Poll: Voter ID? (2 Viewers)

[Statorama]

You guys don't get to commit voter fraud anymore.  I don't know what else to tell you

 

[Mario Kart]

You guys don't get to commit voter fraud anymore.  I don't know what else to tell you

 

[Statorama]

What voter fraud was there to begin with? There has to be a documented problem with voter fraud, not just scare tactics of an idea of voter fraud.

http://www.salon.com/2014/06/24/gops_voter_fraud_humiliation_turns_out_wisconsins_worst_case_is_a_republican/

PREVENTION of voter fraud.  You and people of your ilk wouldn't mind if there weren't even pollsters there asking people's names.  Just trust everyone to be a legal voter and put your ballot in the machine.

 

[Mario Kart]

PREVENTION of voter fraud.  You and people of your ilk wouldn't mind if there weren't even pollsters there asking people's names.  Just trust everyone to be a legal voter and put your ballot in the machine.

Interesting... people of my ilk... you mean similar to you since I voted for Walker three times and Romney. Get off your high horse and look at facts instead of speculation. The facts do not point in your direction at all.

 

[Statorama]

Interesting... people of my ilk... you mean similar to you since I voted for Walker three times and Romney. Get off your high horse and look at facts instead of speculation. The facts do not point in your direction at all.

I'm an 80 year old black man who voted for Obama twice and I love Voter ID, so there.

 

[MaxThreshold]

Interesting... people of my ilk... you mean similar to you since I voted for Walker three times and Romney. Get off your high horse and look at facts instead of speculation. The facts do not point in your direction at all.

What "facts" are those again?  Echoing what Rich said earlier but in a different way: You can't prove voter fraud is non-existent because you've made it impossible to prove!

 

[spreagle]

The fact of the voter ID matter is that most people who don't have proper voter ID don't want proper IDs because they are hiding from the law in some regard ... various crimes, alimony, child support, traffic tickets, etc.  THEY decided it is more important to hide from the law and avoid the consequences than get a proper voter ID, with name and actual address, and vote and potentially deal with the civic consequences later.   All is good because the perp made the decision not to get an ID.   If you avoid your civic responsibilities you don't deserve to have a say in who runs government. 

 

[TobiasFunke]

You're taking the tack that Voter ID stops the lone wolves like Tim that would go to every precinct and vote Hillary.  I'm talking voter fraud on a large scale with data-mined lists.  Dead voters, invalids, no longer state residents...the list goes on.  You're thinking that it's just one or two hyper partisans, I'm thinking it's an organized effort of true believers orchestrating massive fraud.

And that's the schism of this debate.  I'll also echo Rich's point.  If you make it impossible to catch those who vote fraudulently, it makes sense that you would never catch people voting fraudulently.

The scale doesn't change the risk/reward. Yes the reward is greater because it's more votes going the same way, but the risk also increases because you can't just send one person in to cast 5,000 votes- every time you send someone in you're risking getting caught, and if just one person out of the 5,000 gets caught you're putting the whole operation/candidate at risk. It's just as silly and implausible as the idea of a lone wolf doing it.

Also you can stop people from voting for dead people and former residents by pulling them off the rolls, which they already do.  For someone to pull an operation like that they'd have to somehow have access to a list of the dead people/former residents who the elections board hadn't yet pulled from the rolls (not sure how they'd get that), distribute that to a bunch of willing volunteers (can't send the same person back twice in the same precinct), somehow get firm guarantees from this large group of conspirators that not person would break ranks, and then set the plan in motion. If someone's gonna pull a crazy operation like that don't you think they could just bribe a polling volunteer to look the other way on voter IDs? 

What do you think is more likely- a vast conspiracy like this with a sky-high risk of exposure and massive downside if you're caught just to gain a couple thousand votes? Or maybe that this isn't really a problem at all and the GOP is just selling you a in order to repress turnout among groups that historically don't vote for them? A little common sense goes a long way here.

 

[TobiasFunke]

The fact of the voter ID matter is that most people who don't have proper voter ID don't want proper IDs because they are hiding from the law in some regard ... various crimes, alimony, child support, traffic tickets, etc.  THEY decided it is more important to hide from the law and avoid the consequences than get a proper voter ID, with name and actual address, and vote and potentially deal with the civic consequences later.   All is good because the perp made the decision not to get an ID.   If you avoid your civic responsibilities you don't deserve to have a say in who runs government. 

Do you have a link to support this "fact"?

And in any event, if you want to pull criminals or people who owe alimony or child support from the ranks of eligible voters, do it. Constitutional issue?  Amend the Constitution instead of enacting a shady workaround.

Boy you guys sure will buy into some crazy alternative theories to avoid confronting a truth so obvious that even some GOPers will admit it- that these laws are enacted to help the GOP because people who don't have IDs generally don't vote Republican.

 

[Mario Kart]

MILWAUKEE, WISCONSIN — A few days before millions of Wisconsin voters head to the polls to vote in the Republican and Democratic primaries, Milwaukee residents Ernest Barksdale and Nefertiti Helem struggled up the steps of the downtown DMV in the pouring rain, hoping to obtain IDs that comply with the state’s voter ID law.

Lightning flashed and thunder rumbled overhead as Helem, who has a genetic degenerative disease and walks with a cane, entered the office soaking wet and panting, clutching Barksdale’s arm.

“I feel like it’s my duty. I feel obligated to vote,” she told ThinkProgress after catching her breath. “It feels better to be a part of it all. I want to help get somebody in office who can help everyone out. I want to have a voice and a say in who becomes president.”

The couple, who moved from Chicago in 2013, live in an apartment complex for low-income seniors and people with disabilities on Milwaukee’s north side. Neither can drive. Barksdale has a high school education, while Helem studied through the ninth grade. Before staff members from the local voter education groups Vote Riders and Citizen Action came to their home and gave a presentation about the voter ID law, they did not know that neither their Illinois IDs nor their Social Security cards would be accepted at the polls.

Milwaukee native Anita Johnson, who works with Vote Riders and Citizen Action, picked up Barksdale and Helem and drove them to the Milwaukee DMV office on Thursday morning, as she has done with many other residents who need a voter ID.

“We didn’t know where to go and how to obtain a Wisconsin ID,” Barksdale told ThinkProgress during the car ride. “I just knew I couldn’t go all the way back to Chicago to vote, and I wanted to vote in the city I live in.”

Milwaukee resident Ernest Barksdale shows the temporary ID he got from the DMV that he will use to vote in the presidential primary.

CREDIT: Alice Ollstein
Republican Gov. Scott Walker signed Wisconsin’s voter ID law in 2011, but it was tied up in court battles until 2015. While some federal judges held that the law unconstitutionally burdens low-income people of color like Helem and Barksdale, the Supreme Court eventually allowed the law to stand. Tuesday will be the first presidential election in the state’s history where a photo ID will be required at the polls.

Barksdale was able to obtain a temporary state ID he can use to vote on Tuesday while he waits for the permanent one to arrive later in the mail. But Helem was not, because she did not have a copy of her birth certificate. Though she presented her Social Security card, proof of residence, and Illinois State ID, the DMV staff said it would take them at least three weeks to find and verify her birth certificate.

Helem, who during the car ride had gushed about her excitement for Hillary Clinton, sunk into a plastic chair after she learned the news. She told ThinkProgress she was “a little upset” and “kind of disappointed.”

“But the law is the law,” she sighed. “I can’t break the law just because I feel like voting. At least I’ll be ready next time.”


Silent airwaves, confused voters


Johnson says she has encountered many people who, like Barksdale and Helem, were confused about or unaware of the voter ID law. More than a dozen states have passed such laws over the last five years, a feat made easier by the Supreme Court striking down a key section of the Voting Rights Act.

But while other states have spent millions to educate their voters about the new requirements, Wisconsin’s Republican-controlled legislature never approved the funds to do so. The Government Accountability Board created PSAs, but have no budget to buy airtime to get them to the public. Nothing in the law compels radio and TV stations — in the middle of a heated election when the cost of airtime is skyrocketing — to air these educational messages.

As Johnson shuttled Barksdale and Helem back home from to the DMV, a stream of constant campaign ads poured out of car radio.

“Bernie Sanders marched with Dr. Martin Luther King.”

“Rebecca Bradley: too extreme for Wisconsin.”

“Ted Cruz: the only candidate who can stop Donald Trump.”

Johnson down the volume and sighed. “Imagine if some of those ads were about which ID people can bring,” she said. “The state should have put something on radio and TV, put signs on buses, put information up in laundromats and libraries, everywhere they could reach people.”

Non-profit groups like Vote Riders, Citizen Action, and the League of Women Voters have been scrambling to fill this information void. For the past several months, Johnson has been giving up to four presentations a week at churches, homeless shelters, food pantries, and high schools, and nearly ever time she finds people like Barksdale and Helem who lack the proper ID and do not know how to obtain it.

In Milwaukee County alone, an estimated 91,000 people lack a proper ID. Experts hired by the state to testify in a lawsuit over the ID law said up to 300,000 eligible voters statewide could be disenfranchised, while voting rights advocates say the true number could be much higher. Because the state will hand out delegates on Tuesday to whichever candidate wins each congressional district, a small number of people disenfranchised by the law could have a major impact on the 2016 race.

Some counties, including Milwaukee, have begun offering free bus rides to the DMV, but many residents who work multiple jobs are not able to take advantage of this service.

Johnson she’s even more worried about those who live outside the state’s large urban centers. “I am really concerned about people who live in rural areas, where the DMV opens only once a month, and who may not know about the changes to the law,” she said. “We have people working all over the state but there are still some people who are going to fall through the cracks.”


More problems ahead


Johnson says changes recently approved by Gov. Walker could make elections worse in the future. The governor signed a bill that will dissolve the state’s non-partisan Government Accountability Board and replace it with separate Elections and Ethics boards made up of partisan members appointed by the governor. The same legislative package also hampers the agency’s ability to investigate political corruption — a move widely seen as retaliation for their investigation into whether Walker illegally coordinated with outside groups during his recall election.

Johnson and other voting rights advocates are also sounding the alarm about a bill the governor signed this month giving residents the option to register to vote online, but abolishing a program that trained community groups to conduct voter registration drives.

“Right now, I can just register anybody,” Johnson explained. “When I go to churches to speak, for example, I can register people to vote. I won’t be able to do that anymore, unless I can carry around a computer and a copy machine, since they want an ID and proof of residence attached when you register.”

While voting rights groups are praising the implementation of online voter registration, they note that many of the state’s residents who live in poverty have no access to the internet.

Sad that this happens in today's country.

 

[Mr.Pack]

Voter ID Laws = Because what's more American than trying to stop people from voting?!?

No Voter ID Laws = Because who cares that dead people vote and voter fraud steals votes from Americans. Because renting a library book is more important than voting.

 

[Mr.Pack]

It really is this simple.  You are free to believe in these voter ID laws.  But if you think that the propogation of these laws in today's context is ANYthing but a means to surpress the vote of certain people / classes then you are either foolish, stupid or (and this is most likely since I don't believe many of you are either of the two) you put your own personal beliefs and politics above the ideals of freedom and democracy.

You are entitled to that veiwpoint.  But don't lie to yourselves, and certainly don't expect anyone else to believe those lies.  It's a way to game the system, deny the very freedom to vote and an abysmal statement on what you think about 'democracy'

So just own what you are.  Because inside you damn well know this to be the case, and even if you are not (which means likely one of those first two items), the rest of the world does. Well, at least those who don't share in your desire to deny people who might not vote the way you wish the right to vote in the first place.  

Just stop the bull####, have even the smallest set of balls, and admit the truth here.  

So you're saying all these people that don't have ID's, they don't have bank accounts, they can't cash checks, they don't drive, they can't take out library books, they can't get Social Security.......All of this doesn't hurt them?

 

[Mr.Pack]

Oh really?  Interesting.  Very interesting.

How was turnout as compared to previous elections before the laws?

And I can find links to peoples votes being stolen. You can find anything if you look hard enough

 

[Mr.Pack]

Sad that this happens in today's country.

So it's been in effect for 5 years and they wait until the last minute. Who's fault is that?

 

[Mario Kart]

So it's been in effect for 5 years and they wait until the last minute. Who's fault is that?

Just cause it got passed, doesn't mean all of a sudden people know about it. There are many "worlds" you are, luckily, not privy to when it comes to our country... as am I, but that doesn't mean we dictate without acknowledging or compensating those that do not live in our "worlds". But, to attempt to take away a right that we have been granted due to, "who's fault is that?", does not compute with the American ideology.

It's one thing to say, "who's fault is that?", when we talk about many things, but to use that reasoning when it comes to a right that our founders guaranteed, that is sad.

 

[MaxThreshold]

Just cause it got passed, doesn't mean all of a sudden people know about it. There are many "worlds" you are, luckily, not privy to when it comes to our country... as am I, but that doesn't mean we dictate without acknowledging or compensating those that do not live in our "worlds". But, to attempt to take away a right that we have been granted due to, "who's fault is that?", does not compute with the American ideology.

It's one thing to say, "who's fault is that?", when we talk about many things, but to use that reasoning when it comes to a right that our founders guaranteed, that is sad.

It got passed 5 YEARS AGO!  It was in effect for the first year or two before it was stopped in court.  We literally had elections here in WI where it was in effect previously.  No excuse, for anyone not to have one by now.

Seriously, Mario, what happened to you?

 

[spreagle]

Do you have a link to support this "fact"?

And in any event, if you want to pull criminals or people who owe alimony or child support from the ranks of eligible voters, do it. Constitutional issue?  Amend the Constitution instead of enacting a shady workaround.

Boy you guys sure will buy into some crazy alternative theories to avoid confronting a truth so obvious that even some GOPers will admit it- that these laws are enacted to help the GOP because people who don't have IDs generally don't vote Republican.

It's just common sense.  Criminals who don't want to get caught don't keep their IDs up to date.   I don't want to pull all of those criminals from the ranks of potential voters, I just want them to settle up with their civic penalties like the founders intended.

I always felt that one area of soft voter fraud was the liberal activist mom with 7 kids and 20 grandkids who got 28 absentee ballots, then filled them out herself, straight Democrat of course, then had the kids sign them, or more likely scribbled in a signature herself.   Now she actually has to find a valid ID for each fraudulent vote lol.

 

[Maurile Tremblay]

So you're saying all these people that don't have ID's, they don't have bank accounts, they can't cash checks, they don't drive, they can't take out library books, they can't get Social Security.......All of this doesn't hurt them?

Can you highlight the part of Koya's post where he says they don't have bank accounts and can't cash checks? I don't think he said that anywhere. It sounds like you're saying it, which is fine, but then why attribute it to Koya?

In any case, I suspect that most people without government IDs do have bank accounts and can cash checks just fine. (They likely opened their bank accounts in 1998, back when they had an ID.)

 

[massraider]

http://www.thenation.com/article/wisconsins-voter-id-law-could-block-300000-registered-voters-from-the-polls/

 Johnny Randle, a 74-year-old African-American resident of Milwaukee, moved to Wisconsin from Mississippi in 2011, the same year the state legislature passed a law requiring a government-issued photo ID to cast a ballot. Randle, with the help of his daughter, petitioned the DMV to issue him a free ID for voting because he could not afford to pay for his Mississippi birth certificate.

After a five-month “adjudication process,” the DMV denied his request. His daughter ultimately tracked down his Mississippi birth certificate, but the name listed, Johnnie Marton Randall, did not match the name he’d used his entire life, Johnny Martin Randle. The DMV said that he would either need to correct his name through the Social Security Administration and get a new Social Security card reflecting the name on his birth certificate or go to court to “change” his name and “provide court documents reflecting that your name has legally been changed to read as ‘Johnny M Randle.’” But Randle worried that any change to his Social Security information might interrupt the monthly disability payments he survives on. (This account comes from a new lawsuitchallenging Wisconsin’s voting restrictions filed by Democratic lawyer Marc Elias, Hillary Clinton’s campaign counsel.)

Randle was forced to choose between his livelihood and his right to vote. As of the April 5 presidential primary, he is still not able to vote in Wisconsin. After voting without incident in the formerly Jim Crow South, he was disenfranchised when he moved to the North. Stories like Randle’s are why the Wisconsin Supreme Court dubbed the voter ID law a “de facto poll tax” and it was blocked in state and federal court until a panel of Republican-appointed judges reinstated the measure in 2014.

Randle is one of 300,000 registered voters in Wisconsin, 9 percent of the electorate, who do not have a government-issued photo ID and could be disenfranchised by the state’s new voter-ID law, which is in effect for the first time in 2016. Wisconsin, one of the country’s most important battleground states, is one of 16 states with new voting restrictions in place since 2012. Thefive-hour lines in Arizona were the most recent example of America’s election problems. Wisconsin could be next.

Randle’s account is hardly unique in Wisconsin. The lead plaintiff who challenged the voter-ID law, 89-year-old Ruthelle Frank, has been voting since 1948 and has served on the Village Board in her hometown of Brokaw since 1996, but cannot get a photo ID for voting because her maiden name is misspelled on her birth certificate, which would cost $200 to correct. “No one should have to pay a fee to be able to vote,” Frank said.1

Others blocked from the polls include a man born in a concentration camp in Germany who lost his birth certificate in a fire; a woman who lost use of her hands but could not use her daughter as power of attorney at the DMV; and a 90-year-old veteran of Iwo Jima who could not vote with his veterans ID.

Noted voting-rights expert Allan Lichtman, a professor of history at American University, says the Wisconsin voter-ID law “represents the first time since the era of the literacy test that state officials have told eligible voters that they cannot exercise their fundamental right to vote—not in the next election, probably not ever.”

There is a clear racial disparity in terms of who is most impacted by the law. In 2012, African-American voters in Wisconsin were 1.7 times as likely as white voters to lack a driver’s license or state photo ID, and Latino voters were 2.6 times as likely as white voters to lack such ID. More than 60 percent of people who’ve requested a photo ID for voting from the DMV have been black or Hispanic, according to legal filings.

The law also targets students. Student IDs from most public and private universities and colleges are not accepted because they don’t contain signatures or a two-year expiration date (compared to a ten-year expiration for driver’s licenses). “The standard student ID at only three of the University of Wisconsin’s 13 four-year schools and at seven of the state’s 23 private colleges can be used as a voter photo ID,” according to Common Cause Wisconsin.

That means many schools, including the University of Wisconsin-Madison, are issuing separate IDs for students to vote, an expensive and time-consuming process for students and administrators. Students who use the new IDs will also have to bring proof of enrollment from their schools, an extra burden of proof that only applies to younger voters.

“They’re trying to suppress the votes of students,” says Analiese Eicher, program director at One Wisconsin Now and a graduate of UW-Madison. “There’s no other reason.”

Getting an ID from the DMV, which has very limited hours, is even more inconvenient. Writes Emily Mills in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:


Right now, the dirty little open secret of Wisconsin is that just 31 of our 92 DMVs maintain normal Monday through Friday business hours. Forty-nine of them operate only two days a week. One, in Sauk City, is open for just a few days a year. Only two are open at 5 p.m., and just three are open on weekends. For the whole state.

From the legal challenge filed by Elias:


Since 2011, the State of Wisconsin has twice reduced in-person absentee (“early”) voting, introduced restrictions on voter registration, changed its residency requirements, enacted a law that encourages invasive poll monitoring, eliminated straight-ticket voting on the official ballot, eliminated for most (but not all) citizens the option to obtain an absentee ballot by fax or email, and imposed a voter identification (“voter ID”) requirement.



“There have been so many anti-voting laws in this state, it’s hard to keep track,” says Eicher.

Wisconsin has historically ran elections better than almost anywhere in the country, with consistently high voter turnout and reforms like Election Day registration in place since the 1970s. All that changed when Scott Walker and the Republican legislature took over the state in 2011.

“It’s just, I think, sad when a political party—my political party—has so lost faith in its ideas that it’s pouring all of its energy into election mechanics,” Republican State Senator Dale Schultz, a rare dissenter, said in 2014. “We should be pitching as political parties our ideas for improving things in the future rather than mucking around in the mechanics and making it more confrontational at our voting sites and trying to suppress the vote.”


 

 

[Mr.Pack]

Can you highlight the part of Koya's post where he says they don't have bank accounts and can't cash checks? I don't think he said that anywhere. It sounds like you're saying it, which is fine, but then why attribute it to Koya?

In any case, I suspect that most people without government IDs do have bank accounts and can cash checks just fine. (They likely opened their bank accounts in 1998, back when they had an ID.)

Ok he implied that. Semantics, sheesh.

You also only addressed one of those, they still need ID for all of that.

 

[Maurile Tremblay]

Obviously people without licenses aren't supposed to drive, but lots of people don't drive. Lots of people also don't check out library books (and you don't need a picture ID for that anyway -- you just need a library card, which you may have gotten in 1998 when you opened your bank account). It's not that hard to get along without an ID.

 

[MaxThreshold]

http://www.thenation.com/article/wisconsins-voter-id-law-could-block-300000-registered-voters-from-the-polls/

Yeah, I'm just not buying that you can't get an ID.  Your local DMV closed?  Go find one that's open.  We're talking about ADULTS here, not children.  If you're 74 years old and STILL can't figure out how to get stuff done, then you have more issues than just getting an ID.  While I believe a handful of cases may be attributed to "the system", I think most of these ID issues are self induced.

 

[MaxThreshold]

Obviously people without licenses aren't supposed to drive, but lots of people don't drive. Lots of people also don't check out library books (and you don't need a picture ID for that anyway -- you just need a library card, which you may have gotten in 1998 when you opened your bank account). It's not that hard to get along without an ID.

I don't know if I necessarily believe that.  I'm having a hard time believing that you can't go a day or a week or a month without needing some form of ID for something in our modern soceity.  Unless you live in the Alaskan bush 24/7, I just don't see how it's possible.

 

[Binky The Doormat]

I'm pretty sure I had to show my DL/pic id the last time I voted when they checked to see I was registered to vote at that location.

Does that sound right?

 

[massraider]

Yeah, I'm just not buying that you can't get an ID.  Your local DMV closed?  Go find one that's open.  We're talking about ADULTS here, not children.  If you're 74 years old and STILL can't figure out how to get stuff done, then you have more issues than just getting an ID.  While I believe a handful of cases may be attributed to "the system", I think most of these ID issues are self induced.

Plenty of examples in the there that show its not their fault.

How many of the 300,000 possible would you need to hear their stories before you decide to 'buy' it?

 

[MaxThreshold]

Plenty of examples in the there that show its not their fault.

How many of the 300,000 possible would you need to hear their stories before you decide to 'buy' it?

All of them.  I will judge on a case by case basis.  Haven't seen anything yet to change my mind.

 

[Mario Kart]

All of them.  I will judge on a case by case basis.  Haven't seen anything yet to change my mind.

One of them should be plenty. Keeping people from their rights is a travesty.

Would you rather one innocent person be jailed or a 100 criminals set free? It appears you'd rather have the innocent person jailed.

 

[Mr.Pack]

One of them should be plenty. Keeping people from their rights is a travesty.

As is getting your vote stolen.

 

[MaxThreshold]

One of them should be plenty. Keeping people from their rights is a travesty.

If that is the bar, then only one case of voter fraud should be plenty for the law to be in place as well.

 

[Mario Kart]

If that is the bar, then only one case of voter fraud should be plenty for the law to be in place as well.

Sure, let us go all out and start charging people money to vote... or make each voter pass a test before they vote. I think those should be the law too.

 

[MaxThreshold]

Sure, let us go all out and start charging people money to vote... or make each voter pass a test before they vote. I think those should be the law too.

Voter ID is good enough.  But if you think the test and charging people should also be required, contact your State Senator or Congressmen and get it passed thru Legislation like we did with Voter ID.

 

[SacramentoBob]

I'm not opposed to voter ID, but I'm certainly opposed to ridiculous implementations.  An ID issued by the state/federal govt should more likely than not be accepted.  I can see an argument against college IDs because I don't think they have any type of anti-counterfeit measures like you'd find on a driver's license.  If they do, the should be accepted also.

At some point in someone's life, they should've made some minimum effort to identify themselves to a state or fed agency that resulted in them getting a photo ID card.

Those people who live on the margins of society, not using banks and such are still showing ID at check cashing places.

 

[Mario Kart]

Voter ID is good enough.  But if you think the test and charging people should also be required, contact your State Senator or Congressmen and get it passed thru Legislation like we did with Voter ID.

That sounds fair. Can you vote to give back the ability to vote to American citizens first? There is roughly 300,000 so far that have been stolen from American citizens. People who believe in the Constitution and why this country was founded surely understand how important voting is to freedom.

 

[MaxThreshold]

That sounds fair. Can you vote to give back the ability to vote to American citizens first? There is roughly 300,000 so far that have been stolen from American citizens. People who believe in the Constitution and why this country was founded surely understand how important voting is to freedom.

Give back?  It was never taken away.  I don't know where the disconnect is with you, but this law was deemed Constitutional - that's why it's still in place.

 

[RCon]

Voter ID is good enough.  But if you think the test and charging people should also be required, contact your State Senator or Congressmen and get it passed thru Legislation like we did with Voter ID.

That sounds fair. Can you vote to give back the ability to vote to American citizens first? There is roughly 300,000 so far that have been stolen from American citizens. People who believe in the Constitution and why this country was founded surely understand how important voting is to freedom.

The Constitution does not state that the right to vote cannot be restricted in any fashion.  In fact, the right to vote has been restricted since day one.  Currently, we restrict it based on age and citizenship, among other things.  Modifying those restrictions in one way or another isn't necessarily unConstitutional, as you know.  You may disagree with the modifications, but that by itself doesn't constitute stealing.

 

[Skoo]

No Voter ID Laws = Because who cares that dead people vote and voter fraud steals votes from Americans. Because renting a library book is more important than voting.

Thing is, voter fraud is not a problem in this country.

So this is a "solution" that solves a problem that doesn't exist, but keeps thousands of Americans from excersizing maybe their most important right as a citizen.

Thanks but no thanks.

 

[MaxThreshold]

Thing is, voter fraud is not a problem in this country.

So this is a "solution" that solves a problem that doesn't exist, but keeps thousands of Americans from excersizing maybe their most important right as a citizen.

Thanks but no thanks.

As has been pointed out numerous times already, when you're not looking for it OF COURSE it's not a problem.

 

[joffer]

5th Circuit Court just struck down Texas' Voter ID law.

"[The state's] argument effectively nullifies the protections of the Voting Rights Act by giving states a free pass to enact needlessly burdensome laws with impermissible racially discriminatory impacts." 

 

[[icon]]

Thing is, voter fraud is not a problem in this country.

They're so cute when they're little 

 

[Jackstraw]

As has been pointed out numerous times already, when you're not looking for it OF COURSE it's not a problem.

Our guy Kobach in Kansas has been looking far and wide. He's the leading man in the voter ID movement. Still can't find any significant Voter ID fraud. It simply doesn't happen on any significant basis. 

 

[TobiasFunke]

Our guy Kobach in Kansas has been looking far and wide. He's the leading man in the voter ID movement. Still can't find any significant Voter ID fraud. It simply doesn't happen on any significant basis. 

Fun side story- I know this guy.  He taught a con law seminar in college and worked with me on my senior thesis.  A really nice guy, he and I got on quite well.  Yet another example of how most Americans get along just fine when we're not stuck behind keyboards and/or party labels.

Voter ID laws are still thinly veiled racism/classism, though

 

[MaxThreshold]

Fun side story- I know this guy.  He taught a con law seminar in college and worked with me on my senior thesis.  A really nice guy, he and I got on quite well.  Yet another example of how most Americans get along just fine when we're not stuck behind keyboards and/or party labels.

Voter ID laws are still thinly veiled racism/classism, though

Hah!  That's funny.  Absolutely incorrect...but funny.

 

[MaxThreshold]

Federal judge just made the WI law toothless, too.

Ahh...no, that's not what he did.  Those without out id have to sign an affidavit and swear they are who they say they are.

He made a stop-gap for now but remember this is the same Federal Judge whose earlier ruling declaring it unconstitutional was overturned by a higher court.  He is, of course, a Democrat so this is hardly the end of the story.

 

[IvanKaramazov]

Voter ID laws are still thinly veiled racism/classism, though

Eh.  I support these, and like I've said a bunch of times in this thread, I support them in part because they suppress voter turnout.  That's a feature, not a bug.  I'm not sure why it's so hard to convince people that discouraging low-information voters is a good thing given that one of our major parties just nominated Donald Trump, but whatever. 

That's definitely not racism.  Maybe it's classism in the the sense that low-income voters also tend to be ignorant, bigoted. low-information voters, but oh well.  I'll dry my tears over that with the knowledge that at least they're not voting for sociopathic morons who want to deport 10 million people, block immigration from people of a particular religious faith, commit war crimes by murdering the families of people who commit terror attacks, and whatever else you care to name.  This is literally the worst possible time in our nation's history, at least in my living memory, to lecture me about the sanctity of democracy and how its so important that we give every slack-jawed yokel the vote.  Screw that.  Let's just stick to relative elite voting, and this problem disappears.  

 

[fatguyinalittlecoat]

I've been critical of IK's position on this for years, but #### that's a pretty persuasive argument.

 

[IvanKaramazov]

I've been critical of IK's position on this for years, but #### that's a pretty persuasive argument.

 Be honest: you've been looking for an excuse to jump ship all this time.

 

[Yenrub]

I'm surprised Mexico hasn't put together an organized effort to bus people over the border to vote against Trump. And/or apply for absentee ballots. Get a few hundred thousand extra votes in the right spots could tip this election. And it's exactly why the left tries to keep these barn doors open... Making sure there's a backup plan in case they don't win without the margin of fraud. 

absentee ballots - isn't that how the majority of the voter fraud is committed?

 

[joffer]

Eh.  I support these, and like I've said a bunch of times in this thread, I support them in part because they suppress voter turnout.  That's a feature, not a bug.  I'm not sure why it's so hard to convince people that discouraging low-information voters is a good thing given that one of our major parties just nominated Donald Trump, but whatever. 

That's definitely not racism.  Maybe it's classism in the the sense that low-income voters also tend to be ignorant, bigoted. low-information voters, but oh well.  I'll dry my tears over that with the knowledge that at least they're not voting for sociopathic morons who want to deport 10 million people, block immigration from people of a particular religious faith, commit war crimes by murdering the families of people who commit terror attacks, and whatever else you care to name.  This is literally the worst possible time in our nation's history, at least in my living memory, to lecture me about the sanctity of democracy and how its so important that we give every slack-jawed yokel the vote.  Screw that.  Let's just stick to relative elite voting, and this problem disappears.  

If these laws only affected poorly informed voters, I'd agree.  But they don't, so I don't.

 

[TobiasFunke]

Eh.  I support these, and like I've said a bunch of times in this thread, I support them in part because they suppress voter turnout.  That's a feature, not a bug.  I'm not sure why it's so hard to convince people that discouraging low-information voters is a good thing given that one of our major parties just nominated Donald Trump, but whatever. 

That's definitely not racism.  Maybe it's classism in the the sense that low-income voters also tend to be ignorant, bigoted. low-information voters, but oh well.  I'll dry my tears over that with the knowledge that at least they're not voting for sociopathic morons who want to deport 10 million people, block immigration from people of a particular religious faith, commit war crimes by murdering the families of people who commit terror attacks, and whatever else you care to name.  This is literally the worst possible time in our nation's history, at least in my living memory, to lecture me about the sanctity of democracy and how its so important that we give every slack-jawed yokel the vote.  Screw that.  Let's just stick to relative elite voting, and this problem disappears.  

"Classism" was the "thinly veiled" part of the "thinly veiled racism."  And I suspect the demographics would show that people being blocked are far more likely to be opposing the sociopathic moron you describe than supporting him. 

Perhaps instead of voter ID laws what we need are broader voter disqualification laws.  Do you use a picture of yourself holding up a fish as your avatar on social media?  Disqualified. Have you ever asked "why isn't there a white history month?" Disqualified.  Did you pitch in the World Series for both the Arizona Diamondbacks and the Boston Red Sox?  Disqualified.

 

[parasaurolophus]

I propose a compromise. Eliminate Voter ID in exchange for making all people over the age of 75 turn in their drivers license and never drive again.