Is it time to have a Federal photo ID for every legal U.S. citizen? Let’s look at this issue.

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It seems that every election year one party, group or ethnicity begins the age old discussion about voter identification (IDs).

Let’s look at some studies that take on this issue, but before we do we need to consider the following question:

QUESTION: Should the U.S. government issue photo IDs to every legal citizen?

According to Vital Records Online, “There is currently no federally issued photo identity that is mandatory for citizens to have. The only essential form of identification federally issued is a Social Security card containing an individual’s Social Security number. However, it does not include a photo of the holder. Passport books and passport cards are also federally issued, but they are not mandatory.”

Passed by Congress in 2005, the REAL ID Act enacted the 9/11 Commission’s recommendation that the Federal Government “set standards for the issuance of sources of identification, such as driver’s licenses.” The Act established minimum security standards for state-issued driver’s licenses and identification cards and prohibits certain federal agencies from accepting for official purposes licenses and identification cards from states that do not meet these standards. These purposes are:

  • Accessing certain federal facilities
  • Boarding federally regulated commercial aircraft
  • Entering nuclear power plants

BTW, I and my wife have military IDs. As a retired veteran we both have a photo ID that allows us to enter any military base, can be used when being screened by TSA before boarding a flight, to enter a PX and commissary and for our Tri-Care for life supplemental medical insurance. When I got my new Military ID my index finger on each hand was digitally scanned.

Our Costco credit card has our photos on the back. Also, we each have a Florida driver’s licence which is the ID to be used when we vote in local, state and national elections. I also have a Veterans Administration photo ID, due to a combat related disability.

ID Cards are Racist

There are many who continue to spread the myth that ID cards are racist.

For example the Brennen Center for Justice on its website has an article published on January 16, 2020 by Theodore R. Johnson titled The New Voter Suppression which states,

Over the last decade, states have enacted voter restrictions that disproportionately disenfranchise racial minorities and distort our democracy.

Over the past decade, half the states in the nation have placed new, direct burdens on people’s right to vote, abetted by a 2013 Supreme Court decision that struck down a key provision of the Voting Rights Act. And the racial cause and effect of these seemingly race-neutral laws are hard to escape.

Take strict voter ID.

These laws require voters to present a government-issued photo ID in order to vote, and they offer no meaningful fallback options for people who do not possess one of these IDs. Like their Jim Crow predecessors, strict voter ID laws are often defended by reference to a racially neutral need to defend the “integrity” of elections. Specifically, defenders claim that voter ID laws are needed to combat voter impersonation fraud. But study after study has shown that voter impersonation fraud is vanishingly rare.

But is Mr. Johnson correct?

In 2019 in a Daily Caller column titled Study Says Stricter Voter ID Laws Do Not Lead To Voter Suppression Nick Givas reported,

Former Department of Justice attorney J. Christian Adams said voter ID laws do not lead to voter suppression Wednesday on “Fox & Friends,” citing a study from The National Bureau of Economic Research.

“This is a huge survey,” Adams said. “Fifty-thousand sampled. They discovered that voter ID has absolutely no negative impact on voters — something most of us already knew, a small fringe of dishonest people didn’t know. They make money off of this. They raise huge sums of money to pay lawyers to attack states that implement voter ID … This is something most Americans agree with, and now we know it doesn’t do any harm.”

The study examined 10 states with voter ID laws, including Georgia and Wisconsin. It found minorities were not negatively affected by the measures, Adams said.

“A huge survey found that it did not effect minorities negatively, which tells you they have been lying,” he added.

The Bottom Line

To end this he said/he said argument perhaps it is time for every legal American citizen to have a national photo ID. Each individual state would issue the ID under a new law passed by the U.S. Congress. This new law would give every legal citizen, and only a legal citizen, a means of identification.

This new photo ID can be used as a drivers licence, to board an aircraft, as a passport, etc. It would be an American identification card only for U.S. citizens.

Anyone without this ID card, or with a fraudulent one, would be arrested, charged, tried and if convicted sent to prison or deported.

This would eliminate the need for illegal aliens to appear in court. If you don’t have a U.S. National photo ID then you don’t belong here.

Additionally, businesses would be required before they hire someone to see their U.S. National photo ID card. No business can, under penalty of law, hire anyone without this card as proof of citizenship.

Every level of law enforcement would be able to then identify those who are here legally and those who are not.

If every legal citizen is required to have his or her own U.S. National photo ID then there is, by definition, no discrimination of any kind.

Problem solved.

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