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Picture ID

Rogue Valley said:
The excuse "the Soviets/Russians have meddled in our elections for decades" assumes that such meddling has been a constant low-level and never-changing campaign.

Such a notion is patently ridiculous. Russian meddling has continually increased as their technological capabilities have continually increased in the era of global digital connectivity.

It has reached a point where it has become intolerable and nothing less than non-kinetic warfare on our democratic institutions.

For some odd and inexplicable reason, Trumpers believe Russian election meddling will always work in favor of Donald Trump, which is an imbecilic and erroneous assumption.
Click to expand...

The Trumpers are really good at imbecilic and erroneous assumptions.
 
Slingshot Bob said:
Calling it a "poll tax" is disengenious, is your ID only for voting? Try cashing a check, applying for a job, getting a loan or any other # of daily affairs with out an ID.
Click to expand...


Are you being purposefully dense? You're comparing applying for a loan to the constitutional right for vote (See 15th amendment)? The people here are more patient than I; The stupidity displayed here is breathtaking.
 
Slingshot Bob said:
Where on earth do you keep coming up with that from? Please, the price of ID is around 30$, not a 10,000$ plate at a Clinton dinner...:roll:
Click to expand...

I guess spring hasn't hit Oymyakon yet.
 
Huey Freeman said:
Are you being purposefully dense? You're comparing applying for a loan to the constitutional right for vote (See 15th amendment)? The people here are more patient than I; The stupidity displayed here is breathtaking.
Click to expand...

Oh looky here, another pissed off liberal...:roll:
 
Slingshot Bob said:
Where on earth do you keep coming up with that from? Please, the price of ID is around 30$, not a 10,000$ plate at a Clinton dinner...:roll:
Click to expand...

The wristband is a random ass example to illustrate the flaw in your arguments. You argued that the ID is used for other things which somehow makes it ok to pay money to vote. It doesn’t matter what other things the ID does. It doesn’t matter what the dollar amount is. You’re attacking irrelevant details because your real argument has failed.
 
Deuce said:
The wristband is a random ass example to illustrate the flaw in your arguments. You argued that the ID is used for other things which somehow makes it ok to pay money to vote. It doesn’t matter what other things the ID does. It doesn’t matter what the dollar amount is. You’re attacking irrelevant details because your real argument has failed.
Click to expand...

Being issued an ID is a government service, are you of the mind that government services should be free of charge? Gee, I wonder where they would get the $ from?
 
Slingshot Bob said:
Being issued an ID is a government service, are you of the mind that government services should be free of charge? Gee, I wonder where they would get the $ from?
Click to expand...

Now you move on to straw man arguments. This is a discussion about ID requirements to vote. The 24th amendment does not require all government services be free, I’m not sure how you made the leap to this bizarre point. Let me expand on the wristband.

You said “The ID fee is for the ID. Period.” You’re arguing the ID fee isn’t a poll tax because the fee is for something other than voting. This is why I created the wristband. There’s a fee to get the wristband. Don’t obsess over what the fee is, it doesn’t matter. One dollar is unconstitutional if it’s a poll tax. The wristband is a requirement to vote, and it costs money.

You’re effectively arguing that the wristband isn’t a poll tax because it’s a fee for the wristband and not voting. This argument is ludicrous: the wristband is required to vote, therefore the fee is required to vote. If a fee is required to vote, it is unconstitutional.

Buying alcohol, opening a bank account, getting a job... none of these things matter. The 24th amendment to the US Constitution does not deal in banking or alcohol purchase. It doesn’t matter that the ID has other purposes. That’s why I mentioned the wristband also getting you into a night club. The wristband getting you into a night club doesn’t absolve it of the constitutional issues regarding spending money to vote.

If the ID is required to vote, it needs to be free. Voting is the single, core right in a democracy. Any attempt to make it even slightly harder needs to be met with extreme skepticism. Voter ID laws that exist have been carefully aimed at impacting minority voters to a greater degree than white voters. Combined with other state-level efforts like eliminating or reducing DMV services in minority-heavy areas, we see what the real goal is.

Want an ID requirement? I am on board, if you do this:

1) Make the ID free
2) Make the ID available same-day at the voting location.

This costs money. Not willing to spend it? Then your real goal becomes clear.
 
Deuce said:
Now you move on to straw man arguments. This is a discussion about ID requirements to vote. The 24th amendment does not require all government services be free, I’m not sure how you made the leap to this bizarre point. Let me expand on the wristband.

You said “The ID fee is for the ID. Period.” You’re arguing the ID fee isn’t a poll tax because the fee is for something other than voting. This is why I created the wristband. There’s a fee to get the wristband. Don’t obsess over what the fee is, it doesn’t matter. One dollar is unconstitutional if it’s a poll tax. The wristband is a requirement to vote, and it costs money.

You’re effectively arguing that the wristband isn’t a poll tax because it’s a fee for the wristband and not voting. This argument is ludicrous: the wristband is required to vote, therefore the fee is required to vote. If a fee is required to vote, it is unconstitutional.

Buying alcohol, opening a bank account, getting a job... none of these things matter. The 24th amendment to the US Constitution does not deal in banking or alcohol purchase. It doesn’t matter that the ID has other purposes. That’s why I mentioned the wristband also getting you into a night club. The wristband getting you into a night club doesn’t absolve it of the constitutional issues regarding spending money to vote.

If the ID is required to vote, it needs to be free. Voting is the single, core right in a democracy. Any attempt to make it even slightly harder needs to be met with extreme skepticism. Voter ID laws that exist have been carefully aimed at impacting minority voters to a greater degree than white voters. Combined with other state-level efforts like eliminating or reducing DMV services in minority-heavy areas, we see what the real goal is.

Want an ID requirement? I am on board, if you do this:

1) Make the ID free
2) Make the ID available same-day at the voting location.

This costs money. Not willing to spend it? Then your real goal becomes clear.
Click to expand...

All I can suggest is call your congressmen. While I see the logic in your poll tax, that is not currently how it works. Government regularly goes against the constitution whenever they want.
 
Glen Contrarian said:
The problem with your comparison is that if someone doesn't have to present a picture ID for a drug test, you'll suddenly find rampant fraudulent pee tests. I was a urinalysis coordinator for a while back in the Navy, and you'd be surprised at all the tricks guys will use to try to get out of taking a urinalysis test...and if we didn't require ID's, well, it's not hard to see what would have happened.

When it comes to voting, however, it's not a matter of "if I don't cheat, my career is ruined". Instead, it's a matter of people voting for politicians. And as you yourself pointed out, we already know that voter fraud is very, very rare - and it's that rarity that tells us that the "voter ID" requirements will disenfranchise FAR more American citizens than fraudulent votes it would stop.

And the Republican party is well aware of this:

“Voter suppression” has become a watchword in the state after a multi-year fight against the 2013 HB 589 voter law, a law championed by Republicans that reduced the early-voting period for elections by seven days, ended same-day voter registration, and established strict voter ID requirements. Those provisions—which have been demonstrated to affect minority communities most—were struck down by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals this summer for naked discrimination. But data from North Carolina’s State Board of Elections on the early-voting period indicate that continued efforts by Republicans at the county levels are having real effects on the election.

The general strategy that many Republicans pursued to make party-line changes to the first week of early voting were outlined in correspondence from state GOP executive director Dallas Woodhouse. Several county boards of elections eliminated Sunday voting during that week and severely curtailed the number of polling places and their hours of operation. Three additional county boards of election were successfully sued by the state NAACP for discriminatory purges of black names from voter rolls. Both the Fourth Circuit’s rulings, and the pattern of decisions by counties in circumventing it, suggest that Republicans were trying to gain an electoral advantage by reducing the number of African American voters.

Not only that, but they admit that these efforts ARE (in so many words) about suppressing the minority vote:

Early turnout among black voters in the state has been running below 2008 and 2012 levels—so far, the bloc is turning out at only 82 percent of their 2012 numbers, as The New York Times reported. (Early voting overall was up in North Carolina, with 4.6 million ballots already cast.)

What the Times didn’t report was that the decline wasn’t due to lack of enthusiasm or effort, but voter suppression. In fact, there’s a near perfect fit between where black voters aren’t voting and where Republicans have made it harder to vote—a fact highlighted by a press release issued today by the state Republican Party, which called the decrease "encouraging."
Click to expand...

Reminds me of a joke. A guy who was reluctant to provide a urine sample because he had been using, provided a sample from a different source. The doctor reported that he was drug free but he was pregnant.

And I was in charge of a large social agency with roughly 80 to 90 employees, mostly part time, at any given time when the law went into effect that we had to have positive ID--a birth certificate or passport plus two other documents--driver's license or whatever--to provide they were citizens and residents of the USA before we could legally hire them. This was when illegal immigration was first becoming a serious problem. It was no time at all that cottage industries providing phony documentation popped up all over the place.

And at that time, we had to show positive ID and proof of address before we could register to vote, and each time we moved, we had to re-register at least two weeks before the election in order to be eligible to vote. This was not considered a hardship at any time nor was it considered unreasonable or damaging to anybody. We liked that our vote was so important that the government was very very careful to protect it.

The number of legal U.S. residents who do not have positive I.D. is so negligible that it would be no problem at all to provide them with a free photo ID card. And this would be a great blessing to them as they would then have it for all the hundreds of occasion that photo ID is required.

To say that Photo ID is an unreasonable requirement to vote is simply saying we don't want to interfere with illegal voting. It is as simple as that.
 
AlbqOwl said:
Reminds me of a joke. A guy who was reluctant to provide a urine sample because he had been using, provided a sample from a different source. The doctor reported that he was drug free but he was pregnant.

And I was in charge of a large social agency with roughly 80 to 90 employees, mostly part time, at any given time when the law went into effect that we had to have positive ID--a birth certificate or passport plus two other documents--driver's license or whatever--to provide they were citizens and residents of the USA before we could legally hire them. This was when illegal immigration was first becoming a serious problem. It was no time at all that cottage industries providing phony documentation popped up all over the place.

And at that time, we had to show positive ID and proof of address before we could register to vote, and each time we moved, we had to re-register at least two weeks before the election in order to be eligible to vote. This was not considered a hardship at any time nor was it considered unreasonable or damaging to anybody. We liked that our vote was so important that the government was very very careful to protect it.

The number of legal U.S. residents who do not have positive I.D. is so negligible that it would be no problem at all to provide them with a free photo ID card. And this would be a great blessing to them as they would then have it for all the hundreds of occasion that photo ID is required.

To say that Photo ID is an unreasonable requirement to vote is simply saying we don't want to interfere with illegal voting. It is as simple as that.
Click to expand...

No, it really isn’t as simple as that. Now, I agree if the ID is provided for free, that solves most of the issue. But the GOP has been avoiding that where able.

But there’s more to it. The GOP has been aiming these laws veeeeery carefully so as to affect more Democrat voters than Republican voters.
 
AlbqOwl said:
Reminds me of a joke. A guy who was reluctant to provide a urine sample because he had been using, provided a sample from a different source. The doctor reported that he was drug free but he was pregnant.

And I was in charge of a large social agency with roughly 80 to 90 employees, mostly part time, at any given time when the law went into effect that we had to have positive ID--a birth certificate or passport plus two other documents--driver's license or whatever--to provide they were citizens and residents of the USA before we could legally hire them. This was when illegal immigration was first becoming a serious problem. It was no time at all that cottage industries providing phony documentation popped up all over the place.

And at that time, we had to show positive ID and proof of address before we could register to vote, and each time we moved, we had to re-register at least two weeks before the election in order to be eligible to vote. This was not considered a hardship at any time nor was it considered unreasonable or damaging to anybody. We liked that our vote was so important that the government was very very careful to protect it.

The number of legal U.S. residents who do not have positive I.D. is so negligible that it would be no problem at all to provide them with a free photo ID card. And this would be a great blessing to them as they would then have it for all the hundreds of occasion that photo ID is required.

To say that Photo ID is an unreasonable requirement to vote is simply saying we don't want to interfere with illegal voting. It is as simple as that.
Click to expand...

You really didn't read much of my post, did you? It wasn't just the ID cards, but getting rid of places to vote, limiting the kinds of IDs that can be used, and limiting the number of places where those ID cards can be obtained. If it were only something as simple as an ID card that really was easy to obtain with proper proof, I'd be agreeing with you...

...but it's not that simple. The effort at voter suppression is much more comprehensive than that...and if you didn't know that already, it's not that hard to learn.
 
Deuce said:
No, it really isn’t as simple as that. Now, I agree if the ID is provided for free, that solves most of the issue. But the GOP has been avoiding that where able.

But there’s more to it. The GOP has been aiming these laws veeeeery carefully so as to affect more Democrat voters than Republican voters.
Click to expand...

I think you will have a very difficult time providing any credible evidence for what you just posted here.
 
Glen Contrarian said:
You really didn't read much of my post, did you? It wasn't just the ID cards, but getting rid of places to vote, limiting the kinds of IDs that can be used, and limiting the number of places where those ID cards can be obtained. If it were only something as simple as an ID card that really was easy to obtain with proper proof, I'd be agreeing with you...

...but it's not that simple. The effort at voter suppression is much more comprehensive than that...and if you didn't know that already, it's not that hard to learn.
Click to expand...

I spent a good deal--most--of my life in places and during a time that you had to get yourself down to the county clerks office and register to vote at least two weeks before the election if it was your first time to vote in that district. You had to have positive ID and proof of residency in order to register, let alone vote. The result was a pretty much 100% legal voter registry that didn't require a lot of taxpayer dollars to verify.

And there was one designated day to vote and it was your responsibility to get yourself to the designated polling place in order to do so if you had not voted absentee earlier. Most of us chose to vote on election day. Yes volunteers organized transportation for those who didn't have it to get to the polling place, but it nevertheless was the citizen's responsibility to get there. It was not unusual to stand in line for quite some time in important elections. A lot of employers let their employees off during the day to go vote so they wouldn't be subject to the two hour wait after 5 o'clock quitting time.

Those who did not vote in either the primary or general election in any election year were dropped from the registry and would need to re-register in order to vote legally.

Voter fraud happened even then, but it was so rare as not to be seen as an issue.

Instead of making it easier to commit voter fraud, Democrats and Republicans alike should work together to ensure that only those entitled to do so will vote and that there is no question that elections are legal and properly conducted so that we all can have faith in the system.
 
AlbqOwl said:
I spent a good deal--most--of my life in places and during a time that you had to get yourself down to the county clerks office and register to vote at least two weeks before the election if it was your first time to vote in that district. You had to have positive ID and proof of residency in order to register, let alone vote. The result was a pretty much 100% legal voter registry that didn't require a lot of taxpayer dollars to verify.

(shortened to meet the 5000-word limit)

Instead of making it easier to commit voter fraud, Democrats and Republicans alike should work together to ensure that only those entitled to do so will vote and that there is no question that elections are legal and properly conducted so that we all can have faith in the system.
Click to expand...

Now consider that a lot of the places where people could register to vote were closed down...and golly gee whiz, those places that were closed down just happened to be in the urban areas with more liberal/minority populations. Just a coincidence, right? From an Esquire article last year:

Things came to a head, as it were, last Friday, with the release of a report by the judiciary committee of the Alabama House in which it was revealed that Bentley's affair was improbably tangled up in his administration's blatant attempt to suppress the franchise of Alabama's minority voters—specifically, the closing of 31 Department of Motor Vehicles offices in largely minority areas, which would thereby make it harder for voters inconvenient to Bentley's aspirations to obtain the necessary IDs.

And what happens when voting precincts are shut down?

Early voting in Ohio grew out of the 2004 election, when people stood in line for hours to cast ballots, particularly in heavily minority and Democratic urban areas. Thousands went home without voting. George W. Bush carried the state by 2.1 percentage points. If he had lost it, John Kerry would have become president.

And in North Carolina:

Several reports show extended wait times of up to three hours in urban areas in North Carolina. An analysis found that seven counties made it harder to use early voting by decreasing the number of polling sites, limiting the number of days open for early voting, or both. All seven of these counties have a higher proportion of African Americans than the state overall. In total, North Carolina’s three most populous counties saw cuts to early voting that will affect one-third of the state’s black voters. These kinds of changes threaten the existence of practices like “Souls to the Polls,” in which African-American congregations vote together after Sunday services.

In fact, a District Court of Appeals found:

In response to claims that intentional racial
discrimination animated its action, the State offered only
meager justifications. Although the new provisions target
African Americans with almost surgical precision, they
constitute inapt remedies for the problems assertedly justifying
them and, in fact, impose cures for problems that did not exist.
Thus the asserted justifications cannot and do not conceal the
State’s true motivation. “In essence,” as in League of United
Latin American Citizens v. Perry (LULAC), 548 U.S. 399, 440
(2006), “the State took away minority voters’ opportunity
because they were about to exercise it.”

No, it's not just the ID cards. IF the ID cards were the only issue, and IF the ID cards were made relatively simple to get, then I'd agree with you. But that's not what's happening. The voter suppression efforts are real - you can either do something about it...or you can pretend that it's all just a made-up narrative by the left...

...but if you do continue to deny the voter-suppression efforts, your denial doesn't make them any less real. They're quite real, and any such denial of them is doing nothing more than giving aid and comfort to the racists who are propagating those voter-suppression efforts.
 
AlbqOwl said:
I think you will have a very difficult time providing any credible evidence for what you just posted here.
Click to expand...

I don’t have to do it, the Supreme Court already went over this.
 
AlbqOwl said:
I spent a good deal--most--of my life in places and during a time that you had to get yourself down to the county clerks office and register to vote at least two weeks before the election if it was your first time to vote in that district. You had to have positive ID and proof of residency in order to register, let alone vote. The result was a pretty much 100% legal voter registry that didn't require a lot of taxpayer dollars to verify.

And there was one designated day to vote and it was your responsibility to get yourself to the designated polling place in order to do so if you had not voted absentee earlier. Most of us chose to vote on election day. Yes volunteers organized transportation for those who didn't have it to get to the polling place, but it nevertheless was the citizen's responsibility to get there. It was not unusual to stand in line for quite some time in important elections. A lot of employers let their employees off during the day to go vote so they wouldn't be subject to the two hour wait after 5 o'clock quitting time.

Those who did not vote in either the primary or general election in any election year were dropped from the registry and would need to re-register in order to vote legally.

Voter fraud happened even then, but it was so rare as not to be seen as an issue.

Instead of making it easier to commit voter fraud, Democrats and Republicans alike should work together to ensure that only those entitled to do so will vote and that there is no question that elections are legal and properly conducted so that we all can have faith in the system.
Click to expand...

The vast majority of voter fraud is committed in a fashion that ID laws do not prevent. Republicans haven’t said a goddamned word about anything other than IDs.
 
Glen Contrarian said:
Now consider that a lot of the places where people could register to vote were closed down...and golly gee whiz, those places that were closed down just happened to be in the urban areas with more liberal/minority populations. Just a coincidence, right? From an Esquire article last year:

Things came to a head, as it were, last Friday, with the release of a report by the judiciary committee of the Alabama House in which it was revealed that Bentley's affair was improbably tangled up in his administration's blatant attempt to suppress the franchise of Alabama's minority voters—specifically, the closing of 31 Department of Motor Vehicles offices in largely minority areas, which would thereby make it harder for voters inconvenient to Bentley's aspirations to obtain the necessary IDs.

And what happens when voting precincts are shut down?

Early voting in Ohio grew out of the 2004 election, when people stood in line for hours to cast ballots, particularly in heavily minority and Democratic urban areas. Thousands went home without voting. George W. Bush carried the state by 2.1 percentage points. If he had lost it, John Kerry would have become president.

And in North Carolina:

Several reports show extended wait times of up to three hours in urban areas in North Carolina. An analysis found that seven counties made it harder to use early voting by decreasing the number of polling sites, limiting the number of days open for early voting, or both. All seven of these counties have a higher proportion of African Americans than the state overall. In total, North Carolina’s three most populous counties saw cuts to early voting that will affect one-third of the state’s black voters. These kinds of changes threaten the existence of practices like “Souls to the Polls,” in which African-American congregations vote together after Sunday services.

In fact, a District Court of Appeals found:

In response to claims that intentional racial
discrimination animated its action, the State offered only
meager justifications. Although the new provisions target
African Americans with almost surgical precision, they
constitute inapt remedies for the problems assertedly justifying
them and, in fact, impose cures for problems that did not exist.
Thus the asserted justifications cannot and do not conceal the
State’s true motivation. “In essence,” as in League of United
Latin American Citizens v. Perry (LULAC), 548 U.S. 399, 440
(2006), “the State took away minority voters’ opportunity
because they were about to exercise it.”

No, it's not just the ID cards. IF the ID cards were the only issue, and IF the ID cards were made relatively simple to get, then I'd agree with you. But that's not what's happening. The voter suppression efforts are real - you can either do something about it...or you can pretend that it's all just a made-up narrative by the left...

...but if you do continue to deny the voter-suppression efforts, your denial doesn't make them any less real. They're quite real, and any such denial of them is doing nothing more than giving aid and comfort to the racists who are propagating those voter-suppression efforts.
Click to expand...

The thread is not about places to vote. The thread is about voter ID.

Now if people are manipulating voting districts or places to vote or means to vote to favor one party over another, and don't kid yourself for a minute that the Democrats don't do that too when they have the power to do so, that is not acceptable from anybody and should be dealt with. But assigning one polling location for every two or three precincts takes care of that problem nicely. For instance my precinct usually votes at a local elementary school as do two other area precincts. It has been that way for decades. Over time the demographics of those precincts have changed but the system--a very good system--remains the same. And yes, I do show my photo ID before I sign in to vote.

That would take care of all issues quite nicely.
 
Deuce said:
The vast majority of voter fraud is committed in a fashion that ID laws do not prevent. Republicans haven’t said a goddamned word about anything other than IDs.
Click to expand...

The Republicans I know have said a lot of words about the whole problem, not just IDs. You need to meet somebody who is a Republican maybe?
 
AlbqOwl said:
The Republicans I know have said a lot of words about the whole problem, not just IDs. You need to meet somebody who is a Republican maybe?
Click to expand...

Show me the legislation!
 
AlbqOwl said:
The thread is not about places to vote. The thread is about voter ID.

Now if people are manipulating voting districts or places to vote or means to vote to favor one party over another, and don't kid yourself for a minute that the Democrats don't do that too when they have the power to do so, that is not acceptable from anybody and should be dealt with. But assigning one polling location for every two or three precincts takes care of that problem nicely. For instance my precinct usually votes at a local elementary school as do two other area precincts. It has been that way for decades. Over time the demographics of those precincts have changed but the system--a very good system--remains the same. And yes, I do show my photo ID before I sign in to vote.

That would take care of all issues quite nicely.
Click to expand...

I quite agree that Dems gerrymander just as Republicans do if given the opportunity...but other than gerrymandering, please feel free to show how Dems have otherwise worked to disenfranchise Republicans as the Republicans have certainly done to Democrats. I think you're going to have a VERY hard time doing that. Why? Because of something a very influential Republican named Paul Weyrich (who founded the Heritage Foundation) said:

“They want everybody to vote. I don't want everybody to vote. . . . As a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down.”

From what I understand, a guy named Ronald Reagan was in the audience at the time. Like I said, I'll be waiting right here for you to show how (other than by Gerrymandering) we Dems have been trying to disenfranchise Republicans. I really don't think you can...but maybe you'll surprise me. But if you CAN'T support your claim that "Dems do that too", then you're going to have to accept that maybe, just maybe we Dems DON'T do that, too (which is precisely the reason Paul Weyrich said what he did).

Concerning the rest of your post, that's what happened in YOUR district. Did you have people waiting in line for four hours or more in order to vote? That's what happens when polling locations are limited in high-density urban areas - people don't get to vote because they don't have four or six hours to stand in line just to cast a vote.

And concerning your second sentence, as I've said repeatedly, if the issue were ONLY about voter ID, and if those ID's were relatively easy and simple for even the poor to get, then I'd be in full agreement with you. But voter ID is only one part of a much larger voter-suppression issue...which is precisely what I've demonstrated to you time and time and time again.
 
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