broadly interpreted to mean all sorts of things, some I agree with, some I do not.
Likewise, we have multiple, progressive amendments to the constitution with a clear goal of enabling voting to the broadest possible scope.
I live in a state that requires that you be a citizen, age 18, and not be in prison or on parole. I think that’s a fair compromise over disqualification of felons, as you create 2nd tier of citizen by denying that right.
Yeah, "old school" was very much for extensive voter qualifications like assets and literacy tests.
In fact, that's the whole purpose of the now-awkward electoral college: state legislatures choosing knowledgeable electors to vote for president/VP.
---
This an unpopular opinion, but I honestly think there's something to that.
My state political party operates on a caucus system, where I don't directly vote for local, state, or federal candidates in the primary (ironically, president is the exception to this); rather I elect a district representative to attend the convention, speak with the candidates, and vote the best one. I don't have time/choose not to have time to do this same level of diligence, and like in many other areas, I am happy to delegate it to one of my known, trusted neighbors. I believe it produces a better, more intelligent, less hysterical media outcome.
This is also why I'm not necessarily against non-pathological obstacles in voting. In 2018, my county did a (inexpensive) mail-only election. I wouldn't be surprised is the deadlines, etc. proved to be an obstacle. But....is it really that bad to have that small hoop for people to participate? I don't think so.
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P.S. You know poll taxes aren't taxes at polling stations, right? It just means "flat (non-proportional) tax".
It’s not unusual among modern democracies for voters to provide proof of identity. We’re (and the UK?) the outliers in that, so no, I think it’s unrelated to authoritarianism. It’s got more to do with ensuring integrity of votes.
India, Mexico, Argentina, Germany, Taiwan, Brazil, Iceland, Costa Rica, etc, require it. Among Americans all major demographics show majority support for voter ID reqs.
Other modern democracies have different traditions with respect to documentation; we don't have a national identity card either, nor do we require people to carry identification with them. Lots of voters, particularly elderly voters, don't have formal identification.
Instances of voter fraud in the US are vanishingly rare. It's a really dumb crime; stiff penalties, lots of legwork, and an infinitesimal likelihood of influencing outcomes.
I was a Cook County election judge in the last cycle and will be one during the next cycle as well. We don't require identification, though judges can challenge a check-in and ask for identification, and the vote will get cast provisionally if none is provided.
it is really interesting that in US and countries like that where voter fraud is relatively easy it's almost nonexistant, but in Russia, for example (where you need your passport to vote and where you can't vote just anywhere, but on a particular station in the region you have a stamp of residence in your passport, and yeah, there's a list of voters everywhere, in advance)... Well, bussing exist there.
Buses with "voters", who have "out of home voting permit" papers on them, are coming to the "problematic" voting stations, to tip elections for the "proper candidate". Usually it's organized by managers of political indifferent or loyalist workers of government institution.
Where voter fraud happens it isn’t random people deciding to vote 3 times. Why would anyone bother?
Actual vote fraud is about political machinery. Now in the US the real election shenanigans are much cheaper and more effective... the big pools of black money and gerrymandering are the tools of modern political machines.
That's not 'vote[r] fraud'. The meaning of the term is independent of whether this type of fraud is common or not, how the threat of it is misused politically, etc.
That's because election fraud in Russia is driven from the top down. In a country with more-or-less functioning rule of law, and where you won't get into police trouble for documenting this sort of thing - these attacks would not work - and those sorts of restrictions on voting are not necessary.
Hence, the voter fraud boogieman in the US remains just that - a convenient boogieman.
You’re right. I forgot Australia and NZ. Never the less even left leaning or liberal countries out there require ID to vote: Brazil (was left), Sweden, Spain, Greece (Syriza), but then you have truly poor countries with truly poor people who still pull it off, like The Gambia, Ukraine, Libya, etc. Ukraine and The Gambia are made up of many ethnicities and they manage to do it.
None the less, we're down the list at no. 26 when it comes to voter integrity[1]. This is from 2014, so it's not encumbered by today's politics.
Ahead of us: Norway, Germany, Netherlands, Iceland, Czech Republic, Austria, South Korea, Slovenia, Israel, Cyprus, Lithuania, Australia, Rwanda, Japan, Chile, Italy, Grenada, Malta, Argentina, Georgia and Mongolia.
All except Australia req. Voter ID.
I (and everyone else) needs to present ID for cold medicine. I don't see this being burdensome.
Voter id is not required because by requiring it you shift voter demographics away from poor/minority/elderly people who don't have an id. The cost for an id should be zero if it is required to vote.
It normally is in Voter ID states like my (for a couple more days) home state of Wisconsin. The problem is that a lot of people can't provide supporting documentation, i.e. a birth certificate.
In Australia you simply attest that you are eligible to vote, repeat your name and address as per the electoral roll, and you're good to go — ballot in one hand, sausage sizzle in the other. You don't even have to demount from your skippy.
I've never heard anybody suggest that an election outcome has been affected by any part of this. And we vote on paper too, no computer fuckups.
the other thing that makes Australia an outlier on these kinds of lists is that it enforces compulsory voting, which tends to counter-effect attempts at voter suppression
It’s not unusual among modern democracies for voters to provide proof of identity. We’re (and the UK?) the outliers in that, so no, I think it’s unrelated to authoritarianism. It’s got more to do with ensuring integrity of votes.
India, Mexico, Argentina, Germany, Taiwan, Brazil, Iceland, Costa Rica, etc, require it.
To which I can only think, "So what?"
Why does the United States need to be like other countries? The whole reason people settled this land was because they didn't want to be like other countries.
It's OK for countries to have different systems. In fact, it's better because the diversity allows for experimentation. France is awesome because they do things the French way there. Germany is awesome for all its Germanity. If all the countries are the same, then there's no point in having more than one country or ever going anywhere.
I wouldn't ask Americans to give up their system any sooner than I'd ask the French to give up wine.
Among Americans all major demographics show majority support for voter ID reqs.
Again, "So what?" There's a vast difference between doing what is popular and doing what is right. Keeping it in the political realm, you imagine the mess the nation would be if we just went with the popular vote and let people vote directly for the president? It would disenfranchise 273 million people who don't live in New York, California, Texas, or Florida.
This is getting tangential, but opinion polls on voter ID aren't comparable to opinions on a national popular vote. Replacing the electoral college with a popular vote is the entire policy. Voter ID is complicated - we don't have a required ID nationally, lots of people don't have drivers licenses, state IDs cost money, how are we going to get gov't-issued IDs to people that don't already have one - do we make it any easier/cheaper or do we just tell them "you've got 4 years, figure it out"?
Also disagree on the comments on the popular vote being a mess - why should the population of someone's state factor in to how much their vote matters? Disenfranchisement is someone who lives in California's vote mattering less than a voter in Wyoming. Especially problematic is the winner-take-all way of determining electoral votes. Having a state pledge all of its electors to one candidate when 49% of its citizens voted for the other is an absolute failure of representation.
I'd say that the 2000 election coming down to 540 votes in Florida is a much bigger mess than the idea of a popular vote.
I dunno. 30 years ago there was hardly any ID theft. It was very rare. Today, it's widespread and a daily occurrence. Things change. We need to lock doors. It's not the world it used to be.
Authoritarianism always claims to be about ensuring the integrity of something or other. The question is always: is that the right goal, and is the proposal really the best way to accomplish that goal? Making election day a national holiday, for example, would do more to allow citizens to accurately express their voting preferences than any removal of non-citizen votes could ever do.
I think it would probably be best if we did both: statutorily mandate that employees have an opportunity to vote, even if the polling stations are only open during working hours; and also require that voters show the kind of ID we ask for when somebody tries to purchase a beer or a pack of cigarettes.
Yes it is. I don't smoke any more but I resent having to produce my ID for common purchases. It's none of the retailer's or the state's business. Corporations typically cover their ass for legal liability against selling booze or cigarettes to minors by requiring everyone to product ID. I have no wish to live in a permission society where everyone is constantly having to get approval for everything, and am opposed to the construction of same. That attitude extends into the political sphere.
> It's up to the people who handle the vote (often the county clerk or county board of elections) to decide later if my vote was valid or not.
You'd really rather have your vote nullified behind your back rather than just be told you can't vote? That sounds like a recipe for a lot of abuse doesn't it?
The process will vary by jurisdiction, but one approach is to identify if a voter has questionable eligibility when they arrive to the polling place, allow them to fill out a ballot, have them seal it in an envelope, and then label the envelope with the voter's information. You can then take the time to verify the votes validity before the envelope is reopened and the ballot is counted with the other votes. And just like with traditional ballots you can have the process observed by representatives of multiple candidates/political parties to ensure both transparency and that no vote is maliciously discarded.
Oh I see. That makes sense if you can get the government to use paper ballots everywhere (best of luck in the US). It does make me wonder how well it would work out in practice though. If verification happens at the same time as the vote, then you can try to correct any issues that come up right then. (Maybe bring additional documentation right then? I don't know.) Whereas if you introduce a delay in between... how many people are actually going to go through the hassle of dealing with it later (especially imagine having to take days off work) to work through the legal bureaucracy and have their votes counted? I feel in the US it seems a little bit too optimistic that it would work out fine, but maybe I'm just pessimistic...
There is zero reason a voter can’t be given a provisional paper ballot in a jurisdiction with electronic ballots.
You don’t want to verify eligibility before voting because it slows the process down. The longer it takes to vote, the fewer people vote. You just collect the voter’s information and then the responsibility for the rest of the verification is on the government. It occupies the government’s time to verify the vote and not the voter’s time.
> My thoughts on this are old school. Like 1700's old school.
A person's right to vote exists with or without documentation. A piece of paper, an entry in a ledger, or a row in a database has no bearing on whether that right exists, or should be exercised.
How do we ensure non-citizens aren’t voting? We accept many visitors - refugees, H1B, tourists, F1/I-20, etc. None are granted voting rights.
In case it was not obvious: the vote is for adult U.S. citizens; not for permanent resident aliens, not for visitors, not for illegal aliens, not for children.
It is a tragedy that this was not made abundantly clear to this woman, assuming she truly believed that she was permitted to vote.
If you’re physically in a jurisdiction, you are subject to its laws. Isn’t the supposed point of democracy to give people a voice in the government that rules over them?
Democracy is also an expression of self-determination of a people. Meaning they don't have to let anyone who visits their country sway their decisions.
Who decides what “a people” is? You have a bunch of people in a geographic region, and some of those people get to decide that they are “the people” and that only they get to vote? Sounds pretty blatantly undemocratic.
You make it sound as if they just happened to wind up there at random, and have nothing else in common.
Geographic proximity is incidental to belonging to a group. The land they live on is merely one of their possessions. Allowing visitors does not mean they must share their sovereignty with them.
To answer your question, in democracies, each person can vote to influence their own nation - their demos, even while abroad. You think demos should be decided purely on current location, but most countries disagree - they use mostly jus sanguinis, with the exception of jus soli in the Americas.
I understand the historical reasoning for some of this stuff, but as long as the laws apply to everyone in a physical location, I think the only way to claim to be democratic is to let everyone in that physical location vote to influence those laws.
They clearly said that was someone else’s problem, to be handled at some later point in the processing where options for deciding the question are more limited.
Do you think voting should be limited to citizens of the country? Or that each person should only get 1 vote? If so that seems impossible to implement without requiring identification, if not that seems tantamount to infringing on people's right to vote, if someone can vote twice against me while I only get 1 vote because I'm following the rules then that means my vote effectively wasn't counted.
Voting across the United States is registered, and voter registration requires identification. In Cook County, where I vote and election judge, voters are assigned to relatively small precincts, which track votes during the day on paper and electronic ledgers. If Judy Blue comes in and votes in the morning and you try to come in and vote for her later, you won't be able to check in. If the reverse happens, Judy makes a stink and there's a process for going through the ledger and checking identification. In practice, neither thing ever actually happens: "retail" voter fraud in the United States is practically nonexistent. It's an expensive crime with stiff penalties that is extraordinarily unlikely to impact the election.
The people who object to voter ID laws don't also object to voter registration ID laws? I thought they were worried about people who never had ID, but how would they register?
Instead of just assuming that requiring ID leads to better representation, shouldn't we objectively analyze what choices lead to the best representation?
Requiring ID has the obvious tradeoff that it prevents some people who should be allowed to vote from voting. Furthermore, it can potentially lead to a system where people's votes are unfairly discounted because of administrative "errors" (e.g. interstate cross-check). From the evidence I've seen those problems are more significant than double voters or non-citizen voting.
The voter ID requirements gather enough info so that a person can be identified, putting them at risk of fines, prison and deportation if their citizenship is challenged later on. That's not perfect but it creates an incentive to not vote fraudulently.
Walking down the street and voting are not the same thing.
ID's are common, the vast majority already have a passport or driver license. You need this much to even be employed so bringing it with you for an election is not an onerous requirement, it's actually completely reasonable.
EDIT: It seems HN has rate-limiting for comments now.
In most countries where an id is a requirement for voting they have systems in place where you can easily get a national id card. In the US Republicans make it as hard as possible for poor people to get an id then are asking to make it mandatory as they are aware most poor people don't vote for them.
If they want to enforce id checking for voting then they need to make sure people can easily get an id.
Difficulty should not overrule importance when it comes to federal elections.
> " need to make sure people can easily get an id"
I agree. I don't think it's as simple or generic as a single political party preventing it though. Is there a clear example of what is stopping people from obtaining these IDs?
When a single political party has the most involvement in curtailing voting hours number of voting booths the opening hours when a person is able to get an id etc. Then it paints a picture.
Though I agree its not as simple as that and there are multiple reasons apart from the above but the major reason is the peoples distrust of the government in the US which results in inadequate funding to fix the above problems.
Sure, I think major federal elections should be a federal holiday to ensure time availability. I don't see how that's the same as requiring identification though.
In the US Republicans make it as hard as possible for poor people to get an id then are asking to make it mandatory as they are aware most poor people don't vote for them.
While the Republicans take heat for it on the national level, when you examine the issue at state and local levels there's plenty of it on both sides.
What disappoints me is that the Democrats rarely push back on these proposals, and when they do it's half-hearted.
Republicans used to be the party of freedom as in pioneer guy with a cabin and a mule. Democrats used to be the party of freedom as in ACLU. These days neither is willing to stick their necks out in any tangible way for freedom.
If you're voting on matters of public policy, you should be in a position where the outcome of that policy affects you as if you are part of that community. Part of that is being... part of that community. Having an ID is a pretty good proxy for that.
> Hopefully we get self driving cars you don't need a license for ASAP, so the expectation of every adult constantly carrying around an ID decreases.
I'm sorry but how would I get into a self-driving car? I'd probably not own one. I'd ride in a Waymo, Uber, or some other provider's self-driving car which would mean they'd need to be authenticate who I am and check to see if I am authorized to get in the car...
I don't know what you mean. In the U.S. you don't need a drivers license to ride in a car. Uber does not currently require any state issued ID for riders and I'm not sure why they would in the future.
You might need the Uber app but that isn't tied to any government ID.
Not if you want to buy cold medicine, get a library card, get some beers, buy some legal pot, air b&b, zip car, U-Haul , getting a job, etc. So, you will still need to carry it --unless you want to risk having to go back home in order to do any of the above.
Not if you want to buy cold medicine, get a library card, get some beers, buy some legal pot, air b&b, zip car, U-Haul , getting a job, etc. So, you will still need to carry it --unless you want to risk having to go back home in order to do any of the above.
You need to have it for those things. You don't need to "carry" it for those things. Nobody does all of those things all the time every day. Going to buy some beer? Bring your ID. Going to walk the dog? Feck off, cop. I'm a citizen minding my own business.
I like your thought framework but only as it exists within the electorate system. Without that system, a single city in a single state can jeopardize the entire system.
> In many of the states where I've lived (13 so far), all that was needed to vote in the absence of identification was to sign an affidavit stating that I am who I say I am. The people at the polling station could ask for ID, but they couldn't require it. It's up to the people who handle the vote (often the county clerk or county board of elections) to decide later if my vote was valid or not.
And this is precisely the problem I have with people who jump up and down screaming that it’s “impossible” for non-citizens to vote because “they have to register.” Clearly there is potential to exploit the system — it’s just the plain old honor system, after all. Maybe it’s just the software developer in me, but I would never ship software that I knew had a critical vulnerability but then rationalize away that it’s so unlikely that anyone would ever exploit it.
And yeah, states could follow up on invalid voter registrations, but will they really? One state in particular prides itself on being a “sanctuary state”, yeah I’m sure they’re right on top of making sure illegal aliens aren’t slipping through the cracks and voting after the DMV automatically registered them to vote upon issuing them a license.
I also find it funny how the same people that rationalize things the US “should” do because “every other country does it” conveniently ignore that “everyone else” requires ID to vote, but for some reason we’re a special case that can’t possibly accomodate that.
To the contrary: There were only four known cases of voter fraud in the 2016 elections[0]; more stringent voting requirements suppresses voting, especially by poor, black and/or Latinx voters.[1]
It certainly seems the case that more damage has been done to society via corporations to which no human person can be associated than by voter fraud.
It's pretty circular reasoning to argue against methods for detecting voter fraud on the basis that we haven't detected voter fraud.
If there is voter fraud, it might go away if we got reliable detection. Fraud is less likely when being caught is certain, and it is far more likely when being caught is about as likely as getting hit by lightening.
Even if there isn't voter fraud, the mere fact that people are worried about it is undermining trust in our elections. That needs to be fixed, and the only way to fix it is to have a means to prove that there is no voter fraud.
GP isn't arguing against detecting voter fraud. They're arguing against making the registration process harder in order to prevent (basically nonexistent) voter fraud.
The reason people in the U.S. are worried about voter fraud is that one side of the political spectrum is pushing the narrative — without any real evidence — that voter fraud is rampant. We shouldn't make it more difficult to vote in order to fix a made-up problem.
Because you can check and measure who is actually eligible to vote before they vote.
Let me ask, why do we have identification for joining a company? Checking employment status? Boarding a flight? Starting a business? Opening a bank account? Getting government assistance? Why would that be necessary but not for voting?
I'm not asking about prevention or why voter ID makes sense in general; I'm asking how it enables measurement of voter fraud. We already have a record of everyone who voted and their address and identifying information such as driver's license number or social security number. What additional information does an ID provide?
How do you know that information is accurate and matches the individual? For example, for all those situations I described, why is ID required when you can also just provide the information instead? Can you walk into a bank and provide your info without verification?
Requiring ID allows us to measure when fraud is occuring by individuals attempting to submit votes and data that is not theirs. Otherwise, there is no "truth" to compare to. I guess we can always call every single person and verify their vote, but then is that not the same thing as an ID check?
> Requiring ID allows us to measure when fraud is occuring by individuals attempting to submit votes and data that is not theirs.
No, it doesn't; it is neither necessary (as such fraud can be detected by other means) nor sufficient (as even with an ID requirement fraud can be performed without detection) for that purpose.
Ok, I guess I still haven't seen any clear details on this so can you please answer the questions I asked in this thread?
Why are other situations not an issue for requiring ID but voting is? How can we detect fraud by other means, and why can't these other services also do that? Does the fact that nothing is infallible mean it shouldn't be used? If you didn't vote but someone used your information, how do you catch that without some form of verification?
(1) There is no evidence of an actual existing problem to be addressed by voter ID requirements.
(2) Because voter ID requirements in the US, past and present, have a history of being introduced as part of efforts, often by the admission of their own sponsors (though usually in venues they didn't expect to become public) to suppress voting by legal voters of particular demographic groups disfavored by those pushing the measures, particularly African-Americans.
I'm afraid we've gone in a big circle here and I still haven't gotten any clear answers.
Why is voting less important than other services? If someone uses your information, how can we tell without verification of the vote? And if we can't tell, how do we know it didn't happen? And if we don't know, how do we know it's not a problem? If every vote is important then every fraudulent vote is equally important.
I'm only talking about ID verification for voting here, not other programs. If those programs are stopping voters then I agree that's bad, but that's a separate topic. And if IDs are required for so many other private and government services outside of voting, then aren't those services discriminating too? Right to bear arms still requires a background check so does that impede on people's rights? How does that reconcile?
Let's say the US enacts nationwide voter ID by 2020, and election day occurs without a single reported incident of voter fraud — i.e. no one tries to vote with an ID that doesn't belong to them. Did it work?
Well, maybe. Absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence. In 2016, we were able to identify four cases of voter fraud in retrospect [1]. How does voter ID make this process more accurate?
Not having faith in our measurements for 2016 is also problematic. Let's say we uncover 100 cases of voter fraud after the fact with voter ID in 2020. Is this because we're able to better detect voter fraud now, or is there actually more? How do we know we haven't accidentally introduced a loophole that makes the problem worse?
I'm not really interested in a general discussion about "why does ID make sense for X but not voting". We can be specific: in what ways does voter ID improve our ability to measure — not deter — fraud? Because as far as we can tell now, it's already exceedingly rare.
This is the circular discussion I'm talking about. Without verification, how can you possibly come to a determination that it didn't happen? It is nothing but guesswork, so claims that it is exceedingly rare are unfounded. As I said before, verification would identify and therefore present real numbers that can be measured.
Also if we did enact ID checks, and zero fraud happened (perhaps because it preemptively prevented it all), how is that not a good outcome? Considering it went from non-zero to zero, yes that would be an improvement. What would be the loophole that introduces more voter fraud because of IDs? Can you please give me an example of this?
The comparison to other services and rights is critical to show bias and present a rational framework to tackle the problem. If the right to bear arms is not infringed by background checks, then it follows that the right to vote is not infringed by ID checks. Do you disagree with this statement?
> Without verification, how can you possibly come to a determination that it didn't happen?
ID doesn't provide verification that it didn't happen, it provides a difficulty bar for doing it.
Verification that it didn't happen, insofar as that is possible, is provided statistically through the absence of signficant patterns of attempted double votes, which you'd expect to see if there was any substantial pattern of voter fraud (especially by more than one party; barely plausibly, a single party with a sufficiently good likely voter model could be problematic to detect.)
Right now to verify a vote is legitimate, we can check the information on the voter registration. Do they still live at their address? Does their social security number belong to them? Are they at least 18 and a citizen?
It's still unclear how voter ID would improve this. Yes, the people at the polling place can check your face against the ID. But if the results are already in and you suspect fraud, what extra information does the ID give you?
This is not a circular discussion to me, because it's clear where to start. The claim is that voter fraud is a problem, so that's where the burden of proof lies. We don't start with an assumption and then ask people to disprove it.
> Also if we did enact ID checks, and zero fraud happened (perhaps because it preemptively prevented it all), how is that not a good outcome? Considering it went from non-zero to zero, yes that would be an improvement.
A reduction from 0.000002% to 0% is basically meaningless. In order for it to be a good outcome, you need to measure it accurately and show a causal relationship, and also not damage the election in some other way such as significantly depressing turnout.
> If the right to bear arms is not infringed by background checks, then it follows that the right to vote is not infringed by ID checks. Do you disagree with this statement?
We curtail people's Constitutional rights all the time when we think the benefits to society outweigh the consequences. Child pornography and obscenity laws infringe our right to free speech, gun control laws infringe our right to keep and bear arms, felony disenfranchisement infringes our right to vote, exigent circumstances infringe our right to be secure against unreasonable searches. I simply disagree that it's in our collective best interest to infringe on voting rights in this way, given the rarity of voter fraud.
The issue I'm talking about is whether the voter is the person whose information is being used. I cannot see how this can be checked without individual verification, either before with ID, or after with confirmations. How would the voter registration data tell you this?
As for the claim, I believe the issue is that without the above checks, there's no possible way to know if that fraud is being committed in the first place, especially with at least 40% of the population abstaining. You're saying the measurement shows that it's rare while I'm asking how the measurement is even possible for this type of fraud. Is that the fundamental disagreement we have? If so then I guess this thread has run its course, but I do wish there was a way to agree.
> Why is voting less important than other services?
I never said it was less important.
> If someone uses your information, how can we tell without verification of the vote?
Ant significant effort at voter fraud (and, even more certainly, more than one such effort in the same jurisdiction) will show up in a pattern of attempted multiple votes.
The absence of significant pattern as of this is itself evidence that no significant (even in aggregate) voter fraud is occurring.
In fact, even with Voter ID, that's how you'd identify fraud that gets past the ID checks.
If it's not less important, then why should it require less verification? Should the right to bear arms require less verification? What is the difference?
What do you mean by multiple attempted votes? Using the same name? That's a different situation though because I'm asking about a name which didn't otherwise vote. 40% didn't show up in 2016 and that was with record turnout, which makes a large supply of names that can be used, and that's assuming that everyone who did vote was completely legitimate.
Considering that, how can you possibly reconcile that everyone who voted is who they claimed to be without verification? How can this be tested post-election?
Well, we do have evidence that voter fraud - in the form of preventing people who can vote from voting, through imposition of onerous voting requirements is rampant.
Denying the vote to someone who has the right to vote is mathematically just as problematic as granting it to someone who does not have the right.
True both situations are not good, however right's are still subject to legal requirements when being exercised. For example, the right to bear arms still requires a background check to ensure you can own a weapon. You can also lose your right to vote if you commit a felony but this significant
disenfranchisement affecting millions gets no coverage.
Why is voting, which is critical to a democracy, considered onerous for requiring identification when driving, employment, banking, business and govt. programs all require it? Isn't that a strange balance?
It's that effective voter manipulation is vastly more effectively accomplished by means *other8 than bussing tens of thousands of bodies (or corpses) to polling booths.
Depress voter turnout, run third-party, identity-appealing, or confusingly-similarly named candidates. Print confusing ballots. Run complex initiatives or propositions with little or no discussion. Leverage majorities in one domain (Senate, statehouses, governor's mansions) to achieve, retain, or negate majorities or minorities elsewhere (vacancies are often filled by gubernatorial or state legislature votes, redistricting is often controlled by statehouse majority, a GoP Senate nullifies much of the power of a Dem House). Have a highly partisan secretary of state certifying statewide elections, including for national office. Have a Supreme Court structure based on few judges, narrow and long-lived partisan majorities, full-bank hearings, and obstructed nominations. Non-trasnsparent, un-auditablre, readily-hacked, and highly partisan technical voting systems. Grossly manipulated media.
Individual voter fraud simply isn't where it's at.
Even if there isn't voter fraud, the mere fact that people are worried about it is undermining trust in our elections.
One side is deliberately leveraging it for that purpose, and it's the same side that has consistently blocked legislation to increase election security, set standards for voting machines, and more, so as far as I am concerned they're forfeited the right to have their arguments taken seriously after years of bad faith politicking.
In [current year], arguably every US citizen should have some form of photo ID. It's pretty useful for a lot more than just voting. For example, more and more banks / financial institutions are using automated systems + a picture of your photo ID in order to confirm your identity when opening up a bank account, etc.
Seems like we should focus on making sure poor/minorities have easy/free access to IDs, rather than keeping the voting process lax.
The proponents of voter ID always want to put the requirement in place first but not the resources to make it happen. Until that changes, I am deaf to their 'concern'.
I wish I could read the second link, but not interested in bypassing their income (and not interested enough to pay them :) ) I'd like to know their research.
I had to sign up with my address, and I have to prove my identity when I vote. That all seems perfectly reasonable to me. Even a low-tech ink mark used by some places seems perfectly fine. The law is full of tradeoffs, and I think proving you have voted only once and where you are allowed to vote is perfectly legitimate.
Some citizens may be disenfranchised by the proof requirement; e.g. if ID is required but you can't afford to get an ID, you can't vote despite being a citizen.
jdoliner's comment: voting should require ID stricter than library/corporation
lutorm's comment: "Voting is a constitutional right" (implying that is isn't OK to require an ID)
sneak's comment: "purchasing a firearm" (clearly a constitutional right, so it isn't OK to require ID to purchase one???)
That is perfectly relevant. What sneak's comment does is point out that lutorm's argument implies that we can't have an ID requirement to purchase a firearm. Since this conclusion seems a little crazy, it suggests that lutorm's argument is no good.
I'll add that at least for presidents, the constitution only makes voting a right for 538 specific people. States are not required to let the rest of us participate. Voting is clearly not more of a constitutional right than firearms.
Yeah the latter is the nail in the coffin for my argument when it comes to the United States of America. Many other countries do have the individual right to vote written into their constitutions, though.
It serves as an argument as to what sort of requirements might be reasonable to ask for in order to exercise a constitutional right.
If asking for ID to buy a gun is reasonable, then the argument of whether it’s reasonable to ask for ID to vote can’t be one of principle, but has to be one of degree.
The degree seems pretty large, though, since it's the difference between an unclearly worded constitutional amendment that does not in any plain reading say that "buying a gun" is a constitutional right, to literally the right to have a say in how your nation is run.
I think of it this way: If you think that you're being unconstitutionally prevented from buying a gun because you don't have an ID you can at least vote for people who would change that. If you can't vote because you don't have an ID, though, you're SOL.
Edit: The second amendment even refers to "well regulated", which to me seems to imply that the intent was to, well, have some regulation of the matter.
The meaning of words changes with time, but that can't be allowed to change our laws. Here, "well regulated" is about being reliable, high-performing, and accurate. The term also applies to mechanical devices; one could have a well regulated clock.
How much identification is needed to exercise one “constitutional right” versus another? Should there be a difference? Though one might legitimately take the question to be flame-baity, I think it’s a valid question in light of the original statement.
He's pointing out that if one believes you should be able to vote without ID because it's a civil right, then you should also be able to buy a gun without ID because it's a civil right.
My guess is that he or she is saying that it's reasonable in both cases to require ID.
You don’t need ID to buy a gun in the US.
Private transactions are completely paper and record free. (Unless you are from some non-flyover state.)
It’s only when you sell guns as a dealer that you are required to get ID and whatnot from the purchaser. (Even then, there is no penalty for BUYING the gun without ID; the penalty attaches to the SELLER.)
That’s the difference between a right and a privilege. Borrowing a book is a privilege.
You have a right to vote. Rights come without condition. Many municipal elections only require residency, and the state cannot compel you to have an identification, be literate, or participate in society beyond voting. A hermit living in a cave, a software engineer, or a person who just moved to a place are all humans and all subject to the same rights.
I increasingly think the US should look into adopting something akin to Estonia's voting system. Perhaps with some added zero-knowledge proof layer so that it can be known that all votes were valid, but not exactly who voted which way.
Commerce is good and barriers to it should be minimal. Libraries are community property, paid for by tax payers. If you are going to borrow community property it is not a small thing.
Almost anyone can walk into a library, pick up a book, and read it there. So there is still relatively good access to information. It is the borrowing part that creates the red tape.
Even if it is simpler to create a company than get a library card, I guarantee as soon as that company tries to borrow money there will be plenty of paperwork :-)
This comparison is stupid. Corporate registration is explicitly public information. Librarians are notorious for the fervency with which they protect the personal information of library patrons.
Irrelevant, but even if I humor you: The PATRIOT act does not require libraries collect any more personal information than the government already has. The comparison is utterly meaningless.
