I never understood that either, I've always hated the concept of just saying 'Hi, I'm XXXXXX, I'd like to vote' and being taken at face value, it seems to open to corruption...it's not hard to obtain an ID

[Edited on January 22, 2012 at 9:44 PM. Reason : a]

1/22/2012 9:44:02 PM

i mean, there are people who will have a legitimately hard time getting an ID, but those people are the exception. Democrats talk like this will affect hundreds of millions of people, but it simply doesn't. The people it affects are almost entirely older people, and we can have some programs for getting those people IDs, and then the "problem" effectively goes away. I just see no reason for people not to have to prove who they are in order to vote, all in the name of a few outliers that can easily be helped

1/22/2012 9:48:25 PM

poll taxes are delicious!

1/22/2012 10:36:28 PM

let's see... having to pay a crazy fee to exercise a basic right... having to prove you are who you say you are to vote... yeah, totally the same thing!

1/22/2012 10:41:25 PM

when did proving who you are stop costing money?

1/22/2012 10:45:22 PM

when did it become a good idea not to care who the fuck was actually voting?

but, let's break this down...
poll taxes: pay a fee to vote. the fee only allows you to vote.
voter ID: pay a fee for something you will use in many other circumstances and that you probably already have.

yep, totally the same thing!

[Edited on January 22, 2012 at 10:52 PM. Reason : ]

1/22/2012 10:51:12 PM

Yeah, to hell with the integrity of the election, everyone votes! (twice!)

1/22/2012 10:55:03 PM

Quote :

"pay a fee for something you will use in many other circumstances and that you probably already have."

And yet, by your own admission, many people don't have an ID (and don't use it "in many other circumstances").

^ You're right, everyone should vote at least twice in their lifetime.

1/22/2012 11:04:15 PM

Yeah, to hell with the integrity of the election, everyone pays to vote!

Does anyone have the numbers with regard to whether elderly or minority voters are more likely to be without proper identification?

Granted, this is from the DNC, but it's a start:
http://politicallyexpedient.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/voterid.jpg

[Edited on January 23, 2012 at 12:59 AM. Reason : way too big]

1/23/2012 12:59:12 AM

I agree. In this day and age anyone can get an ID.

1/23/2012 1:53:35 AM

Quote :

"And yet, by your own admission, many people don't have an ID (and don't use it "in many other circumstances")."

no, not many. few. I think we can easily set up a system whereby the few who don't have an ID and would actually have trouble getting one can be helped along in the process.

^^ yeah, those numbers are way too big. The main sob stories I've heard have been over elderly, rural people who have no birth certificate or have errors on the one they do have and few ways to get into town to get things straightened out. At the very least, those numbers don't represent how many people would have any difficulty in obtaining some form of gov't ID, even if it's not a driver's license.


and then, we can look at the actual cost of the ID. $25 for a driver's license, in SC. And it lasts for 10 years. doing the math, that's 2.50 a year? whew, what an onerous requirement! Guess I just won't be getting that biscuit one day at McD's. And then, let's suppose you just want an ID, how much does that cost, in SC? Nothing. Poll tax, what?

1/23/2012 9:09:28 AM

They should hire a photographer and give out free photo ID's at the poll.

[Edited on January 23, 2012 at 9:28 AM. Reason : Then use the police's facial analysis software to crucify those that double-vote.]

1/23/2012 9:27:36 AM

literacy test FTW!

1/23/2012 9:36:23 AM

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/what-are-newt-gingrichs-big-ideas/2011/08/25/gIQApk8pIQ_blog.html?hpid=z1

Quote :

"an old Newt Gingrich idea I hadn’t heard before: Putting individuals who brought more than two ounces of marijuana into the United States to death. That sounded extreme, even for Gingrich. So I looked it up. And sure enough, there it is: “The Drug Importer Death Penalty Act of 1996.” What makes the bill even more amazing is that Gingrich himself is a confessed pot smoker. When he was young, he said, experimenting with drugs “was a sign we were alive and in graduate school in that era.” "

1/23/2012 9:56:04 AM

I'll believe the GOP actually gives a shit about voting integrity when they attack absentee ballots as well (No showing of ID there). It's not a coincidence they only focus on the balloting uncertainties when the voters missing out would be primarly minorities and urbanites, not the elderly and folks in rural areas (Where driving, and thus having a photo ID, is essential to doing so much as getting milk from the store). So all their yapping just rings of hollow self-interest to me, until then.

[Edited on January 23, 2012 at 10:38 AM. Reason : .]

1/23/2012 10:36:14 AM

[Edited on January 23, 2012 at 11:09 AM. Reason : :]

1/23/2012 11:07:33 AM

I think there was some study that showed that actual voter fraud amounted to less than 0.0001% of all registered votes. Voter ID laws are a solution looking for a problem, and are nothing but a way for the GOP to disenfranchise Democratic voters.

Here we go,

http://www.truthaboutfraud.org/pdf/TruthAboutVoterFraud.pdf

Quote :

" There were eight substantiated cases of individuals knowingly casting invalid votes—eight voters voting twice. This amounts to a rate of 0.0004%. None of these problems could have been resolved by requiring photo ID at the polls."

That's just one state, but every state and election included in the study had similar statistics. It's a tiny problem and the proposed voter ID laws do nothing to fix it. Meanwhile, it's estimated that new laws since 2008 will keep ~2 million legitimate voters from the polls, mostly poorer demographics. GG.

[Edited on January 23, 2012 at 11:15 AM. Reason : :]

1/23/2012 11:08:55 AM

I'm not going to assert that voter fraud is big enough of a deal to "crack down" on, but there's no way that study is legitimate. How the fuck would you know how much voter fraud really goes on? It's gotta be the easiest crime on the planet. Even if you get called out, what's going to happen? Are the senior citizen volunteers going to tackle you to the ground and call the cops?

If the argument becomes, "who would be motivated enough to participate in voter fraud", I would say plenty of people. There have been people making fake phone calls for Ron Paul where they talk about Jew Bankers and ending Israel: http://www.lacrossewatchdog.org/2012/01/ron-pauls-enemies-making-fake-racially.html



Also,



[Edited on January 23, 2012 at 11:37 AM. Reason : ]

1/23/2012 11:18:03 AM

He shoulda called people in Paul's home district, they've probably been wondering where Paul stands on Jewish Bankers and welfare for negroes ever since they stopped receiving those newsletters...

[Edited on January 23, 2012 at 12:14 PM. Reason : .]

1/23/2012 12:13:49 PM

Quote :

"I think there was some study that showed that actual voter fraud amounted to less than 0.0001% of all registered votes."

and how did they show that if they don't know who actually voted? It's akin to firing the entire police department and then declaring crime is low because there are no arrests. There's something absurd about the fact that I have to show ID to get a beer but they don't give a fuck who I am when I want to vote. Think about that.

Quote :

"Voter ID laws are a solution looking for a problem"

bullshit. The problem is already there: people can fraudulently vote for someone else and we'd never know. Are you saying that we shouldn't fix a blatant problem just because we can't show it's actually happening? Would you feel the same way about a nuclear plant with a giant hole in its containment building? Hey, they haven't had any problems yet, why worry about that giant hole there? I say we fix the obvious hole and make allowances for the few people who would ostensibly be affected. Damn, that seems like a crazy idea!

1/23/2012 12:58:32 PM

If you're going to pass a law that will force millions of people to go out of their way to go to a government building to get their name and face in another government registry so they can get a government ID card with their photo and personal information on in...you better have at least some proof to indicate that the law is going to stop more illegitimate voters than it will legitimate voters. I'd think a small-government person would be a little sympathetic to that.

Yet, you believe it's fundamentally impossible to know how many people, legitimate or not, it'll prevent from voting and so dismiss all empirical evidence out of hand. By that logic, all crime data, ever, is illegitimate because there might be some crimes we're unaware of. Therefore, all crime data is completely worthless and should not be taken into consideration.

It seems to me you're basically saying "You can figure out what the law will accomplish...after we pass it." Sound familiar?

[Edited on January 23, 2012 at 1:05 PM. Reason : .]

1/23/2012 1:04:48 PM

Quote :

"Yet, you believe it's fundamentally impossible to know how many people, legitimate or not, it'll prevent from voting and so dismiss all empirical evidence out of hand."

of course I dismiss that evidence. it's absurd evidence, because it is collected in a way that would never catch what others are saying is happening. Again, it's like firing the entire police department and declaring victory over crime because there are no arrests.

Quote :

"If you're going to pass a law that will force millions of people to go out of their way to go to a government building to get their name and face in another government registry so they can get a government ID card with their photo and personal information on in"

so that they can participate in the process of choosing the gov't. Sounds perfectly logical to me.

Quote :

"By that logic, all crime data, ever, is illegitimate because there might be some crimes we're unaware of."

not at all. As long as the data collection is actually set up in a way where you can actually spot crime, then there is some validity to it. In this case, though, it's "how many people were caught voting for someone else, even though we didn't require them to show who they were in the first place." It's disingenuous on its surface!

Quote :

"It seems to me you're basically saying "You can figure out what the law will accomplish...after we pass it." Sound familiar?"

No, that's not at all what I am saying. You seem to want to put words in my mouth instead of listening to what I am actually saying.

1/23/2012 1:10:27 PM

Why don't they just require that you verify SS# and have one form of identification? They require to do that when you do any other shit relating to the government. Anything tax-related, anything vehicle-related...what makes voting any different?

[Edited on January 23, 2012 at 1:29 PM. Reason : ]

1/23/2012 1:15:00 PM

only problem with that is I don't want tons of books floating around with people's SSN's, but that's just me. it works fine in a computer kiosk at a dedicated location. New Garden Church of Christ in a book that Wilma will forget when she leaves? Not so much

1/23/2012 1:29:24 PM

Yeah, SS# might not be a great idea, but a valid form of ID doesn't seem unreasonable. Who the fuck doesn't have ID? How do they function in society?

1/23/2012 1:31:10 PM

an id card??? what? you want the government to track me?? no fucking way man!! The feds will never find me!!

*pays taxes*

1/23/2012 1:54:45 PM

Quote :

"Who the fuck doesn't have ID?"

Somewhere around 11% of the US population lacks a valid ID, which meshes well with the fact that only about 88% of the US population has a driver's license. This number will probably increase as REAL ID comes into effect.

http://www.brennancenter.org/page/-/d/download_file_39242.pdf

(that's one link; a little googling shows other studies with similar numbers)

1/23/2012 2:22:07 PM

welp. if newt is the nominee, there is a 100% chance i'll be voting for obama

and gladly.

1/23/2012 3:00:57 PM

Voter suppression is an affront to democracy

1/23/2012 5:09:47 PM

i agree. where's it happening?

1/23/2012 5:12:46 PM

probably the same place all that voter fraud is happening

1/23/2012 5:13:52 PM

^^^^ i find this strange, care to elaborate pack_bryan?

1/23/2012 5:14:55 PM

Quote :

"i agree. where's it happening?"

Quote :

"Republicans have long tried to drive Democratic voters away from the polls. "I don't want everybody to vote," the influential conservative activist Paul Weyrich told a gathering of evangelical leaders in 1980. "As a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down." But since the 2010 election, thanks to a conservative advocacy group founded by Weyrich, the GOP's effort to disrupt voting rights has been more widespread and effective than ever. In a systematic campaign orchestrated by the American Legislative Exchange Council – and funded in part by David and Charles Koch, the billionaire brothers who bankrolled the Tea Party – 38 states introduced legislation this year designed to impede voters at every step of the electoral process. All told, a dozen states have approved new obstacles to voting. Kansas and Alabama now require would-be voters to provide proof of citizenship before registering. Florida and Texas made it harder for groups like the League of Women Voters to register new voters. Maine repealed Election Day voter registration, which had been on the books since 1973. Five states – Florida, Georgia, Ohio, Tennessee and West Virginia – cut short their early voting periods. Florida and Iowa barred all ex-felons from the polls, disenfranchising thousands of previously eligible voters. And six states controlled by Republican governors and legislatures – Alabama, Kansas, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Wisconsin – will require voters to produce a government-issued ID before casting ballots. More than 10 percent of U.S. citizens lack such identification, and the numbers are even higher among constituencies that traditionally lean Democratic – including 18 percent of young voters and 25 percent of African-Americans."

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-gop-war-on-voting-20110830





[Edited on January 23, 2012 at 5:34 PM. Reason : ]

1/23/2012 5:30:01 PM

repealing same day voter registration is the best b/c the only people it affects are the uninformed

[Edited on January 23, 2012 at 5:32 PM. Reason : a]

1/23/2012 5:32:36 PM

^^ ah, so nowhere. got it

1/23/2012 5:33:40 PM

or you could actually read the article...



Fun quote from Paul Weyrich, Co-Founder of the Heritage Foundation:

"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."

1/23/2012 5:35:23 PM

Quote :

" Mitchell, who was delivered by a midwife in Alabama in 1918, has never had a birth certificate. But when she told that to a drivers’ license clerk, he suggested she might be an illegal immigrant. Thelma Mitchell told WSMV-TV that she went to a state drivers’ license center last week after being told that her old state ID from her cleaning job would not meet new regulations for voter identification."

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2011/12/26/395287/93-year-old-tennessee-woman-who-cleaned-state-capitol-for-30-years-denied-voter-id/?mobile=nc

1/23/2012 5:37:40 PM

You can't fault them for trying I guess. The states that have slowly turned from red to purple over the last few election cycles is probably scaring the crap out of them. In a couple election cycles, Texas will be in play, and Florida will be completely blue. Of course, they could just abandon policies that are offensive to Hispanic immigrants, but voter suppression is easier and doesn't alienate their base of older white voters.

[Edited on January 23, 2012 at 5:48 PM. Reason : :]

1/23/2012 5:47:40 PM

Quote :

""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.""

I'd rather have only the informed voters vote, but what can you do? The media informs the voters only what they want to inform them.

1/23/2012 6:34:57 PM

^^^ and we can easily create programs to fix those kinds of situations. like I've been saying all along.

1/23/2012 7:33:29 PM

you mean like:

Quote :

"Next year, early voting will be cut from 14 to eight days in Florida and from 35 to 11 days in Ohio, with limited hours on weekends. In addition, both states banned voting on the Sunday before the election"

or

Quote :

"By far the biggest change in election rules for 2012 is the number of states requiring a government-issued photo ID, the most important tactic in the Republican war on voting. In April 2008, the Supreme Court upheld a photo-ID law in Indiana, even though state GOP officials couldn't provide a single instance of a voter committing the type of fraud the new ID law was supposed to stop."

or

Quote :

"In Texas, under "emergency" legislation passed by the GOP-dominated legislature and signed by Gov. Rick Perry, a concealed-weapon permit is considered an acceptable ID but a student ID is not. "

or

Quote :

"Republicans in Wisconsin, meanwhile, mandated that students can only vote if their IDs include a current address, birth date, signature and two-year expiration date – requirements that no college or university ID in the state currently meets. As a result, 242,000 students in Wisconsin may lack the documentation required to vote next year. "It's like creating a second class of citizens in terms of who gets to vote," says Analiese Eicher, a Dane County board supervisor."

or

Quote :

"One of the most restrictive laws requiring voter IDs was passed in South Carolina. To obtain the free state ID now required to vote, the 178,000 South Carolinians who currently lack one must pay for a passport or a birth certificate."

All of these measures to stop this:

Quote :

"Out of the 300 million votes cast in that period, federal prosecutors convicted only 86 people for voter fraud...A much-hyped investigation in Wisconsin, meanwhile, led to the prosecution of only .0007 percent of the local electorate for alleged voter fraud."

It's voter suppression. Simple as that.

1/23/2012 8:02:24 PM

Quote :

"All of these measures to stop this:"

you mean, to stop what we can't even measure because we have no way to measure it. but hey, I guess if the door was wide open to the barn, you wouldn't bother shutting it until a bunch of the horses and other animals got out, because it's not a problem until that point, right?

but hey, keep quoting things that are stupid and meaningless. there's no voter suppression going on.

less early voting: OH THE HORROR!!!
Prove you are who you say you are when you want to vote: OH THE HORROR!!!
A bunch of students can't vote in a district they will leave after school? OH THE HORROR!!! It's not like they can't vote in the home district.
SC wants people to prove they are who they say they are when the vote? OH THE HORROR!!!

1/23/2012 8:55:27 PM

Just so we're clear, aaronburro, you're in favor of creating a government program to ensure the 11% of the US population currently without a valid ID receives an ID, and for ensuring everyone receives and maintains a valid ID into the future?

Is that your position?

1/23/2012 9:11:46 PM

ummm, no. I'm for having a program that will help those people get IDs and then it disappears. I'd say it would need to run for no longer than 4 years, probably. That's a small sacrifice to ensure that we actually know who the fuck is voting

1/23/2012 9:16:49 PM

In the future, how do we ensure everyone eligible to vote has an ID?

Or, do we just say "Fuck you"?

1/23/2012 9:18:47 PM

No, you see. Once you solve a problem. It is solved. Forever. It never comes back. Ever.

1/23/2012 9:19:30 PM

it shouldn't be hard for most Americans to get an ID these days. Those who are having problems are almost entirely the elderly. Basically, there's not a problem with younger people being able to get IDs. They just don't have them for whatever reason. So, yes, you solve the problem with the elderly folks in weird circumstances, and it goes away. If we need to have a few people that troublesome cases can be referred to, that's fine. Again, hardly a huge imposition in order to ensure that we know who is actually voting

1/23/2012 9:23:31 PM

The Newt Show.

1/23/2012 9:31:21 PM

^^ You want to install impediments to voting; if people can't meet your requirements you will roll your eyes and say "It shouldn't be hard!"

Your proposition is, in fact, to say "Fuck you".

1/23/2012 9:33:50 PM

it's not an impediment. it's a common sense request that people who want to vote show that they are who they say they are.

1/23/2012 9:35:04 PM