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Voter Suppression (1 Viewer)

I forget now who, maybe the thread starter himself, covered this in another thread with the idea of facial recognition and perhaps some biometrics used for voter assurance.  A face shot and a thumb print when one goes in to vote ought, in this computer age, be enough assurance that person has not voted elsewhere.  This seems fixable by persons of goodwill. 

That in turn raises a question, perhaps the question of this and other threads on this subject.

 
Snotbubbles said:
I didn't read any of their expert reports or depositions or any other evidence that each side presented.  But whatever was presented, the court found compelling enough to let the voter requirements stand.  Even liberal Justices Breyer and Sotomayor found that the 8th Circuit correctly ruled.  It's not some GOP conspiracy, but it sure does make for more interesting news headlines.      
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Not sure why you keep talking about the opinions. The GOP “conspiracy” is the law itself and the many others around the country that have similar impacts on minorities, not the judicial decisions. The appellate courts didn’t find that the law was a necessary or good one, only that it wasn’t in violation of federal law or the Constitution.

 
Ditkaless Wonders said:
I forget now who, maybe the thread starter himself, covered this in another thread with the idea of facial recognition and perhaps some biometrics used for voter assurance.  A face shot and a thumb print when one goes in to vote ought, in this computer age, be enough assurance that person has not voted elsewhere.  This seems fixable by persons of goodwill. 

That in turn raises a question, perhaps the question of this and other threads on this subject.
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Then you get more of this: http://www2.philly.com/philly/news/politics/city/philly-voter-fraud-trump-immigrants-registration-commissioners-penndot-20170920.html

and this: https://www.rnla.org/more_problems_with_california_mvr_1_500_wrong_registrations_including_non_citizens

 
Ditkaless Wonders said:
I forget now who, maybe the thread starter himself, covered this in another thread with the idea of facial recognition and perhaps some biometrics used for voter assurance.  A face shot and a thumb print when one goes in to vote ought, in this computer age, be enough assurance that person has not voted elsewhere.  This seems fixable by persons of goodwill. 

That in turn raises a question, perhaps the question of this and other threads on this subject.
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I'm concerned enough about people stealing wallets to keep people from voting.  

I don't use biometrics because if someone wants my information badly enough to try to steal it, I don't want them to have to take my eye or my finger.

 
Henry Ford said:
I'm concerned enough about people stealing wallets to keep people from voting.  

I don't use biometrics because if someone wants my information badly enough to try to steal it, I don't want them to have to take my eye or my finger.
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But then you could have a really neat nickname, like One-eyed Ford, or Henry Nine-Fingers, or, wait for it, ..., Digitless Wonders.

 
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TobiasFunke said:
Not sure why you keep talking about the opinions. The GOP “conspiracy” is the law itself and the many others around the country that have similar impacts on minorities, not the judicial decisions. The appellate courts didn’t find that the law was a necessary or good one, only that it wasn’t in violation of federal law or the Constitution.
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Whether a law is necessary or good is a matter of opinion.  As long as it's neutral and nondiscriminatory, then as an outsider I'm ok with it.  In addition, the Circuit advised that the District could have provided a small subset (ie, Native American voters) an injunction and the Circuit Court would have affirmed that decision, however, the District Court did not carve out Native American's as being unduly burdened as compared to all the other ethic groups in the State.  You're reaching here.  

 
Snotbubbles said:
Whether a law is necessary or good is a matter of opinion.  As long as it's neutral and nondiscriminatory, then as an outsider I'm ok with it.  In addition, the Circuit advised that the District could have provided a small subset (ie, Native American voters) an injunction and the Circuit Court would have affirmed that decision, however, the District Court did not carve out Native American's as being unduly burdened as compared to all the other ethic groups in the State.  You're reaching here.  
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It's facially neutral but will have a disparate impact on a minority. There are tons of examples of laws like this around the country, most of which are allowed to stand because they don't violate the law. Although obviously it varies from court to court, you basically have to catch the GOP red-handed trying to disenfranchise minorities, as they did in North Carolina, to get the laws struck down.

And yes, whether the law is necessary or good is a matter of opinion. My opinion is that this law and others like it are unnecessary and they suck. I've tried to explain why. And while I sincerely appreciate the insightful discussion of the legal proceedings, I have yet to hear anyone make a decent argument otherwise.

 
TobiasFunke said:
It's facially neutral but will have a disparate impact on a minority. There are tons of examples of laws like this around the country, most of which are allowed to stand because they don't violate the law. Although obviously it varies from court to court, you basically have to catch the GOP red-handed trying to disenfranchise minorities, as they did in North Carolina, to get the laws struck down.

And yes, whether the law is necessary or good is a matter of opinion. My opinion is that this law and others like it are unnecessary and they suck. I've tried to explain why. And while I sincerely appreciate the insightful discussion of the legal proceedings, I have yet to hear anyone make a decent argument otherwise.
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Nor have we heard, despite frequent requests, explanations from the righties here why the GOP won't make expanding the ease of democratic participation a core value and a firm policy plank. This would seem to be one of the most patriotic things a party not the least little bit shy about waving the flag could do. It's the right thing to do and Republicans appear to hide behind the letter of the laws instead.

 
Snotbubbles said:
I didn't read any of their expert reports or depositions or any other evidence that each side presented.  But whatever was presented, the court found compelling enough to let the voter requirements stand.  Even liberal Justices Breyer and Sotomayor found that the 8th Circuit correctly ruled.  It's not some GOP conspiracy, but it sure does make for more interesting news headlines.      
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No, they did not find any such thing.  Can't tell how they voted other than it didn't make 5 of 8 in favor of taking on the case at this point.  

 
Ditkaless Wonders said:
But then you could have a really neat nickname, like One-eyed Ford, or Henry Nine-Fingers, or, wait for it, ..., Digitless Wonders.
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I shudder to imagine what biometrics led to your username.

 
Henry Ford said:
I shudder to imagine what biometrics led to your username.
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It was a game of chicken, but instead of driving our cars I was on a thresher and my opponent, now known as Stumpy Dan was on a combine.  I believe right before the joust we each said "here, hold my beer"!

 
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Crap, I should also have noted that in one of those threads where Joe Bryant, maybe, posed the question to board righties about their biggest political issues, a goodly number of them said "voter fraud."

 
NCCommish said:
A study found that out of over 300 million votes cast in a ten year period there were less than 60 legitimate in person voter fraud cases. It is a virtually nonexistent crime.
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What about the 3 million of us who gave Hillary the popular vote win by voting 8 times each in California? 

Forgot about that little nugget, didn’t you? 

 
They registered my wife the day she became a citizen right there at the ceremony.  All she did was sign her name. Everything else including our address and PA was filled out in advance. Wanna guess what party was pre chosen?

 
Rick Scott has implemented the largest voter suppression scheme in the country. Florida’s felon disenfranchisement system under intense national glare: https://www.tampabay.com/florida-politics/buzz/2018/09/11/pleading-for-the-right-to-vote-in-florida-one-case-at-a-time/

Hopefully, Amendment 4 will get 60% of the vote and voting rights will be automatically restored after felons complete their sentences. The law wouldn't apply to convicted rapists or murderers. 

About 1.5 million felons would qualify to have their voting rights restored. Law enforcement is in favor, conservatives like George Will are in favor of Amendment 4. Politicians like Scott and DeSantis are not supporting the amendment. I wonder why?

 
SoBeDad said:
Rick Scott has implemented the largest voter suppression scheme in the country. Florida’s felon disenfranchisement system under intense national glare: https://www.tampabay.com/florida-politics/buzz/2018/09/11/pleading-for-the-right-to-vote-in-florida-one-case-at-a-time/

Hopefully, Amendment 4 will get 60% of the vote and voting rights will be automatically restored after felons complete their sentences. The law wouldn't apply to convicted rapists or murderers. 

About 1.5 million felons would qualify to have their voting rights restored. Law enforcement is in favor, conservatives like George Will are in favor of Amendment 4. Politicians like Scott and DeSantis are not supporting the amendment. I wonder why?
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Here's one of those issues where Republicans could show the country that they're behind the expansion of democracy into every corner of the electorate. Heck, they might even get that minority approval rate up above 9% in the process. (See: ongoing "Blacks Support Trump" thread for reference)

 
Ditkaless Wonders said:
I wonder.  Federal dollars follow census counts.  States therefore have an incentive to count all of their citizens for each census.  Perhaps we can create some linkage to an "enumerated person" and voter registration.  maybe it would help with complete counts and getting folks registered if they could do both at the same time.  Maybe if states declined to register folks that disenfranchised voter ought to be able to remove themselves from the state census roles as well, denying the state federal dollars.

I hae not really thought this through, and it would only be one response, not a comprehensive fix, but I am thinking there may be some merit here.
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Sure.  This is fair.  Pair that with the census splitting out illegal immigrants, counting them for federal monies but excluding them for voting district counts, and you have a bipartisan winning plan.

 
Ditkaless Wonders said:
I forget now who, maybe the thread starter himself, covered this in another thread with the idea of facial recognition and perhaps some biometrics used for voter assurance.  A face shot and a thumb print when one goes in to vote ought, in this computer age, be enough assurance that person has not voted elsewhere. 
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Not a chance.  No way we can trust the govt. to keep a database like this secure.  One OPM-esque breach is more than enough for a lifetime (at least there only the Chinese got my fingerprints).

 
TobiasFunke said:
Here's an example of a voting law that would have the opposite effect, so Republicans can understand what it looks like when your side is being victimized by voter suppression:

Let's say Pennsylvania passes a law stating that polling places are to be designated entirely by population density- one polling location per 500 people or whatever.  Geography cannot be considered. The stated rationale is that we don't want long lines at the polls. But what we actually want to do is make it relatively easier for people in downtown Philly to vote than people in rural Pennsylvania. I could tell you that having to drive 30 minutes each way to vote is easy peasy lemon squeezy- in fact it seems easier to me than remembering to save your utility bill two weeks before election day, or tracking down a tribal leader and getting a document from him, and then remembering to bring it with you to the polls. But in reality, people who have to drive 30 minutes each way to the polls are gonna vote far less often than people who can walk a half-block to the polls. Would Republicans be OK with that?
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Good idea.  I think they should adopt this in every state.

 
TobiasFunke said:
Here's an example of a voting law that would have the opposite effect, so Republicans can understand what it looks like when your side is being victimized by voter suppression:

Let's say Pennsylvania passes a law stating that polling places are to be designated entirely by population density- one polling location per 500 people or whatever.  Geography cannot be considered. The stated rationale is that we don't want long lines at the polls. But what we actually want to do is make it relatively easier for people in downtown Philly to vote than people in rural Pennsylvania. I could tell you that having to drive 30 minutes each way to vote is easy peasy lemon squeezy- in fact it seems easier to me than remembering to save your utility bill two weeks before election day, or tracking down a tribal leader and getting a document from him, and then remembering to bring it with you to the polls. But in reality, people who have to drive 30 minutes each way to the polls are gonna vote far less often than people who can walk a half-block to the polls. Would Republicans be OK with that?
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Honestly, that sounds awesome. Nothing worse than lines at the polls. 

 
From WaPo columnist Brian Klaas who accurately points out that facts don't have a left wing bias. I am always amazed at those here who cavalierly dismiss statistical data and fact checking sites like Snopes or PolitiFact as Fake News.

https://twitter.com/brianklaas/status/1051442647062204419

Democrats fear voter suppression. Republicans fear vote fraud. The data show suppression is widespread; voter fraud is not. George W. Bush’s DoJ studied voter fraud & found it occurs on 0.00000013% of ballots. A recent study found 31 cases out of a billion ballots from 2000-2014.

The voter fraud/voter suppression debate is one of those frustrating “partisan” issues that we can answer with data. It’s not partisan to show that, empirically, voter suppression often influences the outcome of US elections; voter fraud does not. Facts shouldn’t be partisan.

 
munga30 said:
I made a partial mistake then.  Those two voted not to hear the appeal.  Still didn't find anything. 
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They could have voted to hear the appeal and make it 4-4.  Then the Circuit Court ruling would have still been affirmed but not considered precedent.  When they voted to not hear the appeal, they made the Circuit Court ruling precedent.  So by voting the way they did, they were voting to affirm the lower Court ruling.

 
TobiasFunke said:
Here's an example of a voting law that would have the opposite effect, so Republicans can understand what it looks like when your side is being victimized by voter suppression:

Let's say Pennsylvania passes a law stating that polling places are to be designated entirely by population density- one polling location per 500 people or whatever.  Geography cannot be considered. The stated rationale is that we don't want long lines at the polls. But what we actually want to do is make it relatively easier for people in downtown Philly to vote than people in rural Pennsylvania. I could tell you that having to drive 30 minutes each way to vote is easy peasy lemon squeezy- in fact it seems easier to me than remembering to save your utility bill two weeks before election day, or tracking down a tribal leader and getting a document from him, and then remembering to bring it with you to the polls. But in reality, people who have to drive 30 minutes each way to the polls are gonna vote far less often than people who can walk a half-block to the polls. Would Republicans be OK with that?
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As long as the law is neutral and non-discriminatory, I don't see a problem with it.

 
Snotbubbles said:
As long as the law is neutral and non-discriminatory, I don't see a problem with it.
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If you were a rural voter you'd probably feel differently. And the effect would be to amplify the urban/suburban vote while discouraging the rural vote. This would help Democrats and hurt Republicans. 

 
NCCommish said:
If you were a rural voter you'd probably feel differently. And the effect would be to amplify the urban/suburban vote while discouraging the rural vote. This would help Democrats and hurt Republicans. 
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I would just come up with some "disability" and vote by absentee ballot.

 
How many people are we talking about? In total, how many folks who want to vote (and are otherwise eligible to do so) are not allowed to vote due to not having proper ID and/or paperwork?

 
Snotbubbles said:
They could have voted to hear the appeal and make it 4-4.  Then the Circuit Court ruling would have still been affirmed but not considered precedent.  When they voted to not hear the appeal, they made the Circuit Court ruling precedent.  So by voting the way they did, they were voting to affirm the lower Court ruling.
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You have to be more precise about the procedural positioning of the case.  District Court ruled the election law was no good and ordered some fixes.  Nebraska appealed to the 8th circuit seeking a stay of the ordered fixes pending a full appeal.  The 8th granted the stay based on, in part, a likelihood of Nebraska's success on the full appeal.  The other side appealed the stay to the Supremes and that was voted down 6-2. 

Based on what I read when I started this discussion with you, the full appeal has not yet been heard.  So while there's some analysis by the 8th about how they might rule, it's not correct to say the Supremes were "voting to affirm the lower court ruling" because the 8th haven't ruled yet.  

 
Snotbubbles said:
As long as the law is neutral and non-discriminatory, I don't see a problem with it.
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That’s because you’re thinking of it from an individual perspective- “I’d still vote, so it’s fine with me.” When the law inevitably produced massive Dem majorities and far left polices across two and eventually all three branches of the federal government I strongly suspect you’d feel differently.

I suppose we can never know for sure, but as someone on the other side of this right now, I can tell you it’s esxeptionally frustrating to see the system gamed against both your own positions and what you believe to be popular will through election laws designed to tilt the playing field.

 
whiskey7 said:
How many people are we talking about? In total, how many folks who want to vote (and are otherwise eligible to do so) are not allowed to vote due to not having proper ID and/or paperwork?
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2018/10/12/georgia-voter-registrations-being-held-reinforces-black-americans-fears-about-voting-rights/?utm_term=.e30d40129494

The Associated Press reported Monday that Kemp is holding 53,000 registration applications because they were flagged by the state’s “exact match” system. The state legislature, which the Republicans control, introduced the system last year to make the process for validating registrations stricter and to curtail voter fraud, which is not a significant problem in Georgia or anywhere else in the United States.
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Not the perfect answer to your question, but that's one piece of data. How many across the board that definitely won't be able to vote? Who knows.

 
NCCommish said:
So you would commit voter fraud?
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This why they're so concerned about a non-existent problem. They themselves have tossed morals and ideals aside and would be willing to commit voter fraud if it helped them WIN. So, they're assuming that everyone else would too. Either that or they project their own corrupt values onto those who aren't in an effort to make themselves feel a little better....YOU DO IT TOO!!!

 
Ruffrodys05 said:
This why they're so concerned about a non-existent problem. They themselves have tossed morals and ideals aside and would be willing to commit voter fraud if it helped them WIN. So, they're assuming that everyone else would too. Either that or they project their own corrupt values onto those who aren't in an effort to make themselves feel a little better....YOU DO IT TOO!!!
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Sums up the psychology right here. The mental projection onto another population is huge in the Republican party right now. Many instances do not point to facts about their own decisions, rather, "what ifs" from the past... hence,

"I wouldn't act this way, but you would, therefore, I need to act this way now (even though you never actually did but you thought it) (even though you might have never thought it, but I think you thought it, therefore I have to think that way now) so my actual actions are justified because you did it." (Even though the other side never did it)

 
E Street Brat said:
They registered my wife the day she became a citizen right there at the ceremony.  All she did was sign her name. Everything else including our address and PA was filled out in advance. Wanna guess what party was pre chosen?
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The Republicans wouldn't let her become a citizen unless she's white so... SHOW ME DEMOCRATS! 

 
The Dodge City, Kansas voter suppression is pretty awful.  The article includes this, too:

Kansas is not the only state that has closed polling sites. Polling places across the country have also been shuttered since the U.S. Supreme Court in 2013 struck down parts of the Voting Rights Act. A 2016 research report from the civil rights coalition Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights found local officials had shuttered 868 polling places in the three years after the court’s ruling.
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Shelby County deserves to go down as one of the Supreme Court's lowest moments.  Oddly enough, almost all of them involve condoning racial discrimination in one form or another.

 
Here's a good summary of the egregious voter suppression efforts underway in Georgia.  Once again Shelby County is to blame for allowing this sort of thing to happen.  I hope that decision is an albatross around John Roberts' neck for the rest of his days and is the first sentence in his obituary when he dies.  He deserves to be haunted by it.

 
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