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Notes -
A combination of factors:
In order to impersonate someone else, you'd need a bit of their information (which you could get, but would take time and this is a low salience crime). You'd need to spend time picking out people who don't vote and you can impersonate.
Most states do check for some proof of who you are. The real trick the Republicans pull is suggesting that the fraudsters are also out here printing fake student IDs or something, so we can't have that. Gee, I wonder who someone who uses a student ID to vote might vote for. Or that the fraudster might get a hold of someone's expired photo ID.
That Republicans have been beating this drum for decades now, and can't even come out with verifiable stories of people showing up to vote and being told they already voted.
Mechanically, how do these fraudsters operate? Do they vote, go to their car and pick up a hat and fake student ID, and go right back in? Wouldn't you think if this were happening at scale a pollster would notice seeing the same guy but with a different hat? Or do they drive around to different polling sites?
I once did some napkin math and suggested that on election day, if you were to use different polling stations to hide your crime, you could probably cast maybe 40 votes on election day. When most elections are decided by thousands of votes, you accomplished jack shit. Whoop-de-do. If there's only one or two people per election willing to even attempt this, it is literally better to let them get away with it and not turn away the greater number of people who might be turned away by Republican attempts to limit voting.
My strongest argument here is number 2. This fight is really over being able to decide which forms of ID are acceptable to vote rather than some ID vs no ID.
Lots of other first world countries limit free speech or gun ownership too. I always get a chuckle about selective calls to copy other countries.
You're overstating a nugget of truth. I didn't say there was 0 reason. There's just a tiny reason, a risk of jail, a low positive impact of a single vote, and a lot of time needed to pull it off.
No, the question was "Mechanically, how would you even know that, if you don't bother verifying the voter's identity?" You even quoted it!
From what you said it looks like you're assuming there's little fraud because it requires some prep, brings little individual gains, and carries some risk of punishment, but once it's actually done I see nothing about how you would prove it happened after the fact.
The problem with portraying this as an evil Republican plot to exclude students from voting, is that students can just go an get the type of ID that enables them to vote. You know, just like they do in every other country.
Same, I find it very humorous that American progressive portray Europe as some far-left utopia that every right-thinking person should emulate, that they routinely claim Democrats would be see as right-of-center here, but the moment you bring up basic election integrity they spontaneously erupt into a cascade of fireworks, hamburgers, and bald eagles.
Anyway, you have again not answered my question. Does this mean you think that the same European governments who are routinely repressing right-wing speech, are somehow requiring voter-ID in order to repress left-wing student voters?
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