I grew up hearing that cringeworthy expression, “All Asian people look alike.” I heard it occasionally from my friends. I honestly thought that they made it up or were at least joking with me. I mean, I could easily see the difference between two particular Asian people. It astonished me to learn that they couldn’t. Still, it sounded to me like a racist stereotype, like expecting me to be able to talk to our Japanese and Korean friends.
Years later, I was reading the book Biased: Uncovering the Hidden Prejudice That Shapes What We See, Think, and Do. Right from chapter one, Seeing Each Other, they confirmed this. Studies corroborate this phenomenon, and as it happens, it’s a function of both nature and nurture. People can see subtle differences among familiar faces, and the numbers suggest that it’s easier for Asian people to distinguish among Asian people (even when they’re strangers), etc.
In fact, there were cases in Chinatown in Oakland of black teenage boys snatching the purses of middle-aged Asian women. These crimes were brazen; the boys did not bother to cover their faces. Why? They discovered that these Asian women could not tell them apart well enough to make an identification.
Should we know who voted?
Absolutely! When someone casts a vote in an election, we should absolutely know precisely who cast it; you won’t get a debate from me. The United States Constitution guarantees all US citizens the right to vote once they turn 18. I concede that this right should be limited to US citizens, and therefore, we should know precisely who votes. This is the law.
Voter registration is not part of the Constitution; it’s an implementation detail. Photo voter identification is also not part of the Constitution; it’s an implementation detail. For better or worse, people have been convinced that the only way to verify the identity of a person in front of you is by a photograph. This conclusion is flawed for two reasons.
First, photo identification is inherently flawed and fragile. As stated above (and studies back this), we struggle to distinguish between members of a race different from ours. Riddle me this… How can a Caucasian poll worker who concedes that “all Asian people look alike” confirm that one particular Asian person is definitively the same Asian person from a particular driver’s license? I’ll give you a hint; they can’t.
Second, technology has established other forms of identification that do not rely on one person’s eyes and gut feel. The modern smartphone implements both facial recognition and fingerprint verification to unlock your phone. We have other options, and they’re generally better.
Why replace voter photo identification?
Simply put, because it doesn’t work. To deny a citizen’s constitutional right to vote based on a poll worker’s opinion of a match is like saying that we can convict you of a DUI and suspend your driver’s license because a police officer believed you were drunk. A police officer’s opinion is not sufficient.
If we discussed something as trivial as ordering a martini, then it’s probably not that big a deal. Here are the possible scenarios:
- A patron gets alcohol before they turn 21. The establishment may lose its liquor license; they’re going to err on the side of caution.
- The server denies a patron alcohol, although they’re legally old enough to drink. No law was broken, but the patron may be upset.
- A patron gets the drink they ordered when they’re old enough to drink. Nothing interesting.
The worst-case scenario for the patron is to be denied a drink; depending on the establishment, they may be asked to leave.
However, the United States Constitution guarantees the right to vote. Are we really comfortable with the idea that someone who believes that “all Asian people look alike” manages my ability to cast my ballot? Or worse, for a different Asian person to cast my ballot? Should my constitutional rights hinge on a poll worker’s ability to accurately match me with my photo? Here are pictures of the same person over time; would you struggle declaring them as the same person?
How unreliable is it?
Our eyes deceive us more than we want to admit. Let’s consider a scenario where your decision can impact someone’s entire life. The Innocence Project works to exonerate wrongfully convicted people; they use DNA evidence to exonerate and free hundreds of people from prison. How effective is eyewitness testimony?
Eyewitness misidentification is the single greatest cause of wrongful convictions nationwide, playing a role in more than 75% of convictions overturned through DNA testing
I’ve watched enough true crime documentaries that putting together a case, or specifically presenting evidence, can often seem like an act of desperation. Relying on eyewitness testimony seems like a ‘means to an end’ rather than a search for the truth. When it comes to overturned convictions, it has a 75% failure rate.
Is this the same technology we want to guard our constitutional right to vote?
What are our options?
To believe that, in our age of technology, the best that we can do is something as profoundly (and criminally) unreliable as matching our person with a photo on a small card that we present is madness. Sure, we can find reliable ways to determine whether the government issued that document with a photograph, but this is very different than verifying, beyond contestation, that the human who presents the document is the same person.
That is the weak link in our constitutional right to vote. We can do better.
Technology has given us many options. The criminal justice system gave us DNA and fingerprint matching. We configure our smartphones to recognize us, sometimes using multiple biometric methods. Not only do we develop new methods to verify who you are, but we also improve existing ones.
I merely sit in front of my computer, and it unlocks. The technology can distinguish between identical twins. We have the technology to make this work better than a random human looking at a 1″x1″ picture on a card. We can discuss the merits of existing technologies, but that’s a longer discussion that I’ll cover in a future post.