br0ken_shad0w
Member
Pretty much.
Don't forget, in Wisconsin, the hours were you can get an ID were cut, but only in certain areas (ie minorities).
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Strict voter ID law approved in Michigan House
- Thread starter WedgeX
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Pretty much.
Don't forget, in Wisconsin, the hours were you can get an ID were cut, but only in certain areas (ie minorities).
A Link to the Past
Banned
But that doesn't actually happen. What does happen is that states that have voter ID laws, it is more difficult for the worst off among us to vote, and it's been exhibited that voter ID laws can be confusing, causing someone to bring the wrong documents or have miscommunication lead to them being denied even if they have the right ones.
EmpressInYellow
Banned
No, it's not, and certain kinds of ID are not allowed (depending on the state's laws).
As has already been explained in the thread, many people do not have easy access to ID, especially the poor. This is exacerbated by GOP efforts to, say, close down most of the DMV locations in minority-heavy districts, thereby further restricting access.
They are efforts to reduce turnout for groups that traditionally support Democrats. That's it. GOP officials have openly admitted this fact.
NoblesseOblige
Banned
Boss★Moogle;226287117 said:
How about taking a couple minutes to read the thread. There have been numerous people describing why it's difficult for some to get an ID.
Also take your own advice on maybe thinking a little (especially if you're going to link Fox news for chrissake).
That is horrificly messed up. It is definitely being done to restrict access to voting.
A national photo ID like in some EU countries would had been a good thing but not if it's not easily accessible to everyone and for free.
br0ken_shad0w
Member
Edit: too snarky
Probably going to have to quote this on every page.
Don't forget to leverage the insignificant amount of voter fraud cases (double digit) against why this is being pushed to begin with. This innocent "everyone should have an ID what's wrong with that?" bullshit is not fine and is only being tolerated since voter suppression is a new concept for a lot of people.
But making it harder for tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of people who are indeed eligible to vote is a very real thing and this is literally doing just that. Why? Because it disproportionately silences democratic voters. That's why republicans are pushing it.
Don't forget to leverage the insignificant amount of voter fraud cases (double digit) against why this is being pushed to begin with. This innocent "everyone should have an ID what's wrong with that?" bullshit is not fine and is only being tolerated since voter suppression is a new concept for a lot of people.
But making it harder for tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of people who are indeed eligible to vote is a very real thing and this is literally doing just that. Why? Because it disproportionately silences democratic voters. That's why republicans are pushing it.
For me the National Photo ID card is God send. replaces the passport (I can fly to Teahapoo on it). Each generation the card becomes smarter (stores digital information) and perhaps in the future passports will be a thing of the past and it might even replace more cards. Once the National ID card gets a major update we get a new one for free (unless you loose it).
So a EU person comming into this thread, reading the first few comments will be completly mind buzzoled until he gathers a deeper understanding of the issue at hand.
Sweden.
Republican laws in the US. tries to make it difficult to vote by asking often for specific identifications. Identifications that are difficult often for minorities in the US. to get as compared for white folk.
Getting a ID once you're a citizen of Sweden is easy (go to a local police station, take a picture and fingerprint scan, pay 200 kronor, wait 2 days and boom, new passport) and you can vote using your passport, drivers license, anything that identifies you.
I hate to play devil's advocate in support of GOP legislation, but fundamental rights have never automatically meant "free." There are several fundamental rights that are afforded to people, but still ultimately come with a price tag (the right to marriage, running for office, abortions, etc.)
I agree that ID for voting should be relatively easy to obtain, but it being a fundamental right has never meant that it was "free."
I mean, it would be absolutely reckless and irresponsible to allow someone to vote without some sort of official identification, whether it be photo ID, a voter registration card, or something else. And maybe it should be free, but that's never been what made a right fundamental.
Wanda/Wander
Member
What if the federal government is run by the same people who benefit from these laws.
They are changing the laws to require something that was not previously required. For reasons (that benefit the GOP and no one else). What part don't you understand?
The part where people were complaining about it being too expensive to obtain the ID necessary to vote.
Read the post I quoted above. Even if its free the hoops they are forcing people to go through is discouraging enough. They better hope they have enough free time, contacts, and a good sense of where they came from if they hope to get it all done correct because they're in for some shit if the circumstances aren't just right. And unfortunately if you're disadvantaged, like a significant portion of Detroit for example, you're looking at a lot of people who were eligible to vote no longer being able to.
For reasons.
No shit they are willing to throw millions of dollars to make it easier for them to get IDs... just as long as they are able to change the laws to their favor to make them a requirement.
If you're interested in playing devil's advocate can you at least try to explain to me why this is even necessary.
"It should be free."
"Even if it's free..."
See, I don't know what I'm supposed to do with this. Laws change. All the time. And this is seemingly making a very appropriate and reasonable accommodation in light of the changed law. You seem to be building your argument off of the most extreme of circumstances that would make these perfectly reasonable accommodations impossible. It's free, but it's too much of a bother -- in between elections -- to take advantage of it? Do you know how many other basic things I could apply this logic to?
The main argument was that it cost too much and that the government should step in and pay for this, and now that it doesn't cost anything, it takes too much time?
Firstly, I was only playing devil's advocate in terms of fundamental rights meaning that the "right" came free of charge with no strings attached. But, in regards to voting requiring ID: I do think that it's necessary. It strengthens the integrity of the process and no one can question it. I mean, didn't we just go through an election where where one side out right said that voter fraud is rampant and the other side suggested that the vote was hacked? Requiring an ID is almost common sense. What don't you need an ID for?
You're being obtuse.
Forget time or money.
The main issue is that it's happening at all for no real justification at all.
This:
Is utter bullshit for reasons already discussed in this thread. Where was the evidence of fraud that justifies shutting out tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of voters? There is none. As for requiring an ID your common sense line is asinine and only speaks to your lack of understanding at how voter registration works and what is actually being prevented by adding these new requirements. This is voter suppression by any metric and to argue for it is a moral failure.
Forget time or money.
The main issue is that it's happening at all for no real justification at all.
This:
Is utter bullshit for reasons already discussed in this thread. Where was the evidence of fraud that justifies shutting out tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of voters? There is none. As for requiring an ID your common sense line is asinine and only speaks to your lack of understanding at how voter registration works and what is actually being prevented by adding these new requirements. This is voter suppression by any metric and to argue for it is a moral failure.
When you get shit like this:
http://www.freep.com/story/news/politics/2016/12/07/michigan-ballot-recount-election/95107886/
You get justification.
That's Voter Fraud, clear as day. Michigan not only requires you to reconcile machine errors on that day (Which they claim machines jammed and counted ballots twice), but Michigan also does two counts of the votes to make sure they're accurate. This "error" was only discovered when the Federal Judge forced the state into a hand recount for a couple of days.
excelsiorlef
Member
In one state Student cards were rejected but hunting licenses were allowed
Vow of Silence
Banned
Quoting myself because nobody responded previously. Someone posted a link to the same Ami Horowitz video but the only response to that is that it's from Fox News, which is not a valid argument against the point it's making.
The only other persuasive argument for me has been from the social worker whose job it is to help people get ID in difficult circumstances. There are always going to be people who have difficulties with whatever social and economy systems are in place. The poster in question will disproportionately see this as an issue as he deals with it all day. It is an issue, but difficult circumstances can happen to anyone. Imagine a block of flats with young rich white able bodied people living at the top and poor elderly disabled people of colour living at the bottom. Imagine a fire destroys everyone's possessions who lives in the flats. Every single one of those people is going to have the same difficulties getting voter ID, and any difficulties they do face, for example transport, is a difficulty they would face regardless of whether they're going to get voter ID or not.
The only other persuasive argument for me has been from the social worker whose job it is to help people get ID in difficult circumstances. There are always going to be people who have difficulties with whatever social and economy systems are in place. The poster in question will disproportionately see this as an issue as he deals with it all day. It is an issue, but difficult circumstances can happen to anyone. Imagine a block of flats with young rich white able bodied people living at the top and poor elderly disabled people of colour living at the bottom. Imagine a fire destroys everyone's possessions who lives in the flats. Every single one of those people is going to have the same difficulties getting voter ID, and any difficulties they do face, for example transport, is a difficulty they would face regardless of whether they're going to get voter ID or not.
No reason is going to satisfy you, but my reason for requiring ID is that it's an appropriate safeguard for such an important and fundamental local/state/federal process.
You can call me obtuse all you want, but the reality is that an ID provides a simple layer of integrity and public confidence....a layer that you're trying to unnecessarily complicate.
See, you're so blinded with rage that you overlooked the fact that I made no such allegation. The distrust with the election is already out there. DISTRUST, not actual rampant fraud. Maybe they're justifying it on fraud, but I'm not. I think requiring IDs to vote makes perfect sense.
Because the "time and money" argument is essentially moot, let's just forget it? No. Time and money was a valid reason to object to the ID. Now that that isn't much of a problem, I'm not going to overlook that and just concentrate on minute concerns when the greatest concerns with IDs were eliminated.
CoffeeJanitor
Member
From that article it looks like they're funding free IDs. Which if true and there isn't any other sabotage here I may not really have a problem with
Edit: I stand corrected on this after reading the good points made on getting the correct documents together
Edit: I stand corrected on this after reading the good points made on getting the correct documents together
Can you explain how it isn't a problem anymore? Why are you so confident that the funds will adequately address the problem? Where does it say that the time problem is mooted?
EmpressInYellow
Banned
That was not the "main argument". It was one of the (many) reasons.
See the various other explanations people have offered. As I mentioned, for instance, these measures are often accompanied (purely by coincidence, of COURSE) by the closing of DMVs etc. in minority-heavy districts. Even if this particular plan wouldn't require DMVs, there are other ways to effectively set things up so as to disenfranchise minority/poor voters.
Hell, to stick with the DMV example: if you don't have a license, even GETTING to the DMV can be a challenge, especially if you're poor.
Then there's the fact that these laws are a solution in search of a problem. In-person voter fraud is not a thing that happens, at least not enough to institute new systems to deal with it. It's a myth, pushed by the GOP, precisely to justify these kinds of measures - because, as I said, the GOP has ADMITTED on more than one occasion that these laws are actually about stopping Democrats from voting. There's no ambiguity.
That's not actually evidence of voter fraud. It's evidence of voting irregularities. There's no reason to believe that voter ID would have made any difference.
See, all voter ID does is prevent someone from pretending to be someone else when they cast their vote. That's it. That has nothing to do with them finding the incorrect number of ballots in the box afterwards.
Canada full of inherently awful human beings confirmed.
Let me be clear. I think it should be easier all around to vote: more polling places, more ways to vote, a national voting day where your employer is required to give you time during the day to vote, etc. And I think that obtaining an ID should to vote should be easier...like in this case, the government paying for it and providing programs about how to obtain such ID.
I'm not for the GOP making it harder to vote. But I do think it makes sense to require ID to vote, as it adds a layer of confidence and tangible integrity to the process. Maybe not specifically a government-issued ID, but some way that can legitimately authenticate a person.
shinra-bansho
Member
It is not necessary to protect the electoral integrity. Dr WiFi's money making scam and a bunch of rightwing idiots do not make it necessary.
NintendosBooger
Member
Naturally, conservative voters will be okay with this, as they're supplied with IDs so it doesn't affect them, though it further distinguishes them from the have-nots, winnowing their own social status and intensifying their sense of self worth ala segregation.
Vow of Silence
Banned
According to snopes the DMV shutdown thing does not affect voter ID as county register offices can be used. It actually affects young drivers getting their licenses who don't vote.
http://www.snopes.com/2015/10/01/alabama-drivers-license/
http://www.snopes.com/2015/10/01/alabama-drivers-license/
The fact that only exists in the bill to make it immune to being overturned by referendum?
EmpressInYellow
Banned
Show your work. If it's a way for "democrats to cheat elections", surely you can provide some evidence of that happening.
CyclopsRock
Member
Has anyone provided any evidence that it helps anyone? I posted an article by Nate Cohn earlier in the thread where he, ahem, shows his work as for why he doesn't think these laws make a difference and everyone ignored it, continuing the thread as though it's just a given that it benefits the Republicans.
In Brazil you can vote with any ID you have, it just need to have a picture. Wierd thing is: there is a Voters ID, that doesnt have your photo on it and thus wont allow you to vote. This "Voter's ID'" is not obligatory for absolutely anything in the country, there is not a single thing that you can't do unless you have one of those.
Btw, the electoral process in the USA is a total joke.
Btw, the electoral process in the USA is a total joke.
What does this have to do with the claim that democrats are cheating elections or that these laws are being put in place to make elections "fair".
CyclopsRock
Member
I made no comment about them being brought in to make it fair (that's clearly not the intention), and it's to do with the claim that it helps democrats because my point (by way of Nate Cohn) is that it doesn't help anyone, republican or democrat.
Cohn's whole argument assumes that because people without IDs don't vote as often then the affect is negligible. Never mind that the North Carolina case that Cohn references it comes out to approximately 127000 people without ID who voted who would need to obtain an ID or be forced to cast a provisional ballot. And we know, specifically in Michigan's case, that provisional ballots are only counted if a person can obtain identification within ten days of the election. And,well, see my previous post on the difficulty of doing so.
And Cohn randomly quotes Nate Silver as showing the "dubious" strength of relationship between voter ID and Republicans winning. Well. Silver doesn't touch strength of relationship at all. Silver is only talking about statistical significance which he logically dismisses regarding strength of a relationship since it...well, doesn't do that. And Silver declines to mention correlational coefficients. Silver does believe that there is an effect, although small, and actually shows his work:
And this was directly after 2012 where Obama won handedly. So then Silver did not think it made much of a difference with such wide margins. But as we saw in this election, the small swings are very important.
Then combine Silver's rough study with the LA Times:
LA Times said:
And we get a direction of where voter turnout among targeted populations is going to be.
Marriage is not like voting. Who is elected impacts everybody, and passing id laws which disproportionately impact the poor and disenfranchised is bullshit and immoral.
You want to require IDs for voting, you provide them for free. If people dont want to do that because they are selfish pricks with their tax dollars, then they need to fuck off with the request. Poll taxes by any other name is still a goddamn poll tax.
You think a way for people to cheat elections is to go to another registered voters polling place and cast their vote for them? Oh and of course you also have to make sure they don't vote themselves
CyclopsRock
Member
Cohn's whole argument assumes that because people without IDs don't vote as often then the affect is negligible. Never mind that the North Carolina case that Cohn references it comes out to approximately 127000 people without ID who voted who would need to obtain an ID or be forced to cast a provisional ballot. And we know, specifically in Michigan's case, that provisional ballots are only counted if a person can obtain identification within ten days of the election. And,well, see my previous post on the difficulty of doing so.
And Cohn randomly quotes Nate Silver as showing the "dubious" strength of relationship between voter ID and Republicans winning. Well. Silver doesn't touch strength of relationship at all. Silver is only talking about statistical significance which he logically dismisses regarding strength of a relationship since it...well, doesn't do that. And Silver declines to mention correlational coefficients. Silver does believe that there is an effect, although small, and actually shows his work:
And this was directly after 2012 where Obama won handedly. So then Silver did not think it made much of a difference with such wide margins. But as we saw in this election, the small swings are very important.
Wait, what? That's not after the election, that's before the election - written in July, the election was in November. The red column is his expected impact on the swing (though the table doesn't make that obvious). It's not actually possible to know if his estimation is right - after all, maybe the swing in a given state was for a totally different reason. But we can look at the results on 2012 compared to 2008 and see if there's a correlation between the states he mentioned swinging further than those with no laws (or no changed laws). The ones he listed had the following swing:
Pennsylvania - 2.7 swing (this voter ID law was nixed before the election though, I believe)
Kansas - 3.6 swing
Idaho - 3.4 swing
Tennessee - 2.7 swing
Oklahoma - 1.1 swing
Rhode Island - 0.2 swing
Utah - 10 swing
Here's the swing for some states which don't have any voter ID laws at all:
Wyoming - 4.6 swing
West Virginia - 7.0 swing
New York - 0.1 swing
Illinois - 4.3 swing
California - 1.0 swing
It's still almost impossible to tell what impact the laws had. Silver predicted Utah would swing an extra 0.4% due to the voter ID laws, but it ended up swinging 10% so clearly there was something that pissed off the good people of Utah. He estimated it would have a 0.4% impact in Rhode Island, but the total swing only ended up being 0.2%. He showed his working, yes, but that doesn't mean he's right.
This doesn't show any workings at all, they just say that they accounted for "an array of individual demographic characteristics". It looks at the changes in demographic voting trends and appears to assign this entirely to voter ID laws. Maybe they're right.
We don't have demographic data on voting, though. We have a few estimates but even they can be hard to actually get to the bottom of (that this was written by Nate Cohn is a coincidence - it was the first thing I found on Google whilst searching for some numbers). Effectively we have hypothesis with no control. When millions up and down the country that voted for Obama in 2012 but stayed at home in 2016, how can you tell the effect that voter ID laws have?
hydragonwarrior
Member
They have the grass roots game, they even have memes. They can motivate their voters, and they control the media.
That's why they'll always sneak back into politics. You can't rely on social issues, the hypocrit card, and comedy (how the hell does that create the urgency to go out and vote) to get the Democratic base going. We really should be doing the exact same things the Republicans are doing, but Dems can't seem to get that going.
In Mexico, they also require a very specific ID to be able to vote at all levels.
If they're providing free ID cards, I don't see the problem. I think gerrymandering of voting districts is a bigger problem for minorities.
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