Common argument on voter ID law: it's not a big problem

Again as predicted, you continue to insult. Studies about voter ID? Dude are you kidding me? Your selective reading comprehension skills are amazing while totally ignoring voter suppression laws. You cite a study about voter ID saying it isn't suppressing the vote and good for you. I never said voter ID suppressed the vote, so I don't know why you think I need a study to remind me of that. Since we all use voter ID anyway, I never expected it to be a problem. Since according to you it doesn't suppress the vote, then keep it as is and move on. The only problem you have is actually addressing the "REAL" problem. And that is voter suppression laws. Do I need to go back and remind you of them again? Because that is the real problem that has been manufactured from the right. Making an issue about ID is truly insulting when the real suppression has nothing to do and never has been nothing to do with ID. I find it amusing that your big interest here is only about the ID, when these other schemes are what's going to really disenfranchise voters.

 

which is why I gave you the link that lists a variety of research from a variety of sources. I wasn't suggesting any specific analysis form Brennan.

I find it interesting that you think HEritiage and CATO "usually aren't as bad" considering Heritage is an unabashed conservative org and CATO is a libertarian one.

Perhaps you can tell me which think tank's analyses aren't "fact based"?

AS the AU report for instance suggests, that the issue is far more complex than what it has been distilled down to for partisan entrenchment. The right using the pro rationale of substantive voting fraud the left using the anti rationale of massive disenfranchisement.

Seems this is yet another example of what I call bumpersticker politics. Just enough information made widely available from both sides to "arm" their partisans with correspondingly appropriate argument. That "just enough" usually consists of cherry picked facts, a lack of nuance, lack of detail and one or two key "bumpersticker" memes. Its thrown out there, regurgitated by news readers and talking heads enabling the partisans to go at it.

I didn't get that conclusion. What I got was a comment of the state being more proactive in obtaining voter registrations, using nursing homes, the elderly and the infirmed and areas of underrepresentation that typically are minorty dominated, along with more uniform investment in the entire registration infrastructure. If having state sponsored voter registration drives in precincts with some obviously lower but defined % of total eligible vs registered voters then that can only be considered a good thing for the democratic process, or am I missing something?

 

If its not a huge problem why have additional government regulation.

I can think of any number of problems that would improve the entire voting process that should be addressed which would certainly be of greater effect in combating voter fraud than picture ID or simply improve the efficiency of the voing process.. Like investing in better,more effective registration database processes and maintainance. Like introducing more polling lociations and standardized early voting periods.

Frankly I think its is criminal that many voters are forced to to wait in line for hours on end to cast a vote.

 

It's been said many times that the majority of Republicans are elderly, if so, why don't we hear from them on how hard it is on them to get ID's. The only ones we hear complain is Democrats. Why is that?

 

OK, you've said that IF 10% of Dems vote five times, an election could be rigged. That is actually a HUGE number of people. Any proof that is happening? I've known many Democrats in my life, and not one has ever mentioned to me voting several times, or intending to. How about this instead: If just a few people nationwide who count the votes return fraudulant tallies, then you don't have to have millions of people doing it. Seems a lot more likely.

 

Demanding voters to present ID to vote is an unnecessary restriction because voter fraud is not an issue. You are asking for more government control for no reason. Same with your e-cigarette example. It's also worth noting that several libertarian blogs talk about Voter ID. They agree that it is not a real issue, and that there are much larger issues involved with voting that need to be looked at. Voter fraud and voter ID is a red herring and just another dumb ass position taken by the right wing to unify voters under the Republican label.

http://www.cato.org/publications/techknowledge/voter-id-tempest-teapot-could-burn-us-all
http://reason.com/blog/2012/07/09/voter-id-regulations-real-problem-wrong
http://www.policymic.com/articles/3...voter-id-laws-that-will-probably-surprise-you
http://www.unitedliberty.org/articles/9718-should-a-libertarian-support-voter-id-laws
http://www.bluenc.com/libertarians-oppose-more-restrictions-voting-rights

 

No one is forced to stand in line to vote. Every American can vote absentee and vote right at home and the postage is paid for them. Although they should have a voter ID to register and right now they don't. Absontee voting is where most of the voter fraud comes from.

 

Not a red herring at all. It's real and it's here.

http://www.rnla.org/votefraud.asp

 

I see. I actually brushed it aside because it's the Brennan Center, and a quick read of the first few links showed a decided bias, but on second look that list does actually have some balance.

As to the Heritage and CATO, I went to a pretty good length explaining why I generally have less issue with their reports. If you want to have an honest discussion here, don't try to insinuate things. As I already said, they're a think tank, and you've got to read through the lines with think tanks, but I generally link their reports because they tend to be more fact based. Whereas many think tanks often offer up lofty rhetoric and conclusions, largely independent of facts, Heritage and CATO usually have reports that are short and to the point, releasing pertinent facts in their studies that don't require any 'expert' opinion to make a conclusion independent of facts presented.

The AU report said that the right uses the rationale of "substantive voting fraud"? I know I don't, and I rarely hear Republicans saying that it is widespread, but since you said it I checked in the report. There was no use of the word "substantive at all," and I checked the 20 uses of "Republican" and the nine appearances of the word "right", and none of them suggested that. What page are you getting that from?

However, on that, I in general can't stand the simple parroting. I find it largely disparaging to the individual's intellect to constantly just parrot common party lines.

The Brennan report seemed to echo the Carter Baker Commission: "The Carter-Baker Commission on Federal Election Reform recommended a five-year transition period, a uniform approach under the “Real ID Law”, and considerable funding to permit an affirmative role by the state to go out to assisted living homes and poorer and minority neighborhoods. None of the states have done this, and the consequences are that some people have been denied their legitimate right to vote or have their votes counted, and others feel that the rules have been set against them. States need to revise their ID laws and appropriate the funds to play an active role expanding the registration list. Only then, will they be able to secure ballot integrity and widen access to the ballots at the same time."



The problem is that the leap isn't logical. Census data shows that minorities, for example, are less likely to have appropriate IDs - but minorities are not the same in every district. I'd prefer that the state not go out and seek out citizens to get them IDs, the citizens should still make the effort to get the ID, but I do not think it entirely wrongful to do so, but there's a leap here, one that shouldn't be made.

The rationale is incomplete. It'd be equivalent to, for example, saying that minorities have a higher crime rate, so extra cops should be on patrol in minority neighborhoods, even the affluent ones with low crime. That, of course, doesn't make sense, but that's the same leap that's made to say that the state should make special effort to reach out to minority neighborhoods.

I'm suspicious of the state specifically going out to certain neighborhoods to help citizens prep to vote, and not other neighborhoods, for what I think are pretty obvious reasons. --IF-- the state is to go out to specific neighborhoods to prep voters, it should be based on a non-racial basis. From my reading of other studies on race, minorities tend only to have higher crime rates because they are less affluent - their crime rates aren't significantly higher than white areas with similar poverty levels. Now this is a leap, but I'd say that if the state were to go out to neighborhoods with a certain 'poverty threshold', that would be fair enough, and would largely have the same effect.

 

Why wait till you get a venereal disease(or worse), to start using protection?

 

Why did I waste my time looking at all those links? when I knew exactly what I would find, link-distorting as usual. Only the last linked source actually supports what you are claiming above (and I smell an axe grinding there somewhere in that NC "libertarian party"). The others do not and offer a mixed bag on voter ID laws overall, some reasons pro some con, not much conclusive, certainly not any cohesive "libertarian position" on the issue.

Why not just be honest?

Why go google "libertarians against voter ID laws" and then just link the top results? A chimp can do that. Did you think you were fooling anyone with your "sage google-analysis?" I can go google "libertarians support voter ID laws" or "bigfoot hates voter ID" and link the top results here. Would that be any kind of convincing argument? or just lazy and transparent?

 

If it's not a real issue, then why not end requiring voters to provide utility bills or other proof of residence, since that's just voter disenfranchisement?

Requiring people to prove who they are in order to vote is not antithetical to libertarianism. As for your links - I read a couple of them. If you were just hoping to show that some libertarians are opposed to voter IDs, consider it a success. If you were hoping for me to read the arguments of all five, pick and choose mate. I read a couple, and the argument of one came down to essentially fiscal concerns, not liberty concerns, and the fiscal concern was that it could cost the state under a dollar per person to issue free IDs, as little as fifteen cents per person.

Another's main concern was actually that a national voter registration might be used for other purposes, a common Orwellian concern, but not one that bears much weight when 99% of citizens have these IDs and were just looking to catch the other 1% up to speed.

Another still says that voter fraud is a real problem, but that voter ID laws aren't the best way to answer it.

Clearly, if anything, you've shown that there isn't a single libertarian position on this and, again, that voter verification isn't antithetical to libertarianism.

 

fair enough.

My reference to the AU report was that it suggests that the subject is far more complex THAN partisan politics would have it. I most definitely did not mean that the AU report included my comments on partisan politics. Perhaps I should have been more explicit.

Lowest common denominator. those far above should have a distaste for it.

As I said, I believe there should be some standard qualification criteria BEFORE the state supports proactive voter registration. The best being the % of voters registered vs the total number of eligible voters on a precinct by precinct basis, which eliminates partisan bias, racial bias, economic bias and avoids unecessary activities in those areas that exceed the criteria.

 

Why only Democrats against voter ID? If the majority of Republicans are older, surely it should be mostly them complaining and it isn't.

 

Then it seems that we're pretty much in total agreement now that we've hashed it out. Pretty cool when this happens.

 

Hmm the prophylactic argument.

Its not a problem yet, but be safe.

Does this argument appply to things like say ... affordable health insurance for younger people?

 

Whatever... it's close enough to address the thoughts on the topic as they are presented in this particular forum.

We all have our political biases, but the Republicans cannot sell their policies to the bulk of Americans, yet they want to 'win' elections.

Now how else would they manage to do that, if not manipulate the electorate?!

 

O lord!....

- - - Updated - - -

Only if they want it to.....

 

Amen. They aren't fooling 'me'; that's for sure.

I have them on BLAST intellectually and politically speaking.

We need a WAVE (Tsunami) of voter turnout in every State for the next 16 years; so we can get this sh__ straightened out!

These Right-wing jerks in the Red States TALK like benevolent patriots, but many are sinister wolves in suits. This is becoming more obvious with each day that passes.

Wake up America!! Tell everyone you know, to get REGISTERED and VOTE HARD at every opportunity.

 

as long as absentee ballots are required to be notarized, then have no issue with people going in person having to show an ID

 

Correct.

But how ANY law is implemented is as important as the purpose of the law itself.

With Republicans... what they are trying to sell, isn't very good or popular... so the more people who vote, the less likely they are to have an advantage.

And THIS clued me in even more, after I saw it.

[video=youtube;8GBAsFwPglw]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8GBAsFwPglw[/video]

 

This is how I (and many others) see it:

 

Again, you'd do well to inform yourself. Solid majorities of both parties support voter id. The last poll I saw showed 78% of Americans support it. You should stop your silly suggestions that the GOP and America are at odds while the Democrats and America are in sync, especially on this issue.

 

That may be so. But disenfranchisement of truly eligible voters is a problem that must be addressed; it is certainly no secondary issue.

 

but don't you see, voter ID laws are more successful at reducing the number of votes from the poor and the elderly than they are at actually reducing voter fraud. So then the supposed "unintended" consequence outweighs the intended consequence of the policy, voter fraud through voter impersonation is almost unheard of, it is generally the ones in charge of the ballots who commit the fraud.